Starmer resigns as Prime Minister. Is Britain ungovernable?

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Britain faces its seventh prime minister in a decade after Keir Starmer announced on Monday that he would step down.

This is two more than the same period in Italy, which is often cited as an example of what not to do in the UK.

It is also surprising that out of the previous five candidates – Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Starmer – only one – Mr Sunak – was removed by voters in the general election. The rest were forcibly removed by their own party.

It has created a sense that a country once renowned for its political stability is now ungovernable.

But while voters are repulsed and angry, we cannot blame all of this ungovernability on them.

As influential pollster Luke Trill has pointed out, May demonstrated her lack of qualifications as prime minister by holding an unnecessary election in 2017 and jettisoning the parliamentary majority she inherited from Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr Johnson was undone after revelations about his conduct during the coronavirus lockdown, while Mr Truss was undone by the adverse market reaction to his 2022 mini-budget.

Starmer is now set to resign largely due to self-inflicted unpopularity after policy mistakes including scrapping the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, raising inheritance tax on small farmers and appointing a close friend of the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein as ambassador to Washington.

The turmoil dates back to the 1990 outrage of Margaret Thatcher, considered by many to be Britain’s greatest post-war prime minister.

It was the first time in memory that a sitting prime minister was forced out of office by members of parliament rather than because he lost a general election or abstained of his own free will.

They were punished for their regicide when Thatcher’s successor, John Major, unexpectedly won the next 1992 election.

Conservative MPs have continued to change leaders when they think someone will keep them in power, an approach exemplified when they won the 2019 election under Johnson after dumping May.

Starmer’s Labor Party has learned from this.

Thatcher’s most successful successor, Tony Blair, was forced to resign in 2007 in favor of Prime Minister (or Chancellor of the Exchequer) Gordon Brown.

Mr Starmer has now resigned after his MPs identified an alternative they believed was more likely to save their jobs – Andy Burnham, the then mayor of Greater Manchester.

Some would argue that voters are too short-termist, too easily swayed by the media, and too receptive to politicians promising European-level public services and US-level tax-funded benefits.

There is no doubt that this made governance difficult.

The UK endured two decades of stagnation in productivity and living standards after the global financial crisis, exacerbated by the Brexit vote a decade ago, the pandemic and two energy price shocks.

However, there is no doubt that poor policy planning in areas such as energy and health has hampered Britain’s ability to recover from this. Even in times of fiscal constraints, they tend to refuse to make difficult decisions.

Starmer’s attempts to tackle Britain’s burgeoning benefits bill have been blocked by his own MPs.

The exclusion of tax increases on average earners, who still receive lower taxes than in the past 60 years, leaves the Treasury dangerously reliant on the top 1% of earners, who pay around 26% of all income tax, and forces Starmer’s government to make other tax increase options that will hurt growth.

The signs of change are not encouraging.

Burnham is likely to become Mr Starmer’s natural successor, although he did not say what he would do in the job. He has an unfortunate reputation for telling people what they want to hear while avoiding difficult decisions.

But British voters have volunteered for harsh medical treatment in the past when politicians confront them.

For example, in 2010 when Prime Minister Cameron told them that the public finances needed to be fixed.

They did so in 1979 when Thatcher told them they needed to rein in inflation and trade unions.

Mr Burnham, assuming he were Mr Starmer’s successor, would be off to a strong start if he did the same, particularly in terms of remuneration from the bond market, which he has previously criticized.

But don’t expect that to happen.

— Ian King

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