LONDON — I arrived late last week to another ordinary day in Westminster: bitter cold, gray skies spitting rain and a British government teetering on the brink of collapse.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been fighting for his political life since the disastrous local and regional elections on May 7. Labour lost nearly 1,500 of the more than 5,000 council seats up for grabs, while the insurgent right-wing Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage, gained nearly as many. Starmer was already under pressure after the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files forced his ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, to resign. But the election triggered a broader crisis of confidence within Labour: Nearly 100 of the party’s 402 members of Parliament have publicly called for him to step down.

Less than two years ago, Starmer walked into 10 Downing Street after delivering Labour one of its largest electoral victories since World War II. Last week, it looked as if he would be forced out imminently. An anticlimactic resignation by his health secretary and hesitation among potential successors have since temporarily delayed any move against him.

“They always fight to the end,” one former government minister told me. “He’ll try to throw everyone else under the bus and will get through every week as much as he can.”

If past is prologue, though, Starmer doesn’t have much longer. Britain has had six prime ministers since 2016, a period in which the country’s departure from the European Union demanded unusually stable leadership. Instead, leadership challenges became a national pastime, thrilling........

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