Despite Labour’s huge majority, the UK government looks fragile

Photo: AP Images

BYthe time you read this, the man who took Labour to a landslide victory less than two years ago might be gone. At press time, Keir Starmer’s premiership is on life support. After months of crisis and missteps, he’s lost his second chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, leaving Downing Street brain dead, and his umpteenth director of communications, Tim Allan.

His agenda’s now controlled by backbench MPs, who remain convinced that if only taxes were hiked further on the rich, there’d be an endless pot of money to fund their pet causes, and rebel against all and any politically painful choices. But external threats abound too. Here are four trends in British politics giving the government migraines.

Green Shoots

If there was ever a parliamentary by-election from Starmer’s nightmares, it’s the one coming up in East Manchester on February 26. Roughly split between Muslims and students, and white working class, the hard-left Greens and poll-topping Reform both spy a chance to grab the seat off Labour. On-the-ground reports suggest little love for Labour but a pretty even three-way split. The kicker is, it would have been an easy Labour win if only Starmer hadn’t blocked the popular mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, from standing; Burnham makes no secret of his ambition to replace Starmer, so Labour’s ruling committee blocked his candidacy.

One insider has described the prospect of a Green victory as “deadly”; it destroys Labour’s narrative as the only left-wing alternative to Reform. Labour is hemorrhaging from the left to the Greens, whose telegenic new leader, Zack Polanski, believes there’s no limit to state resources. Because the government borrows from the state’s central bank, you see, it’s essentially borrowing from itself (most government debt actually comes from the fiscally hawkish international markets), and would tax billionaires simply as a moral imperative and not for the revenue. He’s also snapped up Muslims who believe Labour’s been too pro-Israel (!), and once rock-solid urban seats are looking dicey for Labour.

Conservative Comeback

It’s not just the Greens coming from nowhere to worry the government. The Conservatives, who’ve been largely comatose since their 2024 election wipeout, are back from the almost-dead. The government’s catastrophic handling of the economy has gifted the Tories the space they’re most comfortable inhabiting — economic competence — and polling shows the public has forgotten the brief Liz Truss debacle. The Conservatives now beat all parties on who’s most trusted on that most important of all issues. Leader Kemi Badenoch’s performance has sharpened, and her personal polling is up. Recent polling from More in Common also shows the party’s ratings inching northwards.

The Tories’ institutional experience has also enabled them to use parliamentary procedure to hammer the government on the various scandals it’s found itself in. In the wake of recent revelations of staggering corruption by an ex-minister during the latter years of the last Labour administration, they forced a series of humiliating government climbdowns over just a few days after Starmer attempted to keep an investigation redacted and in-house. Despite some high-profile Conservative defections to Reform, Badenoch’s position looks more secure than ever.

Death of Assisted Dying?

The Assisted Dying bill, a backbench proposal that squeaked over the line in June by just 23 votes, looks in mortal danger. When the House of Lords scrutinized it, peers were shocked by the shoddiness of the legislation, and it’s been held up for months with amendments that the bill’s opponents argue are just making it fit for passage. Indeed, when the bill narrowly passed in the House of Commons, reports suggested that some “yes” votes were predicated on the Lords cleaning it up.

As it’s not a manifesto commitment or government bill, which the Lords by convention do not oppose, it’s facing additional scrutiny in the upper chamber. If it doesn’t pass before a new parliamentary session, looming in early May, the bill will fall. Cue accusations of filibustering from the bill’s proponents. The government is officially neutral, but Starmer is personally supportive; while still in the opposition, he promised an assisted-dying campaigner that he’d hold a vote on it if he won.

It’s classic Starmer: adopting a position that pleases the progressive left but unravels on contact with the reality of scarce resources and ethical dilemmas.

The Great Replacement Row

“Oh, Sam, nobody expects this government to last past May,” was what one Labour insider told Sky News’s veteran journo Sam Coates in late 2025.

At the time, local elections seemed to be the flashpoint after which Labour MPs might junk Starmer. Meantime, multiple missteps mean the calls for Stamer to go, still issued mostly in private, are growing more urgent. Vocal supporters of the embattled PM are few and far between, but the lack of a single alternative figure to coalesce behind is keeping Starmer in post.

Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has no conceivable route back to Parliament before the next election. Angela Rayner, champion of the soft-left, still hasn’t cleared up the tax affairs over which she was sacked, pending a tax authorities’ investigation. Charismatic Blairite Wes Streeting’s keeping his head down over ties with the ex-minister engulfed in a corruption scandal, and socially conservative Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, though highly rated as a minister, lacks both parliamentary and membership support. Labour members love eco-zealot Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, but he lost an election as Labour leader in 2015; MPs are loath to offer the electorate someone who they’ve already rejected.

The consensus is that for now, the government will lumber on like a wounded bear but will succumb to its grievous injuries well before the next election.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1099)