The UK’s shrinking centre is Keir Starmer’s real crisis |
Just over two years in power, and the United Kingdom’s Labour government is facing an existential crisis.
Disclosures linked to the Epstein files have triggered intense criticism of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s appointment of Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the United States, prompting senior resignations and fuelling speculation about Starmer’s political survival. But even if Starmer weathers the immediate political storm, a more profound challenge is looming: the steady fracturing of the political centre that has defined his leadership and electoral appeal.
UK politics has been marked by years of churn, volatility, and repeated shocks. Yet, through that instability, the political centre largely kept control of the steering wheel – presenting itself as the only credible governing alternative and containing pressure from both flanks. That dominance reinforced the view, particularly abroad, that the UK was largely insulated from the destructive polarisation reshaping other Western democracies, most notably the US.
Starmer is perhaps the clearest and most explicit embodiment of that centrism, having won the 2024 election on a promise of competence and restraint at a moment when the Conservative Party had lost much of its own reputation for managerial authority and “grown-up” government.
That centrist settlement is now beginning to fracture.
The strain is now visible across multiple fronts. It is visible in polling, electoral behaviour, policy choices, and the tone of public debate. For Starmer, this creates a governing dilemma: how to hold the centre when the forces pulling........