𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

With a seventh Prime Minister in ten years, Britain has become the new Italy which was long notorious for changing its leaders every year. It’s a clear sign that there is instability at the heart of British government that neither Labour nor the Tories have addressed – a fundamental fault line undermining the ability to govern. Italy’s political comedy began in the post-war era with ten Prime Ministers between 1953 and 1963, one serving just 22 days in a year of three Prime Ministers. The chaos continued in the 1980s with eight PMs between 1981 and 1992.

By contrast, Britain was a masterclass in political stability and governing longevity. Margaret Thatcher served for 11 years, the longest premiership in the 20th century. Tony Blair clocked up ten years as the longest Labour premier before stepping down. After resigning on Monday, Sir Keir Starmer is now the shortest-serving Labour premier in history, proving it’s not only the Tory party that dispatches its leaders with bloodthirsty frequency. But why has Britain become such a nexus of instability?

The short answer is that when governments stop listening to the concerns of voters, they plunge in the polls and backbench MPs become anxious, throwing their weight behind anyone who promises a resurgence in popularity. But that doesn’t address the fundamental problems, hence more instability.

The rot set in with David Cameron. Hoping to head-off UKIP’s rise in the polls he promised a referendum on EU membership and had to carry it through when he won a surprise majority in 2015. After losing the vote, he resigned. Rather than the victor of Brexit taking over, Tory skulduggery allowed Theresa May to out manoeuvre Boris Johnson.

But three years of foot dragging on delivering Leave meant that Johnson’s promise to “Get Brexit Done” won him a landslide victory in 2019, nearly obliterating Labour at the same time. Johnson should have enjoyed a long premiership but Covid intervened and he fell foul of his own lockdown rules. He also failed to deliver on “Taking Back Control” by allowing an unprecedented tsunami of immigration from around the world – the “Boris wave”.

Liz Truss followed, wanting to make the most of our Brexit freedoms by slashing taxes and making Britain a low regulation Singapore-on-Thames, but she promised too much too soon and fell victim to an Establishment stitch-up for which the Bank of England later accepted 60% of the blame.

Rishi Sunak acknowledged the small boats crisis but failed to deport one illegal migrant to Rwanda before calling an election. In the wake of these unfulfilled promises, Keir Starmer presented Labour as the adults in the room.

But after his election, he embarked on a tax-raising binge to fund welfare that stifled growth while failing to halt the flow of illegal migrants. As a result, Britain has become a nation of takers, not makers. Taxes being raised to simply pay off the greedy public sector and never ending benefits bills.

With Labour support crashing in the face of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, MPs panicked and the result was Andy Burnham – potentially our seventh PM in a decade. Promising little change on high tax and illegal migration, it’s looking likely that Burnham will simply be Starmer 2.0 and the disgruntled electorate will lurch to the next party leader pledging to bring an end to a decade of disarray and decline.

By delivering on what the electorate actually wants – economic growth and secure borders – that next leader will hopefully bring an end to this most dismal and unstable period in our recent political history and we will no longer be the laughing stock of the world. To achieve that, it will take someone who really listens to what people want rather than imposing their own lunatic ideology on them. It can be done.

Italy’s populist right winger Georgia Meloni has been in power for nearly four years, her country’s deficit has declined, making it look healthier than France or Germany, and she has clamped down on illegal migration. They’re not out of the woods yet, but no one’s laughing at them now. With Burnham looking certain to be our next Prime Minister, I’m afraid it will be Britain that continues to provoke a few more chuckles.