How Starmer’s missteps are fuelling Nigel Farage’s rise

Months after an intense general election, the United Kingdom is witnessing a slight shift in its political landscape. While the country’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer is seeing a decline in his administration’s popularity, the stars of far-right pariah Nigel Farage are on the rise.

Five months after Starmer clinched a landslide victory in the general election, two-thirds of Britons have already said that they are worse off since the last unpopular government of Tories, led by former UK PM Rishi Sunak.

While Starmer’s popularity is plummeting, Farage’s favourability is on the rise. What is helping the far-right leader’s cause is the fact that his new Reform UK Party has managed to absorb several Conservative Party defectors, who bring significant supporters to the table.

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Here’s a look at how UK politics witnessed this peculiar change in just three months.

Labour Party loses its popularity as Starmer’s charm fades.

In October this year, Starmer suffered the biggest post-election fall in approval ratings of any British prime minister in the modern era. According to the Opinium Poll conducted by The Observer, Starmer’s favourable rating collapsed by 45 points from July to -26. The figures remain bad for Starmer in November with the British premier standing at -30 points.

While 20 per cent of voters surveyed in the polls thought that the Labour Party has been good at providing hope and optimism following its landslide ­general election victory, 56 per cent of people don’t agree with that assertion.

Starmer’s low ratings came ahead of the Labour government’s first budget, which saw tax rises in a bid to pump more funding into some key public services. The scandalous freebie row, which questioned Starmer’s integrity as a politician did not help the cause as well.

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The rise of Nigel Farage and how he attracts the Tories

What makes things surprising is that according to the polls conducted by YouGov survey, Starmer is more unpopular than Farage. The poll released on October 8 with 2,121 adults in Great Britain found that only 27 per cent of those asked had a positive view of the Labour PM. That’s his lowest rating with the pollster since Sept. 2021.

The figure puts him below Farage, who played a crucial role in dividing the British opinions during the Brexit. Around 28 per cent of people polled by YouGov have a favourable view of Farage, compared to 63 per cent with a negative view. That gives him a net favorability score of -35. This is not the only thing that is contributing to Farage’s rise.

Last month, Farage’s Reform Party announced that it had passed 100,000 paying members for the first time since its inception. The newest addition to the team was Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns, who was an ardent supporter of ex-PM and Tory leader Boris Johnson.

After joining the party, Jenkyns argued that the Conservatives have now “lost their way,” and stressed that leaving a party she had “cherished for decades” was not easy. “I stayed loyal and fought to the bitter end in the general election, going down with the proverbial ship. But the truth is undeniable, the ship is sinking and perhaps, sadly, beyond salvage. Enough is enough," she said.

Months before Jenkyns’s defection, former Conservative Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson became the first Conservative leader to join Reform UK. Anderson was suspended by the Conservatives after he claimed that “Islamists” have “got control” while speaking about London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Reform party did encourage the defection after they wrote to every Tory councillor facing re-election, calling on them to defect to Reform UK. In the letter which was sent to the 1,352 Tory councillors, Farage wrote that the Tory party is “busted and Flush”. Hence, it won’t be surprising if other Conservative leaders decide to jump ship.

Lessons From America: The incumbent cannot take it lightly

A similar trend was in the making in a country across the Atlantic Ocean. Ever since US President Joe Biden became the President of the country in 2020, people raised questions about his age and mental acuity. These concerns were reflected in the polls that came out while Biden was briefly running against the current President-elect Donald Trump.

While Biden still had a lead over the former president, the gap between them was extremely narrow. After a poor performance at the first presidential debate of the 2024 cycle, the POTUS passed the baton to the second in command, i.e. Vice President Kamala Harris.

Taking the burden of the Biden administration’s lacklustre approach towards the economy and a limited time, Harris lost the race to Trump. With multiple assassination attempts and a polarised outlook over a host of issues, Trump managed to bag a landslide victory in the November 5 polls. After the elections, many critics including Senator Bernie Sanders pointed out how the Biden-Harris team “abandoned the working class,” some were also upset about their handling of the border crisis in hand.

Hence, the American saga and the latest polls reflect that the incumbency cannot take things lightly and just rest on past laurels. To bring in new support, many are looking for change from the “old establishment” way of things.

So can Labour bounce back?

It is pertinent to note that it has just been six months since the Labour Party has been in power, so the paucity of time will not be a major problem for the Starmer administration. Hence, the British premier can bounce back.

Starmer still has four and a half years to boost the country’s economy and deliver on the promises the party made before the polls. Meanwhile, Labour’s biggest rival, Conservatives is also facing a leadership crisis.

While the party has a new leader in the face of Kemi Bandenoch, the popularity of the new Tory leader is only better than diabolical former UK PM Liz Truss, who resigned on the 50th day in office. As far as Farage’s popularity is concerned, it will be interesting to see if the far-right politician will be able to make any significant impact on British politics.

With inputs from agencies.