If the UK has become ungovernable, some people say Brexit is to blame

Number 10 Downing Street will have a new occupant soon. (Reuters: Toby Shepheard) Link copiedShareShare articleA few hours after the results of Britain's 2024 general election were finalised, dozens of Labour staffers gathered at The Red Lion pub at Whitehall. With plenty of pints, they spent a sunny London afternoon toasting the party's landslide victory. It was Wednesday, July 5, and there was an optimism in the air. Across the road at 10 Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer — just the fifth Labour leader to take his party from opposition to government — was laying out his plan for the cameras. Labour had spent 14 years in the wilderness of opposition, and now, as Sir Kier put it, they were going to "end the chaos". Number 10 had become a revolving door. The Conservative Party had spent the last few years of its time in office devouring itself and its leaders. For some people, the country's government had become a punchline. The Red Lion pub, on Parliament Street, is an institution for UK politicians and their staffers. (Getty Images) Sir Keir promised stability, but it did not last long. He resigned on Monday, less than two years after coming to power. He is set to be replaced by veteran Labour politician Andy Burnham, a former long-time MP, who has most recently been serving as the Mayor of Greater Manchester. The events of the past week have once again thrust the idea that "Britain is broken" into the national conversation. But for some people, there's a growing sense that it is the UK's political system, rather than the country, that has crumbled. Sir Keir's popularity began to plummet less than a month into his leadership when he cut something called the universal winter fuel allowance — a lump sum of money given to elderly Britons to offset rising energy bills in the colder months. Shortly after the decision, some opinion polls claimed the PM's approval rating had fallen by 45 per cent. Eventually, he walked parts of the policy back, but the damage was done. There were more controversies coming. Sir Keir was accused of trying to appease conservatives when he declared "Britain risks becoming an island of strangers" during a speech in May last year. His deputy, Angela Rayner, resigned in September amid questions about whether she had underpaid stamp duty on an investment property. Sir Keir struggled to explain how a close friend of child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ended up as the UK's ambassador to the US. His polling numbers continued to fall. The PM and those in his inner circle believed the mistakes were not terminal, characterising them as routine teething issues for a new government. In fact, many of Sir Keir's allies were baffled as to why voters seemed to hate him so much. Sir Keir Starmer led Labour from the political wilderness, only to find his time at the top brief. His friend and former advisor, Tom Baldwyn, acknowledged the prime minister had made errors of judgement, and had at times an almost frustratingly dour communication style. But he struggled to comprehend the level of vitriol towards Sir Keir. "He's kept us out of wars, he hasn't crashed the economy, there hasn't been some defining financial scandal or law breaking, which there has been under previous administrations," Mr Baldwyn told the ABC. Despite the unprecedented level of public contempt, Sir Keir, as well as many of his senior ministers and advisors, believed Labour had implemented consequential policy changes. In less than two years, their government expanded free childcare, drastically reduced net immigration, and provided more rights to renters. But Mr Baldwyn said the hatred towards Sir Keir Starmer was part of a broader trend in British politics. "The last five prime ministers have actually been the five most unpopular prime ministers in polling history and, according to some polls, each of them has broken the previous one's record for unpopularity," he said. "I think that suggests to me there's something else going on in our country, whether it's deep unhappiness and inequality, both through class, through regions, through generations." Andy Burnham snaps a selfie with Labour colleagues this week. (Getty Images: Dan Kitwood) Catherine Haddon is an author and senior fellow at the Institute of Government, a non-aligned think tank. She said the 2016 Brexit referendum, in which the country overwhelmingly voted to leave the European Union, had made for an increasingly hostile political landscape in the UK. "There's no denying that British politics is going through a very tumultuous period," she said. "The last decade has seen very volatile politics and a very difficult environment for any prime minister to carry on doing the job. They're not given much patience." After Brexit, Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform Party (similar to One Nation in Australia) emerged as a political force and, on the left, the Green Party's popularity has also increased. In Labour's case, many MPs, particularly those

If the UK has become ungovernable, some people say Brexit is to blame

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