By Alex Gunter – Polical Communication consultant UK
The Electoral Paradox
In July 2024, Keir Starmer secured one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern British history, 174 seats. Yet within months he had become one of the country’s most unpopular prime ministers. According to Opinium, his net approval now stands at –46, worse than Boris Johnson during Partygate and approaching Liz Truss’s collapse. Remarkably, this decline has come without a defining scandal: it is the product of a promise unfulfilled.
Voters longed for change after fourteen years of Conservative turbulence. That change has yet to materialise, leaving Britain uncertain and increasingly paralysed in its role abroad.
The Immigration Trap: When Cultural Anxiety Outpaces Policy Response
Immigration has become the central dividing line in British politics. Whether viewed as a symptom or a cause of economic stagnation, it dominates public debate more than any other issue. In September, for the first time, immigration overtook health as the most important concern for voters, according to Opinium polling.
For much of the past decade, the immigration debate focused on numbers: quotas, targets, and economic impact. Vote Leave in 2016 emphasised migrant numbers from new EU states. More broadly, supporters of immigration stress its contributions to the economy and the labour market.
However, the debate has shifted sharply away from economics and numbers towards culture and identity. Conversations among the public are now less about statistics and more about what people see and feel in their everyday surroundings. They talk about how many Turkish barber shops line their high street, or how few white faces they recognise in certain areas. These are not data points but signals of change that people experience directly. Social perception, not economic logic, now drives the immigration debate. The recent campaigns to fly English flags across towns captures that sentiment, a belief that England, particularly, has been lost to what many see as uncontrolled migration.
The UK’s shift mirrors similar trends in parts of continental Europe, where voter sentiment increasingly centres on identity and cohesion rather than macroeconomic performance.
Crime illustrates this perfectly. Statistics show no surge – knife crime in London is down 7%, yet the sense the city is out of control is widespread. People have had their phones snatched, they have seen shoplifting in broad daylight. It is part of daily life and immigration is a huge focus of this. This is even without the more serious cases of violence and rape that now start to fill headlines.
Anecdotally, earlier this year I joined a canvassing session in a small Essex village where people rarely complain. Yet every person I spoke to mention the immigration centre on the edge of the village. Their politics varied, from lifelong Labour to Conservative, but their concerns were the same. They spoke of groups of young men hanging around, petty theft, and, most of all, fears of sexual violence. The uniformity of the worry, cutting across party lines, was striking.
Reform UK is the only party currently capturing this sentiment properly. Its messaging reflects the emotional and social side of the debate, rather than getting lost in policy detail. This understanding has moved Reform from a protest to a credible one. They may not have the most comprehensive answers on immigration, but the fact that they listen and respond to how people actually feel has given them real momentum.
This has left Labour in a critical position. Labour has long seen itself as the party of the working class, but Reform is now challenging that claim. Yougov polling shows that while 22% of Britons see Labour as the party that best represents working-class people, a similar 19% say Reform UK. Among those typically considered working-class, however, 22% identify Reform as the party most in tune with their interests, compared with just 15% who say Labour.
There is now an open debate within Labour about who to chase. Should the party hold tight to its liberal urban base in cities like London, Manchester and Liverpool, or fight to win back voters in the towns and smaller cities that are more economically left but socially conservative?
The latest MRP polling by More in Common suggests most of Labour’s potential losses will come from outside the liberal metropolitan core. If the party cannot adapt and reconnect with these voters, it risks a historic collapse. The same polling indicates Labour could lose around 300 seats, roughly three quarters of its total. Yet instead of facing this reality and fighting to win back Reform voters, it remains mired in internal arguments, leaving the field open to Reform.
The resistance is exemplified by newly elected Deputy Leader Lucy Powell, who claims that ‘[Labour] won’t win by trying to out-Reform Reform.’
