The UK is preparing for the fall of another prime minister. And what better date to do it than the eve of the tenth anniversary of Brexit, the referendum that decided the country's exit from the European Union? In these ten years, Great Britain has had six prime ministers. Everything indicates that this week the advent of the seventh, Andy Burnham, will be announced.
Today he may announce the timetable for his resignation, which would be finalized next autumn, as reported by The Guardian. This morning he will presumably make an announcement outside his official residence at 10 Downing Street, initiating the process for the appointment of a new Labour leader and British Prime Minister, the seventh prime minister in ten years, as reported by Efe.
Jorge Luis Borges wrote that democracy is "that abuse of statistics." Borges learned to speak English before Spanish, and undoubtedly the electoral arithmetic behind the change of British prime minister would confirm his suspicion. Starmer came to power less than two years ago with 9.7 million votes and 411 seats in Parliament. Burnham replaces him after having obtained 24,927 votes and one seat: his own. This is how British parliamentarism works: the new parliamentarian has the support of his colleagues in the House of Commons.
Starmer is politically toxic in a very British way. The public detests him. His MPs abhor him. Labour donors reject him. He has achieved the impossible: he is considered by the public an individual with no political beliefs, and at the same time an ideologue who refuses to abandon a modernized version of Tony Blair's "third way," of whom it is said to have considerable influence over the prime minister.
To his MPs, he is arrogant. Starmer did not bother to call several of them —an excellent way to annoy them— until he suffered his first electoral catastrophe in the local elections of May last year. Shortly before, Starmer had not bothered to campaign in the parliamentary elections for the Runcorn and Helsby constituency. The Labour Party, which had won that seat by 14,696 votes 10 months earlier, lost it by just six. The presence of the prime minister would most likely have prevented that defeat. But Starmer did not take responsibility. His only reaction when asked about the loss was to say, "I have taken note." That coldness also extends to his own cabinet, as was evident in July when, after a Labour rebellion forced the Government to dilute its disability and sickness benefits reform, Starmer explicitly refused to guarantee the continued presence in the Government of the plan's promoter, the Minister of Economy, Rachel Reeves.
This has been compounded by a stubbornness in making decisions that anger his own voters. One of the very first measures of his Government was to cut subsidies for heating for pensioners. Perhaps it made sense from a fiscal point of view, but politically it was an idea that surpassed Margaret Thatcher from the right. There are few more effective ways to slap the Labour sympathizer.
The same can be said of the terrorism designation of Palestine Action, a group whose violence has been essentially against property: sabotage, graffiti, break-ins, and material damage against military or defense industry targets. Placing it under the same legal framework as classic terrorist groups has been an absurd way to enrage the Labour left, young people, and minorities.
Now, the prime minister faces the end of his term. His only defense is his conviction that, given time, the electorate will reward his leadership. Last week, he even offered Burnham a senior position in the Government. An advisor to the prime minister compared Starmer yesterday in The Times to Mark Twain's character Tom Sawyer, who secretly attends his own funeral. The big difference is that Sawyer is alive. Starmer, like in a horror movie, has not realized that the corpse is himself.