It is foolish to make a prediction in this unruly era of populist politics, however certain something might appear. But it looks likely Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership is teetering to its inglorious conclusion, less than two years after he led Labour to a massive majority in Parliament – and that he will probably be succeeded by Andy Burnham, following the former Manchester mayor’s impressive defeat of the hard-right in last week’s Makerfield by-election. So, post-Brexit Britain will continue to look like a chaotic basket case of a country with its sixth leader in a decade, while corrosive problems fester unresolved amid the political games at Westminster.
The irony of such political churn is that it benefits the dark forces stoking dangerous fires of populism by capitalising on public contempt for politicians. As long-serving prime ministers have pointed out, it takes time to get to grips with the dynamics of Downing Street. “You start at your most popular and least capable and you end at your least popular and most capable,” said Sir Tony Blair, explaining this paradox of power. And such are the problems paralysing democracies that Starmer has more favourable ratings than both the long-serving French President Emmanuel Macron and the more recently elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
