BRITAIN-POLITICS/ Keir Starmer entered Downing Street with a commanding majority and widespread public support, but falling approval ratings, controversial policies and growing political opposition have fuelled debate over how his premiership unravelled so quickly.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will leave office, as deeply unpopular a politician as Britain has seen in decades. He won the leadership of the Labour Party from Jeremy Corbyn, whom he accused of fostering anti-semitism, leading it to a landslide win in 2024.
Since then, his approval rating has plummeted and he’s suffered one defeat after another. culminating in the disastrous loss of 1,400 seats in British Council elections. But what is it about Starmer that made his government so uniquely unpopular?
Labour’s victory in the general election of 2024 was the party’s best result in more than two decades. Ending 14 years of Conservative rule, the election swept Starmer into Downing Street with a 174-seat majority and a level of public goodwill that none of his Tory predecessors had enjoyed.
The honeymoon period was brief. Within a month of the election, Starmer’s net approval rating fell from plus seven to zero, with 52% of Britons telling Ipsos that they felt the country was heading “in the wrong direction.” According to YouGov, his net approval sat at –48 on their polling scale (not a percentage), making him the least popular prime minister in recent history.After losing 187 local council seats in England last year, Labour lost over 1,400 in the elections of may 2026, amid a dramatic rise for Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
