A Year After ‘Loveless Landslide,' U.K. Leader Is Even Less Popular
A year ago this week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain swept into 10 Downing Street with a landslide majority of 172 seats. As his first anniversary approached, more than 120 of those Labour Party members of Parliament threatened to vote down their leader's signature welfare legislation.
It has been that kind of year for Mr. Starmer. Though he made hasty concessions last week to keep the bill on track, the mutiny makes clear what a reversal of fortune the prime minister has suffered.
Stung by political missteps, sapped by a weak economy, and distracted by foreign crises that have put a heavy strain on public finances, Mr. Starmer's government has yet to get off the ground. Labour now consistently trails Reform U.K., an insurgent, anti-immigrant party, in the polls. While he is under no immediate threat to his leadership, and the next election is not expected until 2029, Mr. Starmer's personal approval rating has collapsed, even among Labour voters.
There is no shortage of people with ideas about how Mr. Starmer can turn things around, from sharper messaging to savvier management of his M.P.'s. But some are coalescing around a deceptively simple argument: his cautious, workmanlike centrist government needs to pivot to the left.
'They have to do something,' said Stanley B. Greenberg, a prominent American pollster and Democratic strategist who advised Bill Clinton, as well as Tony Blair and a host of other politicians in Britain and the United States. 'I see them only stagnating or losing ground with their current vision.'
Mr. Greenberg, who is not advising this government, commissioned a poll of 2,048 adults in Britain earlier this month by YouGov Blue, a market-research firm that works with Democratic candidates in the United States. He said the results showed that Labour's best chance to repair its position was to attract voters from the left-of-center Liberal Democrat and Green parties.
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