Since the 1920s, UK politics have been dominated by the Tories and the Labour Party. While the Lib Dems have remained a presence over the years, they have never regained the relevance of their predecessor party, the Whigs. The unusual electoral outcome of the 2010 general elections, the “hung Parliament” (the first in decades), revived the fortunes of the Lib Dems, as the party led by Nick Clegg ended up being the tipping point and formed a government with David Cameron’s Conservative Party.
The coalition was never particularly appreciated by the British public and observers, given how unusual the phenomenon is in the country and the fact that the idea of diverse parties allying is a symbol of instability (a striking contrast with other European countries, such as the Republic of Ireland, where coalitions have been a political tradition).
However, the outcomes of the 2015 general elections and the following year’s referendum ignited a chain reaction that turned one of the countries seen as more politically stable in the Global North into one of the more unstable.
Let’s go back to the event that changed everything: Brexit.
The general elections in 2015 and the EU referendum in 2016
The UK general elections saw the victory of David Cameron’s Conservatives and the end of the coalition with Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems. One of the Prime Minister’s electoral campaign commitments was a referendum on European Union membership the following year.
A crucial reason behind this commitment was that Nigel Farage’s United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) had won 27% of the popular vote and 24 seats in the European elections of 2014.
UKIP’s result was an indication of how much EU membership was a politically polarizing issue, and Cameron fundamentally gambled by calling the referendum. Of course, his aim was to weaken Farage as well as the most euroskeptic members of his party, along with rivals Michael Gove and the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
It is important to point out that this was going to be the second referendum on membership of a European organization in British history, as back in 1975, British voters were called to voice their views on the membership of the European Economic Community, just two years after joining it in 1973.
Back in 1975, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his party opposed the continued British membership of the EEC, while Margaret Thatcher’s Tories supported it; 40 years later, the positions between the two parties on the matter were reversed.
While Cameron was supporting the Remain front in the referendum, his party stood against any idea of further European integration, and an example of this was shown when the Tories left the European People’s Party to found the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in 2009, a soft euroskeptic party that now sees Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy as its most prominent member.
When it came to Labour, the then leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was not seen as the most enthusiastic europhile, and there was a fringe in the party campaigning for Brexit.
In a nutshell, the Remain front presented a wide range of views on the EU’s membership, while the Leave front had a more direct and clear position: abandoning the European Union and pursuing a prospect of global Britain, a prospect clearly influenced by Imperial nostalgia.
Figures like Michael Gove and Boris Johnson filled the false narratives of the Leave campaign, while Dominic Cummings led the campaign with disinformation. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage pursued the most racist narratives during the campaign with the famous poster Breaking Point about immigration, while businessman Arron Banks funded Leave.eu with over £8 million.
In the end, even if voters could not have known what would happen in a Leave scenario, as no country had ever left the EU before, this front ended up being the most appealing to the electorate (winning 52% against 48% of the Remain vote).
A reason for this appeal was the fact that, according to populism and far-right expert Cas Mudde, the EU membership vote inserted itself in the frame of “the people (Leave) against the elites (Remain)”, a vote against the status quo. In fact, Brexit was a watershed moment as it can be seen as the first victory of “the people against the élites”. It was followed, in the same year, by the victory of Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton in the US elections.
Furthermore, successive electoral outcomes like the formation of the Green-Yellow government in Italy, with the League-Five Star Movement coalition, and the victory of Brothers of Italy in 2022, as well as the victory of Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian elections, can be inserted in this frame. This is where “the people” have more to do with the way in which populists and the far-right are able to present themselves as the new forces against the élites, which are represented by progressive forces that have long abandoned the interest of workers and common people due to the shift to neoliberalism.
Revolving doors at Downing Street and farewell to first-past-the-post
David Cameron was the first prime minister “victim” of Brexit, but not the last. His successor, Theresa May, found the negotiations with Brussels challenging, lost the Tories’ majority held in the general elections in 2017, and was undermined from within the party.