The Conservatives are targeting this voter cohort with strong anti-immigration policies. Polling and focus groups by More in Common suggest several core Conservative-to-Reform switchers could be won back with credible measures. Labour, by contrast, has failed to respond, still trying to balance its liberal urban base with the voters drifting to Reform, and in doing so satisfies neither.
Because of immigration, the government has lost much of its early goodwill and support. Denied the usual honeymoon period to push through its promised programme of change, it has instead become bogged down in internal disputes and distracted by the growing threat from Reform.
Governance Without Vision: The ID Cards Case Study
Labour’s attempts to tackle immigration have been woeful. The proposed national ID card scheme was meant to be a defining policy, a way to lock illegal migrants out of the economy and answer one of the public’s biggest concerns.
From the outset, the policy targeted the wrong problem. Public anger over immigration is emotional, linked to safety, belonging, and social control, not economics. ID cards were intended to prevent illegal work, not to assist police identity checks or address wider public concerns about security and order. It was a technocratic answer to a cultural question, and it failed to win Labour any surge of confidence in its ability to tackle the issue.
Experience from other European countries also undermines the logic behind it. Most EU Member States have long had national ID card systems,yet still struggle with illegal employment and immigration challenges. EY reports Britain’s informal economy is already smaller, so the policy’s practical impact was always likely to be limited.
ID Identification
The deeper failure was cultural. Carrying identity cards is simply not part of British life, and attempts to impose one ignored that instinctive resistance. Public support collapsed from +35% to -14%, showing how badly it misread the mood.
Low trust in digital infrastructure compounded the damage. After a summer of cyberattacks on major retailers, and reports linking Labour’s internet safety bill to the exposure of 70,000 personal IDs online, confidence in state-held data has rarely been lower.
Labour mistook a cultural problem for a technical one, leaving a paralysed government barely a year into office.
Weakness at the Worst Possible Moment
Labour’s failure to control the immigration debate has left Britain politically paralysed at a time when strength and direction are vital. Domestic drift now risks weakening its credibility abroad.
The UK has been one of Ukraine’s most reliable allies, providing weapons, training, and diplomatic backing through projects like the Coalition of the Willing and the International Fund for Ukraine. With the United States an uncertain partner, Britain’s consistency matters. Yet Starmer’s collapsing approval ratings raise questions over whether he can sustain that leadership. Reform UK remains broadly pro-Ukraine, but new parties gaining ground on both flanks are less committed. If Britain’s support falters, it will shake confidence in the wider European and NATO effort.
This paralysis is intensifying Europe’s migrant crisis. Stopping Channel crossings requires coordinated UK–EU action, particularly with France, yet bilateral relations are already fragile. Russia is exploiting migration as a political tool, and the absence of clear British leadership risks allowing uncontrolled flows to spill into continental Europe. The resulting pressure could exacerbate political tensions in EU member states, undermine border management, and strengthen divisions across the continent. Britain’s instability thus poses a direct risk not just to itself, but to European cohesion at a critical moment.
Looking ahead, Europe must consider a potential Reform UK government. Most of its leadership is politically inexperienced, with only limited local government exposure. Freed from accusations of being anti-EU, it could work closely with conservative parties focused on migration, including Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Marine Le Pen in France. How this would play out is uncertain, but the potential for both opportunity and risk is clear.
The Cost of Paralysis
No incumbent government in recent memory has lost public confidence so swiftly. Reform’s rise is unprecedented.
The immigration debate has shifted from economic and practical concerns to cultural and emotional ones, and Reform is the only party engaging this reality effectively. As long as Labour remains paralysed, unable to counter Reform meaningfully, the United Kingdom risks remaining trapped in political inertia.
Britain’s challenges, immigration, identity, and stagnation, are not unique. Many European nations face similar pressures. What distinguishes the UK is its particular dysfunction, which undermines its capacity to contribute to solutions and instead makes it a source of instability. Once a bridge between Europe and America, Britain can no longer even bridge its internal divides. At a moment when Europe needs coordinated leadership, one of its key partners has become a liability.
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