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  "description": "Keir Starmer’s landslide victory curdled into a leadership crisis as weak persuasion, muddled communication and Labour unrest eroded trust inside Parliament and beyond.",
  "path": "/2026/05/18/from-landslide-to-leadership-crisis-where-did-it-all-go-wrong-for-keir-starmer/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-18T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.europeans.today",
  "tags": [
    "Keir Starmer",
    "has written",
    "Richard Neustadt",
    "moody and volatile electorate",
    "public saw him",
    "poll lead had plummeted",
    "July 2025",
    "very high expectations",
    "winter fuel allowance",
    "welfare cuts",
    "were buried",
    "take back votes",
    "“most personal interview yet”",
    "cut across their principles",
    "local, Welsh and Scottish elections",
    "working-class heritage",
    "delivering policy",
    "since before COVID",
    "doing badly",
    "relish challenging striking doctors",
    "he denied",
    "little support",
    "Employment Rights Act",
    "under-paying stamp duty",
    "very far from a given",
    "Starmer resists calls to quit as junior ministers resign, senior cabinet holds",
    "Streeting quits, Labour leadership battle remains unsettled",
    "Who are the main contenders to replace Keir Starmer as prime minister?",
    "Starmer tells cabinet he will not quit without leadership challenge",
    "Starmer under pressure after Labour’s election losses expose a fragmented Britain",
    "How Starmer could win a Labour leadership fight, and how he could lose it",
    "What to know about the political chaos engulfing the UK’s Labour Party and efforts to unseat Starmer",
    "PM Starmer’s leadership woes overshadow parliament’s grand reopening",
    "Who are the main threats to Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership?",
    "The Conversation",
    "Number 10",
    "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License"
  ],
  "textContent": "The failure of many of the UK’s recent prime ministers, who have passed through Downing Street in quick succession, seems easy to explain. Theresa May couldn’t do what she promised and didn’t _“get Brexit done”_. Boris Johnson broke his own rules, and the law. Liz Truss failed through sheer incompetence.\n\nBut Keir Starmer won an election by a landslide and led his party to victory after 14 years out of power. So why is he looking at a probable leadership challenge after less than two years in office?\n\nIt is true that Starmer faced deep problems left by the Conservatives, Brexit and COVID. He then had to deal with the war in Gaza, a capricious US president in Donald Trump, and now a war in Iran. But Starmer’s struggles boil down to a failure of leadership.\n\nUS political scientist, Ronald Heifetz, has written that political leadership is about disappointing your followers at a _“rate they can stand”_. His fellow American scholar, Richard Neustadt, argued that leadership (in the case of presidents) was about _“the power to persuade”_. Keir Starmer has struggled because he disappointed too many, and persuaded too few.\n\nCrucially, Starmer has never won over the public. Labour’s election in 2024 was an anti-Tory vote, not a pro-Labour one, and Starmer rode a wave of unhappiness from a moody and volatile electorate. Even at the height of his popularity in 2024 the public saw him as competent(ish) but – significantly – 49% also thought he might be indecisive.\n\nAfter just 100 days, Starmer’s poll lead had plummeted and by July 2025 there was a deep sense that Labour had not delivered on its promises.\n\nThis failure was in part because the public had very high expectations of what the government would do, and Starmer had repeatedly promised to be all about _“delivery”_. But the public came to see the government as not delivering much.\n\n### Communication failures\n\nThe main policies that got attention were the unpopular ones: cuts to the winter fuel allowance, welfare cuts and harsh immigration reforms. But Starmer never used his power to persuade. Popular policies such as standing up to Trump and on climate were buried or went unnoticed.\n\nSo why hasn’t he done or said more? Starmer came to be seen as lacking any sort of vision or ideals, and journalists have written of how he seemed only to support _“convenientism”_ and a wrong-headed strategy to take back votes from right-wing challengers Reform UK. His own attempts at communications were poor: in his “most personal interview yet” in 2024 he began by saying he didn’t dream, didn’t have a favourite book and was neither an optimist or pessimist.\n\nIt isn’t only the public. Starmer never won over another crucial group: his own MPs. Labour MPs were not loyal to Starmer to begin with, and were quickly upset by some policies purposefully designed to cut across their principles.\n\nOn top of this, his determination to appoint Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US and the resulting scandal as the closeness of Mandelson’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein emerged, and the growing threat as UK voters fragmented, left Labour increasingly desperate. The local, Welsh and Scottish elections showed the party that the writing was on the wall.\n\nThe problems the UK faces will not go away if Starmer exits. His failure then begs the questions about who – if anyone – can succeed. Former health secretary Wes Streeting emerged as the first potential challenger. But does he have anything different to offer?\n\nMuch has been said about how Streeting is seen as the best communicator and a leader with a genuine working-class heritage. He has a record of delivering policy, and the NHS has improved under his watch, with public perceptions improving for the first time since before COVID. Interestingly, NHS workers themselves are much less convinced by Streeting’s record, with majority seeing the NHS as doing badly.\n\nThere are concerns. Streeting seemed to relish challenging striking doctors. And although he denied that he was close to Mandelson, the ongoing investigations could still show otherwise. And on a practical level, Streeting has little support among his party, much less than Starmer ever had.\n\nAngela Rayner would be a more left-wing alternative. Rayner has a similarly Labour back story as a care worker and a rep with public service union Unison. She has a concrete record of delivery and getting things done, having championed what is arguably the signature achievement of this government in the Employment Rights Act.\n\nBut she was forced to resign as deputy prime minister in September 2025 after under-paying stamp duty. Now though, with remarkable timing, she has been cleared of deliberate wrongdoing by HMRC. A glance at Labour polling shows Rayner is also very popular with the party.\n\nAnd of course Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham now has a seat to contest, which could plot his path back to Westminster and his route to a probable leadership bid. However, beating Reform UK to the Makerfield seat is very far from a given.\n\nDespite Streeting’s resignation, everything remains in flux. Starmer has failed as a leader, but is not yet gone. The possible candidates now circling need to offer a better approach, one that can win over the public and, more immediately, Labour MPs. A general election must be held by August 15, 2029. It remains to be seen if the next Labour prime minister, if there is change at the top, can persuade more and disappoint less in the remaining time.\n\n### **GOING FURTHER**\n\n  * ######  Starmer resists calls to quit as junior ministers resign, senior cabinet holds | _Europeans TODAY_\n\n  * ######  Streeting quits, Labour leadership battle remains unsettled | _Europeans TODAY_\n\n  * ######  Who are the main contenders to replace Keir Starmer as prime minister? | _Europeans TODAY_\n\n  * ######  Starmer tells cabinet he will not quit without leadership challenge | _The Guardian_\n\n  * ######  Starmer under pressure after Labour’s election losses expose a fragmented Britain | _Europeans TODAY_\n\n  * ######  How Starmer could win a Labour leadership fight, and how he could lose it | _Europeans TODAY_\n\n  * ######  What to know about the political chaos engulfing the UK’s Labour Party and efforts to unseat Starmer | _Associated Press_\n\n  * ######  PM Starmer’s leadership woes overshadow parliament’s grand reopening | _Reuters_\n\n  * ######  Who are the main threats to Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership? | _The Guardian_\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n#### **Sources:**\n\n###### ▪ This piece was originally published in The Conversation and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 19 May 2026. | The authors write in a personal capacity.\n\n###### ▪ **Cover:** Flickr/Number 10. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n\n",
  "title": "From landslide to leadership crisis: where did it all go wrong for Keir Starmer?",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-19T02:23:52.103Z"
}