Britain on the Brink: The Failure of British Governance and the Rise of Reform

After 14 years of Conservative Party rule, British voters were in desperate need of change. This is evidenced by the Labour Party’s victory in 2024, which gave it a massive majority in the UK’s House of Commons. Despite accomplishing one of the largest electoral landslides in British history, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has become one of the most unpopular prime ministers in recent memory, with a 72 per cent disapproval rating.  Starmer has had difficulty maintaining popularity in an increasingly polarized British society. Since the election, third parties like Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist party, Reform, have been steadily rising in the polls. Successive British governments over the last 15 years have failed to address the needs of many people, leading traditional supporters of the two main parties to turn to Reform.

Starmer did not come into office during normal political times. From 2010 until the 2024 election, the Conservative Party oversaw an increasingly tumultuous time in British history. Over that 14-year period, the UK saw five prime ministers, with Liz Truss holding the title of shortest-tenured prime minister in British history. The Brexit referendum took place in 2016 during Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s tenure, prompting significant upheaval. Every prime minister following Brexit was saddled with negotiating the exit.

Throughout the 2010s, the Conservative government consistently governed with strong austerity measures, cutting public spending while raising taxes. This policy decreased the power of both the private and public sectors. Over the last 15 years, people have seen their real wages fall, with the poorest in the country suffering disproportionately from the cuts to public services. The failures of this policy are particularly clear with the perceptions of the National Health Service, one of Britain’s most cherished institutions, which now suffers from long wait times and workforce shortages. Satisfaction with the service has hit an all-time low. The realities of these cuts have set in for many people, paving the way for the current state of British politics.

The 14 years of Conservative rule led many to view the UK’s future as bleak. Before the 2024 election, people were dissatisfied with almost every aspect of the country, from the economy to democracy. This massive dissatisfaction led to a surge in support for the Labour Party, the main opposition party since the early 20th century. The Labour Party winning the majority of the parliamentary seats was not the most substantial effect of the most recent election. Smaller parties achieved an impressive share of the vote, winning around 40 per cent of public support at the polls. However, these smaller parties were allocated only 17 per cent of seats in Parliament. The British public’s dissatisfaction extended beyond the Conservatives to mainstream parties as a whole, leaving Starmer with a majority that rests on weak political foundations rather than broad public support.

Starmer’s premiership has been rocky since the beginning. There has consistently been a split between the Labour Party’s leftist and more centrist wings. Seeing the uptick in polling for Reform, there has been a sense that Labour should govern more towards the centre to avoid alienating traditional Labour voters in Northern England. These voters are blue-collar workers who used to reliably vote for Labour, but have recently pivoted to more right-wing parties like Reform. As Labour views these voters as necessary to their electoral success, great efforts have been made to appease them. This shift is most visible in Starmer’s government’s new approach to immigration. Immigration is the biggest issue fueling the rise of Reform. In spring 2025, Starmer delivered a speech outlining an immigration plan centred on cutting net migration, marking a sharp rhetorical shift from previous Labour positions. While the move was intended to broaden support for Labour’s immigration policy, several critics dismissed it as an echo of Enoch Powell’s infamous anti-immigration 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech. That turn was reinforced in November, when Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood unveiled sweeping asylum reforms framed around restoring “order and control” to an allegedly broken system—further signalling Labour’s attempt to occupy traditionally Conservative ground on migration, rhetoric that was openly praised by a Reform MP. Yet Labour’s support has continued to wane, and criticism from the party’s left has only intensified. Starmer’s effort to straddle both sides of the aisle has largely failed, alienating centre-left and progressive voters alike, and in doing so has created political space for the rise of smaller parties.

The Reform Party has capitalized on much of the same anti-establishment sentiment that has fuelled the rise of right-wing parties around the world. Reform has not only appealed to working-class voters who have traditionally voted Labour, but has also been gaining support from people who traditionally vote Conservative. Dissatisfaction with the Conservative Party, which, under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, has suffered extremely low approval ratings, has only accelerated the rise of Reform. Voters do not see either the Conservative or Labour parties as effective stewards of the country at this critical juncture. In May 2025, various English counties held their local elections. Only a year after Labour’s landslide victory, Reform gained 677 seats while the Conservatives lost 674. Britons appear increasingly dissatisfied with the current government and have lost confidence in the traditional opposition. This erosion of trust has made candidates promising a break from the status quo far more competitive in these elections—a dynamic that disproportionately benefits Reform as an insurgent party. While local elections are not always reliable predictors of national outcomes, it is difficult to ignore Reform’s growing momentum, coming at the expense of the traditional parties that have dominated British politics for more than a century.

It is clear that something deeper than routine dissatisfaction with the governing party is reshaping British politics. Over the past couple of decades, successive governments have repeatedly failed to respond to the material and political needs of large segments of the population. While mainstream parties have continued to win elections, their hold on public confidence has steadily eroded. Keir Starmer has struggled to satisfy the competing demands of his governing coalition, and the rise of parties such as Reform signals a broader rejection of the political status quo. When citizens feel persistently unheard, they do not simply disengage—they search for alternatives. That search is now visibly pulling British politics away from its traditional party system and into a far more volatile and uncertain era.

Edited by Allison Dera

Featured image: “Nigel Farage” by Owain Davies is licensed under CC BY 4.0.