A new normal? UK looks set to have 7th Prime Minister in 10 years | DW News

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]British Prime Minister Sakia Starmer is facing growing pressure after devastating local election results triggered fresh doubts about his leadership. A number of members of parliament from his ruling centerleft Labor Party are now reportedly calling on him to step down as leader. While no formal challenger has yet emerged, speculation about his potential replacement is growing. Questions are now being asked not just about Mr. Star's future, but about the direction of Labor itself. And those questions were very much on display at Prime Minister's questions today.

[00:00:36]>> What we have is a prime minister hanging by a thread, fake support from his backbenches, too scared to take difficult decisions, losing his moral compass by backsliding on Ukraine. Yes, he is. Mr. Speaker, look, the the the shakes of their head are so feeble.

[00:00:54]They're so so feeble. He has got They can.

[00:01:01]>> It's absolutely laughable, Mr. Speaker. It's absolutely laughable. Yesterday, we saw them huddled in the corridors talking about Andy Burnham and West Streeting.

[00:01:12]The fact is he's got a cabinet fighting to replace him. And the worst part is they aren't getting rid of him over his terrible agenda. No, they actually like it. They just want a better salesman.

[00:01:24]So, isn't it the case, Mr. speaker that it doesn't matter who replaces him. The real problem is the Labor Party.

[00:01:36]>> Uh Mr. Speaker, uh uh >> a big prime minister.

[00:01:41]>> Mr. Speaker, look, a lot's been happening in recent days, so she may have overlooked the fact that last last week the ONS announced we've got the fastest growing economy in the G7.

[00:01:54]Sakia Starmer there under fire from the conservative opposition leader in parliament at prime minister's questions earlier today. Quentyn Peele can help us uh make some sense of Britain's current political turbulence. He's a former foreign editor and columnist for the Financial Times and joins us from London. Welcome back to DW Quentin. The prime minister has just led his ruling centerleft Labor Party through a disastrous set of local elections. Are these just the usual travailes of a midterm governing party during hard times or is it something more serious?

[00:02:30]It's more serious. Without a doubt, it's more serious. We've seen an extraordinary fragmentation really of British politics. Uh not just in the last couple of weeks, it's been building really for a long time, possibly ever since Brexit. You you you've got a situation where both the major parties, the traditional parties of government, the Conservatives on the right, the Labor Party on the left, have shrunk dramatically and have lost a lot of support and that the the the votes have been going uh to the parties really of constant opposition. So you have the far-right reform party, but on the left you have the Greens and you have a string of nationalist parties like the Scottish nationalists, the Welsh nationalist, Blum and in Northern Ireland you have Shinfane. So really the center has has has really uh crumbled and uh that's the situation in which prime ministers we've had six prime ministers now in in a matter of of seven years and and it's it's really chaotic.

[00:03:43]So um that's the problem that Stalmer faces.

[00:03:47]>> Okay. So regardless of all the criticism he's facing from inside his own party and externally, the prime minister appears determined to hang on. We'll hear him speaking on Monday and then come back to you, Quentin.

[00:04:00]>> I do want to fight the next uh election.

[00:04:03]Obviously, I recognize that after the local election uh results, the elections in Wales and Scotland as well, that the first task is obviously turning things around and making sure that my focus is in the right place. the last 10 days uh there's been a lot of activity which hasn't been as focused in my view as it should have been and I remind myself every day uh that I was elected into office to serve the people to serve the country that's what I believe in and that's what I'll be getting on with >> well Quentin Peele he was elected just under two years ago has he got time to turn things around >> he hasn't got much time certainly I I think he he's got a real struggle on his hands because he's lost the confidence of a lot of his own Labour members of parliament. Uh they see him as somebody who is simply not able to deliver the votes for them uh even as far away as the next election which is not due until uh 2029. So it could be a long time. But I think they're really worried that between now and then they will bleed support. So he's under a lot of pressure. The only thing really going for him is there is no clarity of who might better replace him. The most popular man, uh, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, is not even a member of parliament at the moment. So, until he becomes one, the challenge isn't there.

[00:05:34]>> And what is it then? Let's let's talk about the the the challenge. as you say this uh Andy Bernham uh not yet a member of parliament and we'll come to that bi-election shortly but what is it about him uh that that his party that Kia's party likes so much is it that he's just not Karmama or does he have a different vision it's more that he's not Kia stama kastama uh has lacks charisma he lacks dynamism and he's seemed to be lacking in a clear vision of where is going.

