Why does almost nobody in Britain seem to like Keir Starmer?

AT THIS STAGE, almost nobody over in Britain seems to actually like prime minister Keir Starmer.

His approval ratings are now among the worst recorded for any modern UK leader less than two years into office.

The pressure on Starmer intensified dramatically after last week’s local elections, which saw Labour suffer heavy losses across England, Scotland and Wales while Nigel Farage’s Reform UK surged. 80 Labour MPs have since called on Starmer to resign.

Starmer himself conceded the results were “very tough” and admitted Labour would need to “reflect” on the message voters were sending.

Instead, the fallout has escalated into open civil war inside the party.

According to YouGov polling published this week, just 23% of Britons now view Starmer favourably, while 69% view him unfavourably, giving him a net favourability rating of -46.

Another YouGov poll found that 70% of Britons believe he is doing badly as prime minister, compared to just 22% who think he is doing well.

Ipsos polling published this week found that two-thirds of Britons believe Starmer should not lead Labour into the next general election.

Even among people who voted Labour in 2024, the numbers are bleak. More Labour voters now think Starmer should resign than stay on.

Why?

Despite the collapse in support, there’s a mixed consensus on why exactly Britain dislikes him so much.

As one Labour voter told YouGov in a qualitative survey this week: “He’s been a bit rubbish — unambitious, inconsistent, timid, uncharismatic and lacking in bold vision.”

Another respondent described him as “a bland grey little man” who had turned into “an absolute disaster”.

The hostility has now escalated into open warfare within Labour itself.

This week, Wes Streeting resigned as UK health secretary after publicly declaring that he had “lost confidence” in Starmer’s leadership.

In a blistering resignation letter, Streeting criticised the “drift” at the top of the government and warned that Starmer would not lead Labour into the next election.

At the same time, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham confirmed he wants to return to Westminster, freeing him up to challenge for the Labour leadership.

Angela Rayner, meanwhile, has refused to rule out her own leadership bid.

Political analysts say the seeds of this collapse were visible long before Starmer ever entered Downing Street.

‘This was never a popular government’

Eoghan Kelly, a postdoctoral researcher leading the Polling London Project at Queen Mary University of London, said Labour’s huge parliamentary majority disguised the reality that Starmer himself was never especially popular.

“His approval rating when he won the election in 2024 was only around 30%,” Kelly said.

“He’s never been popular. This was never a popular government. It was a government that was made to look popular because they had loads of seats.”

Labour won the 2024 election with just 32.1% of the vote, one of the lowest vote shares ever to produce such a dominant majority in Westminster. Despite this, they picked up a sweeping majority of 411 seats out of a possible 650.

Kelly argues the election was less an endorsement of Starmer than a collective rejection of the Conservatives after years of chaos under Johnson, Truss and Sunak.

“The entire election was basically driven by: ‘Do you want to keep the Tories in or not?’” Kelly said.

Labour was offering the least radical alternative. Their pitch was essentially just to stop making things worse.

That cautious, managerial approach may have worked electorally in 2024, but more voters have since fallen out of favour with Labour.

“Starmer is your sort of centrist, managerial-style leader,” Kelly said.

“He’s never leaned into being radical or inspirational. He’s not Boris Johnson and he’s also not Jeremy Corbyn. His plan was basically to make things slightly better.”

But many Labour voters expected something more transformative once the party secured a massive Commons majority.

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Instead, critics on the left accuse Starmer of abandoning progressive promises and pivoting even further to the right in an attempt to win back Reform UK voters.

“He’s managed to get the worst of both worlds,” Kelly said.

“They’re not winning over Reform voters because Reform voters don’t believe them on immigration. But they are alienating progressive voters, because progressive voters do believe them.”

That tension repeatedly appears in the YouGov interviews.

One Labour voter said: “I expected better from him. I want to like him but the treatment of welfare claimants absolutely ruined it for me. I expect it from Tories but it hit hard coming from his hand.”

Another said Starmer “stands for whatever focus groups say are popular”.

‘Doesn’t seem to stand for anything’

Much of the public’s frustration with Starmer appears less ideological than emotional.

Britons do not seem to hate him in the way many hated Boris Johnson or Liz Truss. Instead, pollsters describe a broader sense of disappointment and confusion.

“I don’t think it’s visceral dislike,” Kelly said.

The British public is more like: ‘What is the point of all this?’

That sentiment surfaced repeatedly in the YouGov responses.

“He does not seem to stand for anything,” one voter said. “He changes direction like a weather vane.”

Another described him as “timid, uncharismatic and lacking in bold vision”.

Kevin Cunningham, founder of Ireland Thinks and a lecturer in politics at TU Dublin, said Starmer’s difficulties reflect a much broader problem facing centrist parties across Europe.

“There used to be a big electoral advantage in occupying the centre ground,” Cunningham said.

“But politics has become much more fragmented now. There are very distinct ideological tribes on the left and right, and if you try to sit in the middle you often end up alienating both.”

He argues Labour’s electoral strategy has become trapped by the realities of Britain’s first-past-the-post voting system.

The party increasingly fears losing working-class constituencies to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, leading Labour strategists to prioritise immigration and culturally conservative messaging.

Kelly said that strategy may now be backfiring badly.

“It’s extremely difficult to win those Reform voters back,” he said.

“They don’t trust Labour on immigration anyway. So Labour ends up validating Reform’s arguments while simultaneously upsetting progressive voters.”

Could it be worse?

Starmer’s unpopularity may end up costing him his job, but even in Ireland we’ve seen leaders who are more unpopular than he currently is.

Former taoiseach Brian Cowen remains the gold standard for political unpopularity on this side of the Irish Sea.

By late 2010, amid the financial crash and the IMF-EU bailout, support for Cowen remaining as taoiseach had collapsed to just 8% in RedC polling.

Starmer has not yet reached those depths, though his support is lower than the current leaders here.

Polling from earlier this month suggests Taoiseach Micheál Martin (a fan of Starmer) is viewed favourably by roughly one-third of Irish voters (33%), while Tánaiste Simon Harris polls similarly (31%).

Even at his lowest ebb, Starmer remains more popular than Conservative PM Liz Truss.

YouGov polling earlier this year found Britons preferred almost every recent prime minister to Starmer, including Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, John Major and Boris Johnson.

Still, Cunningham believes Starmer’s situation may not be entirely hopeless.

“The British media environment is incredibly hostile,” Cunningham said.

“But Labour probably have hit close to their floor in the polls.”

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