In 2019, May was succeeded by former London Mayor Boris Johnson as PM, who called yet another general election in December 2019 to “get Brexit done”. The Labour Party suffered its worst electoral defeat since 1935, the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn ended, and Johnson was able to complete Brexit, largely based on the agreement that had already been reached by his predecessor May with the EU.
Brexit claimed the premierships of Cameron and May, while for Johnson, it was “Partygate” (under the unique conditions of the global pandemic) to spell the end of his time as prime minister, as that scandal, alongside others, led a revolt among the government’s ministers in 2022.
Liz Truss’ premiership was the shortest in British history, lasting only 49 days, from the September 6 to October 25, 2022. Truss’s downfall was caused by the Mini Budget that she planned with Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng, which proposed intense tax cuts, including abolishing the 45% income tax rate, and was rejected by the financial markets. The pound fell to its lowest rate ever against the US dollar (US$1.033), and the Bank of England responded with different measures, including buying government bonds.
Rishi Sunak stepped in and his premiership lasted until July 2024, when he lost to the Labour Party led by his new leader, Keir Starmer, who announced his decision to leave the party leadership and Downing Street on June the 23rd of this year, following scandals linked to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the US (due to his connections with Jeffrey Epstein) and a growing unpopularity among the public and his own party.
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Labour’s coming victory, and the serious challenges for a new government
As the last decade has seen six prime ministers entering and leaving office (the same number seen in the previous 40 years), the question that comes to mind is whether prospective prime minister Andy Burnham’s premiership is going to be any different.
While Burnham – until recently the mayor of Greater Manchester who was swiftly made a Member of Parliament to be ab le to serve as prime minister – has received the support of the parliamentary Labour Party in what could be seen as a “soft coup” against Starmer and has started to outline his vision for Britain, the political system remains unstable, and his premiership could crumble in time, like his predecessors’.
First and foremost, the stability that came with the first-past-the-post electoral system is a thing of the past, because of the fragmentation of the political spectrum and the high volatily in the voters’ behavior. This is why Nigel Farage’s Reform is seen as a real competitor in the next general elections, with his leader as a potential future prime minister.
Reform has cannibalized the votes of Kemi Badenoch’s Tories, replacing them (and welcoming many of its former ministers in its ranks, like Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman). At the same time, Farage himself is facing some competition, with the rise of former Reform MP Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain, openly advocating for “remigration” and a referendum reintroducing the death penalty in Britain.
As the pogroms against migrants in Belfast have proven, the prominence of the far-right on the political spectrum is also matched by the open violence of the far-right in the streets, highlighting how much hate has become more mainstream in the UK, a decade after Brexit.
On the progressive and left-wing end of the spectrum, Zack Polanski’s Green Party has embraced a path of eco-populism, winning many local seats in the recent local elections and presenting itself as the real force embracing the values that the Labour Party should stand for (differently from Starmer’s centrist agenda), focusing on the environment, jobs and the economy and standing against Farage’s Reform.
In this scenario, how united is the United Kingdom?
A United Kingdom. But, for how long?
The Scottish National Party, led by First Minister John Swinney, fell short of a majority but won the elections for the Scottish Parliament on May 7th of this year, while in the Senedd elections in Wales, the left-wing nationalist Plaid Cymru also won the elections, with Party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth as the new Welsh First Minister.
As Michelle O’Neill is the First Minister of Northern Ireland for Sinn Féin, in the current scenario, three of the four countries comprising the United Kingdom are led by parties advocating independence from it and reunification with the Republic of Ireland.
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Britain in a world of growing nationalisms
The pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament: a slow-motion confrontation with London
Johnson’s six-year Brexit fantasy erodes unionism in Northern Ireland
While Burnham’s premiership could, at least in his intentions, contribute to leveling up the North-South of England socio-economic divide, it is unclear what it could do when it comes to the frictions in the whole Kingdom. Brexit has been a contributing factor in this divide, especially as the majority of Scots and Northern Irish had voted to remain in the European Union.
Not much is certain for the upcoming premiership of Burnham, but one thing is: Burnham and/or whoever may succeed him, before or after the elections, will have to increase the focus on keeping the United Kingdom from splintering.