The implosion of the Labour Party and the reconfiguration of British democracy
By Gustavo de Arístegui, as published by La Razón, 17 May, 2026
There are moments in the history of democracies when a crisis ceases to be an accident and, when it becomes a chronic illness, it is a symptom of a worrying degradation of the system. What collapses is not a government, but an entire political model. The United Kingdom is going through one of those moments , and what we are witnessing is not simply the agony of a prime minister. It is the systemic fracture of a country that has been living beyond its political, economic, financial, and strategic means for too long.
Keir Starmer arrived at Downing Street in July 2024 with one of the largest parliamentary majorities in Labour history—a 172-seat advantage—and with the political capital of having ended fourteen years of chaotic and misguided Conservative governments. Two years later, that capital has completely evaporated.
The man who promised to restore institutional seriousness has become, according to Luke Tryl of the polling firm More in Common, “a vessel for citizens’ frustration with the system.” Few political condemnations are more devastating: he is not criticized for what he has done, but for what he embodies . The local elections of May 7th were the trigger. Labour lost control of 35 municipal councils and nearly 1,500 councilors, 60% of the seats it held. The BBC’s national vote projection places it at 17%, tied for third place with the Conservatives themselves, whom it crushed just two years ago. In the working-class strongholds of northern England, where the trade union movement that founded the Labour Party was born, Reform UK councilors have taken over. Tameside: 47 uninterrupted years of Labour government lost in a single night. The image is as powerful as it is cruel.
How did the party of Britain’s once-powerful trade unions, the Trades Unions, come to lose the working class to Nigel Farage’s populist right? The answer is that it didn’t happen in two years, but over two decades.
Blair’s New Labour won power by shedding the ideological baggage of the old left, but in doing so, it also severed the organic ties with the working-class communities that had been its raison d’être. Corbyn tried to rebuild that connection from the radical left and failed spectacularly; British society is no longer engaged in class struggle. The left has lost many of its traditional banners, as a significant portion of the demands of the welfare state have been incorporated into our democracies, and the center-right manages them better. Embracing the most outlandish causes—separatism, the Wok movement, cancel censorship, and many other absurdities—has left social democrats ideologically orphaned, and they have failed to evolve. The most successful example is that of Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen, a courageous leader with clear ideas. The current Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) is the complete opposite.
Starmer attempted a return to Blair’s centrist approach without Blair’s charisma, team, or vision. This resounding failure has been underscored by the utter incompetence of the Prime Minister and his government. As a result, millions of Britons—from Yorkshire, Sunderland, and the Midlands—feel unrepresented by any establishment party. And they have found in the eccentric Nigel Farage someone who, at least, speaks to them on the same wavelength.
To this structural erosion is added the scandal that has acted as an accelerator of the catastrophe: the Mandelson-Epstein affair. In December 2024, Starmer appointed Peter Mandelson—a historical figure in New Labour, but also a man with documented links to the pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein—as ambassador to Washington. It was a politically incomprehensible appointment. The Security Verification Service had formally advised against granting Mandelson the necessary clearance for such a sensitive post. Downing Street pressured for the process to continue; this was declared by senior official Olly Robbins before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, before being dismissed as a scapegoat. Starmer claims he was not informed of the veto until April 14 of this year. If that is true, it demonstrates a political and managerial ineptitude hardly compatible with the position. If it is not, the problem is even greater. In politics, incompetence and lies, on their own, have a devastating effect on credibility, and combining ineptitude and lack of skill with lies is simply lethal. At least in some democracies. We wish that were the case in Spain as well, where the aforementioned problems are compounded by a toxic ideological radicalism.
The internal rebellion that followed the local elections is the truest reflection of the disaster. By May 12, 92 Labour MPs had publicly demanded that Starmer set a resignation date. Four ministers (the lowest executive rank in the British government) had left the government, including Jess Phillips, the Minister for Child Protection, a resignation with obvious symbolic weight. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood became the most prominent ministerial voice calling for his resignation. On the other side, 103 out of 403 MPs signed a statement of support.
Labour is exactly where no governing party should be: divided in public, in a permanent state of panic in private, unable to act collectively in any direction, and with a government paralysis that is beginning to leave very difficult-to-heal wounds on the British economy.
The markets have already delivered their verdict. The 30-year British Gilt (sovereign bonds traded on the London Stock Exchange) reached 5.81% last Tuesday, its highest level since 1998. The pound weakened against the dollar. Major London-listed banks fell by more than 3% . Political instability has a direct and tangible cost. It is paid by families renewing their mortgages, businesses taking out loans, and the government funding its services. This is not rhetoric: it is financial mathematics—cruel, cold, and relentless.
The succession problem makes finding a way out of this labyrinth even more difficult. Britain’s most popular politician is Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester. His “Manchesterism”—economic pragmatism with a redistributive focus—resonates with both the progressive urban electorate and the working class in the north. But Burnham is not a Member of Parliament. He himself has confirmed that he will stand for the Makerfield constituency in the by-election scheduled for June 18. This time, Starmer will not be able to block Burnham. The other candidates lack the moral authority, charisma, and influence necessary to reunify a social electoral coalition fractured on all sides. Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, who comes from the more centrist wing of Labour, fails to convince the left. Angela Rayner, the former Deputy Prime Minister, remains tainted by her own tax scandal, even though she has been exonerated. In this vacuum, Farage thrives.
Reform UK is polling between 25 and 30 percent, double what it achieved in the 2024 general election. Electoral models project that, with that percentage applied to the single-member constituency system, Reform UK would win an absolute majority in Westminster. This should prompt serious reflection among all of us who believe in liberal democracy and Atlanticism: not because Farage is necessarily the monster some portray him to be, but because his rise is a symptom of a fever that no conventional political remedy is curing.
At the same time, and from the left, Zack Polanski’s Green Party has surpassed 180,000 members, more than the Conservatives themselves, and polls show it hovering around 15%. Labour and the Tories share the same projected 17%. The two-party system that underpinned British democracy for a century is in the process of collapse.
Those of us who have followed British politics for decades know the resilience of its institutions. But what is happening now is qualitatively different; it is much more serious, profound, and worrying. It is not an isolated scandal. It is not a one-off recession. It is not a poor election result that will be rectified in the next election. It is the simultaneous convergence of several major crises: a crisis of representation, a low-intensity but long-lasting and increasingly impactful economic crisis, and a reshaping of the party landscape that has been brewing for years and which the May elections have accelerated dramatically.
The current drama will not be resolved by Starmer’s departure. His exit, whether orderly or chaotic, is now just a matter of time. What will not be resolved is the underlying crisis of the United Kingdom: a country that has spent years debating its identity instead of addressing its real problems, that exported the best traditions of liberal parliamentarianism to the world, and that now struggles to preserve a system that allows for rational, serious, and competent government.
The United Kingdom urgently needs leadership capable of speaking simultaneously to the City and Tameside, to Oxford graduates and Clyde dockworkers. Such leadership is not yet in sight. It may not be Burnham, and it certainly isn’t Farange. Until a strong, moderate, competent, and reliable leader emerges, the social and political divide will continue to widen.
*Gustavo de Arístegui is a diplomat and was ambassador to India, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka (2012-2016) gustvodearistegui.substack.com