Labour should go back to the country and secure a fresh mandate if they change leader and select a new Prime Minister, Brexit pioneer Nigel Farage said, with a nod back to the last Conservative era when the former party of government undermined public faith in politics by constantly changing Prime Minister.
While long periods of unbroken power by Prime Ministers was long the norm in the United Kingdom with Margaret Thatcher in office 11½ years, Tony Blair 10 years, and John Major 6½ years, in the past decade the speed of change has been rapid. Rishi Sunak remained in office less than two years and present incumbent Sir Keir Starmer already has the sharks circling, with talk of an impending coup filling every newspaper for weeks.
The political churn, some believe, has damaged public faith in politics as a real means to solve Britain’s collective problems and as an exercise in democracy. It also presents some opportunities: Starmer allies have taken to gently threatening a snap election as the cost for leadership change, a vote the plotters presumably understand they couldn’t hope to win.
A key beneficiary of any snap election would, of course, be poll-topping Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, who makes no bones at all about hoping for a fresh vote as soon as possible to get his party into power. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he said yes, there should be a new national general election if Labour tries to change horses mid-stream to improve democratic legitimacy. He said: “The public have had enough of prime ministers constantly changing.”
Given the now decade-long state of flux in national politics, a great British realignment that is breaking down old parties and allegiances and appears likely to replace the previous century-old status quo, the chance to cause upsets now has an outsize potential to force permanent change. As reported, Britain’s Labour Party is undergoing to same slow-motion evisceration the Conservative Party already has as changing demographics and political loyalties rendering its dogma obsolete.