WhenKeir Starmerbecame prime minister in 2024, Labour had won a landslide victoryand the Conservative party had suffered itsworst ever defeatafter 14 years of governance.

The new PM had both an impressive legal background as former director of public prosecutions, and working-class credentials as the son of a toolmaker. In his early premiership the worst scandal that theUKmedia managed to dig up about him was whether or not he paid the correct amount of tax on a field that he bought for his parentsfour pet donkeys.

After theseeming moral vacuumof former prime minister Boris Johnsons Covid-era government and the revolving door of British PMs that followed, Starmer seemed to represent something new: a sense of stability and decency that British politics hadnt seen in some time.

But those qualities have not been enough to cement Starmers leadership. As of May 2026, his approval ratings are slightly above their lowest ebb, but70 percentof the British public still think that hes doing badly as prime minister and just19 percenthave a positive opinion of him overall.

Football stadiums are filled withchants insulting himand focus group descriptions of Starmer throw up words like doormat and jellyfish, the latter a throwback to a2023 op-edby former political rivalMichael Gove, who called Starmer transparent, spineless and swept along by any incoming tide.

This week much of Starmers own partyturned against himfollowing crushing local elections that saw Labour incur hefty losses. More than 80 Labour MPs have now called for Starmersresignation.

Effectively toxic

Why the prime minister has become so unpopular is something of a mystery considering the most compelling critiques of Starmer are that he is boring, lacks dynamism and has an annoying voice, says Rob Johns, professor of politicsand a specialist in public opinion at the University of Southampton.

One plausible explanation is that doggedly moderate Starmer is not suited to an era when the polarising effect ofBrexithas made centrism an especially unattractive position, Johns adds.

Although they have not yet triggered an official leadership contest, Starmers own MPs now seem to see his measured leadership style as a political handicap.

Members of the media gather at Downing Street in London on May 11, 2026 as rumours swirl that Prime Minister Keir Starmer may soon resign.

I think you are a good man fundamentally, who cares about the right things however I have seen first-hand how that is not enough, cabinet minister Jess Phillips wrote in aresignation lettershe delivered on Tuesday.

She went on to accuse Starmer of stalling over plans to implement tech solutions that would prevent online child sex abuse. This is the definition of incremental change. Nothing bold about it, she concluded.

Disgruntled former Labour voters are also disillusioned with the lack of progress.

Some 29 percent of voters who havedefected from the partysince the last election believe that it has not delivered on its promises and failed to reduce the cost of living.

Matthew Torbitt, former Labour advisor and political commentator,told FRANCE 24,9.7 million people voted in 2024 for change thats what the Labour party offered but if youd have been in a coma for the last two years you wouldnt notice a difference if you woke up today.

One of Starmers key election promises in 2024 was to improve public services, eroded by yearsofausterityafter the globalfinancial crisisof the late 2000s.

But waiting lists for healthcare remain above pre-pandemic levels withlengthy backlogs for many services while there remainswidespread exasperationat under-resourced local government and justice services and disrepair across road networks.

Meanwhile, the global cost-of-living crisis is biting particularly hard in Britain, which hashigh income inequalitycompared to other developed nations.

Inflation has pushedinterest rateshigher than in theeurozone, and high exposure to gas prices also means Britain's economy has beenhit harder than othersby theIran war.

Starmer is also seen as failing to tackle the dominant political issue of illegalimmigrationdespitenet migration figures fallingwhich has boosted the ratings of anti-immigration partyReform UK.

Many of these issues the after-effects of the Covid-19pandemic and Brexit, and the current impact of the Iran war are not Starmers doing but impact his popularity nonetheless.

It is quite plausible that, for various reasons, we're in such an anti-politics moment that pretty much any prime minister would be deeply unpopular, Johns says.

Many Labour MPs now fear that Starmer has become so deeply unpopular that if he continues to lead the party he will erode any chance of its success in future elections and hand the premiership to Reform UK leader and Brexit-backerNigel Farage.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage poses to show off his socks as he visits a polling station in Walton-on-the-Naze, eastern England on May 7, 2026.

Starmer is effectively toxic, Torbitt says, adding its time for him to do the selfless thing and hand over to somebody else.

Ambitious programme

But the prime minister in one of the bolder moves of his career is so far refusing to go.

This is perhaps because Tuesdays challenge to his leadership came at an unusual time, just one day ahead of theannual Kings Speechduring which the monarch opens parliament by reading a speech written by the government in this case, Starmers officialising its policies.

The event is one of the major set pieces ofUK politics, and this year provided a chance for the chronically embattled Starmer to make good on a pledge Monday that his government would be "better" and bolder.

In the introduction Starmer vowed to move "with greater urgency" on an "ambitious programme" to make Britain "stronger and fairer".

Proposals included deepening Britain's relationship with theEuropean Union, fully nationalising British Steel, reforming the asylum system, lowering the voting age to 16 and cracking down on ticket touts.

It remains to be seen whether Starmer will be around to implement them but any successor may face similar difficulties, Johns says.

Given that the economic outlook is bleak and it's hard to see where good news is coming from, I don't think anyone would find it easy to be a popular Labour prime minister in the short or medium term.

Originally published on France24