The Real Lessons of Keir Starmer’s Fall

A former adviser reflects on what went wrong, and what it means for center-left parties around the world

Less than two years after returning the Labour Party to power in a political landslide, Keir Starmer has been forced to resign as Britain’s prime minister, after his government experienced a catastrophic collapse in public support.

Starmer is only the second Labour leader in 50 years to take the party from opposition into government, an extraordinary achievement by anyone’s standards. So what went wrong? And what should observers around the world make of his rapid rise and even quicker fall?

Unfortunately, critics have a larger supply of possible reasons than I would like, as a former advisor to Starmer in opposition. I’ve read from the left that he wasn’t left enough on economic and cultural issues; from the right that he was too left. Neither, in my opinion, quite nails the diagnosis.

Labour’s unpopularity now is a consequence primarily of moving away from the strategy that succeeded in gaining power: Of focusing on the everyday concerns of voters, who wanted to improve the economy and health services. Instead, Labour has found itself overwhelmed by reacting to circumstances and failing to provide a clear plan to get the country back on track after over a decade of slow and low growth, stagnating incomes, and rising living costs.

In some ways, the message to the center-left elsewhere is simple: you must maintain just as much focus in government on voters’ everyday concerns as you did in opposition.

During his time in opposition, Starmer engineered a remarkable turnaround that made Labour electable again after 14 years out of power. He rejected former Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s strident leftism, which had been roundly defeated at the ballot box in 2019, and instead sought to recapture the political center, appealing to working-class swing voters in towns and suburbs who felt Labour no longer spoke for them. He addressed them directly in virtually every speech, telling his own party to change to get closer to them, and relentlessly focusing on their core concerns of economic security, defense, the health service, and immigration.

By rebuilding trust in Labour’s credibility to run the economy and taking on vested interests within the party, he steadily took Labour from 26 points behind the Conservatives to win a parliamentary landslide. To a weary and restless electorate, the promise of “Change” in Labour’s election slogan chimed with the public mood to leave behind the chaos of the Tory years.

Labour promised to kickstart the economy and use growth to fund public services rather than through tax rises; to cut energy bills with more homegrown clean energy; and put an end to the political and economic chaos that had dogged Britain since the Brexit referendum ten years ago.

But a series of early missteps set the Starmer-led government off course. The first was the most damaging: As a demonstration of fiscal responsibility, the new government announced a cut to the winter fuel allowance given to all pensioners. Labour’s budget stewardship had long been perceived as a weakness by voters and the financial markets alike. To show that this new government was serious about closing the large hole in the UK’s finances, it announced the removal of the benefit, which is typically worth about £200, with exemptions for the poorest pensioners, a move that wasn’t previewed in their election manifesto. But the ensuing backlash from voters and members of parliament meant that the Treasury had little option but to backtrack and reinstate the allowance for all but the wealthiest.

Still, the desire to be seen as a sober steward of the public’s finances led Starmer to propose further cuts to welfare benefits, including to disabled people, leading to another damaging climbdown when it became clear the party’s members in parliament wouldn’t support them without a long-term plan to support disabled people who would lose out. The changes that did ultimately pass were heavily diluted, but as with the winter fuel U-turn, the political damage was done. Starmer’s own relationship with the parliamentary party never really recovered.

In the end, it was the weight of opinion within the parliamentary party that dealt the final blow to an elected PM, a salutary tale for any future leader. And the impression given to the public was of a government unable to deliver the change it promised.

That desire for change from a status quo, now prevalent in many developed democracies, has so far gone unmet. Labour has embarked on some long-term investment programs meant to energize the economy, such as reforming planning to increase housing development, enabling businesses to reinvest profits more easily, and a “Pride in Place” scheme to put funding back into local areas. But the benefits of these are years away. Meanwhile, growth remains sluggish, tax thresholds have been frozen, which means more people are dragged into higher brackets, and inflation threatens household and national finances alike.

In power, Labour has struggled to provide a unifying message and program that a fragmented electoral coalition can get behind. Progressive voters, mainly in the cities, have been turned off by the party’s firmness on immigration and border control and uninspired by the absence of a central vision; swing voters in the towns and suburbs feel let down by the lack of apparent change in the economy.

Those voters aren’t just souring on Labour, either. Last month’s big winners from the local elections included the extremes on all sides: Reform UK, the Nationalists in Scotland and Wales, and the Green Party — rather than the more mainstream Conservatives or Liberal Democrats. After years of being promised change and not getting it, the British have become fed up with the entire political establishment. That said, Reform UK has underperformed their national polling at recent by-elections, losing to the Greens, the Conservatives, and to Labour, suggesting that they are beatable, particularly when tactical voting is deployed by a canny electorate.

To the British public, Labour in power has just looked like too much of the same, when it promised a decisive break with the chaos of the past. A general election in the U.K. is up to three years away, so the Labour Government led by a new PM needs to be utterly focused on turning that around before then.

Starmer’s success in reviving Labour’s fortunes two years ago still stands as a sterling accomplishment that offers important lessons to center-left parties across the world. Above all, they have to move closer to ordinary voters and understand their everyday live while offering hope for the future. For Labour, that meant unifying the country around a belief that politics should serve the country, not party interests, and restoring the belief that if you work hard, you get a fair chance to get on.

But winning is one thing. Governing is another. And the PM’s ousting by his own MPs is a reminder of what happens when a government fails to deliver tangible results and communicate a vision about where the country is headed.

Could Labour make a comeback from government under a new PM? Quite possibly. Consider the recent fortunes of the Australian Labor Party, which lost a major mid-term referendum, but last year went on to win a second parliamentary term with an increased majority. It did so by doubling down on policies that make a tangible difference on issues like the cost of living and health care, for example, by providing households and businesses with an energy bill rebate and rolling out new Urgent Care Centres, as visible “proof points” of delivery that made a difference in voters’ everyday lives. When PPI ran a series of focus groups immediately after the May 2025 Australian federal election, voters cited these specific examples as evidence for why they re-elected Labor as the better choice for the future. The ALP is facing a new challenger on the right, too, the One Nation Party, but its first term refocusing on the everyday concerns of voters is instructive for all center-left parties.

It is possible to unite progressives in the cities and working-class voters by showing you have the candidate and the plan to take the country forward together. But the only center-left party strategy that is winning globally is the one that places non-college, working-class voters at the heart. As Labour’s trials in government show, you must be prepared to stand for them, deliver change for them, and continuously show them you are on their side. Otherwise, you can’t expect to keep their support.

Claire Ainsley is Director of the Project on Center-Left Renewal at the D.C.-based Progressive Policy Institute, and was Executive Director of Policy for Labour and Keir Starmer in opposition 2020-22.