[00:06:08]Now, I'm not sure that Andy Bernham is dramatically better on the vision side, but he is much better in terms of his capability of engaging with voters and going over well on television. He's the only person in the in the potential leadership of the Labour Party whose popularity goes beyond the party and so he has a positive rating uh in a political landscape where most of the leading politicians have negative ratings >> and as you say he is not a member of parliament so he has to first to get elected which brings us to the Makerfield by election. Makerfield, a small place in the north of England, which now finds itself at the center of British media and political attention.

[00:06:53]But this is not a done deal. This center left will be prime minister. We'll have to fight off a challenge from the farright reform UK party.

[00:07:06]Indeed, he will because in these local elections, which were so bad a result for Labor, they were a pretty very good result for reform. And in the Makerfield constituency, every single one of the local seats actually went to reform. So if you reproduce that vote in the bi-election, it would probably result in reform getting 50% and the Labour Party only getting 30%. Now against that, you must put the popularity and the personality of Andy Bernham because he is hugely popular in the Manchester region where he's mayor. He's done extremely well as mayor. And I think that should carry him through, but it's certainly not a done deal. And of course, if he failed to get elected for that seat, well, that would indeed buy more time for Karma. Karma, of course, a a prime minister who was elected just two years or so ago with a massive 174 seat majority after a period, as you say, of a run of prime ministers that that that made Britain look a bit of a a laughingstock. So, how has he turned that evident popularity into this?

[00:08:22]Put simply, his majority was too big. He actually got elected with this huge majority uh on a rather moderate if not poor vote. The Labour Party really got not much more than 30% of the vote, but they got considerably more than 60% of the seats. So, they've constantly been looking over their shoulders. One problem with having such a big majority is that your own party members are more likely to be rebellious to tell you when they don't like what you're doing. So Kstama has struggled to put through uh the policies that he wanted and he's actually been forced into a series of Uturns when he faced a revolt on the back benches. So that's compounded the problem that he's looked indecisive and unclear of of really the direction of of policy that he wanted. He has faced a huge problem with the inheritance that he got from the Conservative party. an economy that is basically still in the doldrums and uh a public service that is really struggling in areas like the National Health Service and in social care to uh to be effective and efficient. So for all of those reasons he's struggling and he's got problems with his own party on the backbenches because they're not inclined to just roll over and say we'll do whatever you want prime minister.

[00:09:53]>> Okay. Britain voted to leave the European Union 10 years ago. They formally left in 2020 at midnight on the 1st of February, Central European time.

[00:10:03]It was controversial, but suddenly it's a live issue again. We'll hear from Andy Bernham and then come back to you. My view is that Brexit has been damaging, but I also believe the last thing we should do right now is rerun those arguments. I am not proposing that the UK considers rejoining the EU. I respect the decision that was made at the referendum and it's going to undermine everything said I've said about strengthening democracy if we don't respect that vote.

[00:10:34]>> That's prime ministerial hopeful Andy Bernham talking about why he's not talking about Brexit. Quentyn Peele, why is this issue back on the table?

[00:10:44]>> It's never gone away. It's an incredibly divisive issue and it probably is the single most important reason why we're seeing this fragmentation of British politics. But the particular problem for Andy Bernham uh is that the constituency he's fighting for, this makerfield constituency in Wigan uh is voted in the referendum very clearly for Brexit and he on the other hand has always been a remainer. Now, that is the problem that Brexit is still an incredibly divisive issue. And I think part of the problem is not just that it's nationalists against internationalists or sort of islanders against good Europeans. Um, it's also uh that it it it has changed the lines of division in the country. It's a social division. It's a cultural division. And it's allowed a party like the Reform Party, which used to be the Brexit Party, to really mobilize people on such issues as immigration and basically against the outside world and and that has I think left it as a very bitter issue where um on the one side you have people who are still passionately pro Britain remaining or even going back into the European Union. Uh over 60% now believe that Brexit was a mistake.

[00:12:17]Whereas those in favor of Brexit uh are down to about 30% but they are diehard pro-rexiers who won't change their mind.

[00:12:26]They think it was the right thing to do.

[00:12:29]>> All right. So briefly then best guess a year from now will the UK prime minister still be Saki Starama?

[00:12:38]>> I doubt it. I think he I think he'll go by the autumn. The Labour Party conference is at the end of September and I think that will be the moment of truth. So even if Andy Burnham didn't get back into parliament and if he does he might in even be instantly made the leader of the party. If he doesn't get back into parliament I still think the party is fed up with Kama. It won't solve the problem but they'll get rid of him.

[00:13:06]>> Quentin Peele, thank you so much.