UK PM under siege after historic midterms

The May 7 UK midterm election results were genuinely historic. For the first time, nationalist parties that would like to see their countries leave the UK are now in power in all three “devolved” legislatures in Cardiff (Plaid Cymru/PC), Edinburgh (Scottish Nationalist Party/SNP) and also Northern Ireland (Sinn Fein).

However, the framing of the May 7 results in recent days has centered much more around how exceptionally poor they were for the UK’s governing Labour Party led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. So much so that his remaining time in office may possibly now be measured in weeks or months, rather than years, with multiple rivals including Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and former Cabinet minister Wes Streeting arguing they are better placed to help Labour recover its political mojo.

In England, elections were held in 136 councils. These local government ballots saw Labour lose around 1,500 council seats, while Reform UK, which is led by US President Donald Trump’s ally Nigel Farage, won over 1,400.

To put these numbers in historical context, no UK governing party has ever won the next general election after losing so many council/local government seats. Previously, the largest number of defeated councillors in England in a single local ballot for a UK government that went on to win the next general election was the Conservatives in 1981 who lost about 1,200. This was Margaret Thatcher’s first government and she won reelection in 1983 after the Falklands war changed the UK political landscape in her favor.

In Wales, Labour went from first to third place, losing power in the Cardiff legislature for the first time since it was created more than a quarter of a century ago with right-wing, populist Reform UK finishing second behind the leftist PC.

In the Edinburgh legislature, the leftist SNP won a first straight term of office, in a country that was formerly a Labour stronghold. Reform UK and Labour finished in joint second with 17 seats.

Since the results emerged on May 8-9, political pressure on Starmer has intensified. At the time of writing, at least 90 of more than 400 Labour MPs have called for the prime minister to resign.

The UK has entered an intensified period of instability since the May 7 midterm elections.

Andrew Hammond

There have also been a relatively small number of resignations from the government. This includes so far one Cabinet minister, former Health Secretary Streeting, who may challenge for the leadership in coming weeks, a contest that would — de facto — change the prime minister.

This is a challenging situation for Starmer, yet it is — so far — different in scale from mass resignations that saw a number of other recent prime ministers leave office, including Boris Johnson in 2022. Then more than 60 ministers walked out, including many in the Cabinet.

Nonetheless, Starmer has been weakened by developments over the past week. A number of former and current ministers are considering making a challenge, including Streeting, former Deputy PM Angela Rayner, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, and Defense Minister Al Carns.

However, it may potentially be that the most serious challenge to Starmer emerges from Burnham, who currently has no seat in the House of Commons. This is a problem for the mayor as being an MP is a prerequisite to becoming prime minister.

In this context, Burnham will now seek to stand in a special parliamentary by-election in Makerfield, a constituency in Greater Manchester, triggered by Josh Simons MP announcing on Thursday he will stand down for him to have a shot at getting into the House of Commons. Next month is the earliest that the contest could be held, in what may become one of the most consequential UK by-elections in post-1945 UK history.

While Makerfield is part of Burnham’s local mayoral powerbase, and was previously a Labour stronghold, he will face a formidable challenge from Reform UK. Indeed, a number of polling sites, including Electoral Calculus, currently forecast the election as strongly leaning toward Reform UK. For instance, Electoral Calculus currently asserts a greater than 80 percent chance that Reform UK could win the seat.

If Burnham were to win against Reform UK, it would be a positive platform for a later bid to become Labour leader and potentially to become prime minister. To trigger such a leadership challenge, a MP requires the support of at least 5 percent of the number of currently more than 400 Labour MPs which is 81.

Taken together, the UK has entered an intensified period of instability since the May 7 midterm elections. With Burnham’s decision to stand in the Makerfield by-election, the uncertainty may now last weeks, rather than days, at least into the summer.

• Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.