Starmer’s alleged centre has collapsed, and the left was right all along

As of now, just 21% of the British people think Keir “he’s playing a blinder” Starmer is doing well as Prime Minister.

The 70% of us that say he is doing badly — also known as the vast majority — isn’t just a dip, but a crater.

YouGov’s latest tracker puts his net favourability around -48. That’s the kind of rating that is usually reserved for politicians caught in flagrante with an expenses scandal or, in Liz Truss’s case, the iceberg lettuce that outlasted her premiership.

This isn’t some right-wing hit job. These are the cold, hard numbers staring back at a man who once promised “change” the way a dodgy salesman promises a revolutionary vacuum cleaner that turns out to be last year’s pile of shite with a fresh lick of paint.

None of this is particularly surprising – it was just so depressingly predictable.

Starmer’s descent was oh-so predictable

Starmer was elected in 2024 on a platform so fucking vague it could have meant socialism-lite, neoliberalism, or a particularly enthusiastic neighbourhood watch scheme.

Keir Starmer chose the path of least resistance, managerial centrism, served with a side order of ruthless purges of anyone to his left.

This has resulted in a government that has alienated its own base faster than you can say “rules-based international order”, while failing poor and working-class people that it claims to champion.

Look at the last few days alone for the perfect example of why Keir Starmer simply doesn’t get it.

While households brace for yet another surge in energy bills courtesy of the escalating Israel-US illegal war on Iran, Keir Starmer jetted off to Finland for a military summit of the Joint Expeditionary Force.

I’m sure the Starmer-friendly media will call this something like “admirable statesmanship”, but the optics? Chef’s kiss of disaster.

Chaos

Back at home, pensioners and families are staring down higher fuel costs, a cost-of-living that refuses to die, and the grim realisation that Keir Starmer’s New Year’s pledge to bring down living expenses has aged about as well as a pint of full fat milk left out on the hottest day of the year.

This has become so very typical of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer’s leadership. When the people need bread, Labour offers us foreign policy briefings and hope nobody notices the difference.

The Iran-related energy shock is hammering precisely the red wall and working class communities Labour was supposed to protect — the same voters who dragged themselves to the polls in 2024 out of sheer exhaustion with Tory chaos.

Fuel duty rises loom again in September. Winter fuel payments remain rationed like wartime luxuries. And instead of the bold left-wing measures we needed — a proper windfall tax on energy giants that actually bites, serious public investment in renewables that creates unionised jobs, or rent controls to stop tenants being fleeced for every last penny – we get the usual centrist technocratic tinkering.

Starmer’s remaining cheerleaders will trot out the usual excuses about global headwinds, wars, energy shocks, and an Inherited mess, some of which is completely valid because the world is in a particularly sorry state right now.

A left government was and is needed

But I would argue this is exactly why a genuinely left government was needed. A progressive administration would have seized this moment for structural reform by taking energy into full public ownership to shield bill-payers, launching a real Green New Deal that builds hope instead of just targets, and pursuing a foreign policy grounded in diplomacy, peace, and justice rather than automatic alignment with whatever the Washington predator Trump dreams up next.

Instead, we get the politics of the “national interest” that mysteriously always aligns with the City, defence contractors, and endless summits abroad while domestic pain festers.

It’s centrism as performance art — all sensible suits with zero soul.

During the leadership years and early government, the left warned that purging socialist traditions, scrapping or watering down public ownership pledges, and triangulating on welfare and immigration would end in tears.

We were dismissed as unrealistic, divisive, trots, dogs, rabble, and – that favourite insult – “unelectable”. Yet here we are, a Labour government barely 18 months old, polling like it’s already on its deathbed.

The deeper tragedy is what this means for the millions of us who actually need radical change.

Starmer must go. The left was right all along.

Britain in 2026 still grapples with stagnating wages, a crumbling NHS and council services, and a housing crisis that makes Victorian slums look like aspirational living.

Only unashamedly bold, structural solutions can fix these deep-rooted failures. Starmer’s cautious centrism was sold as the safe, adult alternative. In practice, it’s delivered paralysis, broken promises, and the slowest political suicide in recent memory.

You see, the problem isn’t merely that Starmer is deeply unpopular. The problem is that the politics he embodies were never going to inspire the working-class voters Labour exists to serve.

We wanted transformation. We got tweaks.

For Labour to try and miraculously survive, it needs to rediscover what it actually stands for – or step aside for someone that does.

The shocking numbers really don’t lie. Keir Starmer’s centrist politics has failed spectacularly. The left was right all along.

Featured image via the Canary