Seven PMs in twelve years: What has gone wrong with British democracy?

Narendra Modi has been India's prime minister for just over 12 years. In that span, the United Kingdom has gone through an astonishing seven prime ministers — from David Cameron and Theresa May to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and now Andy Burnham, who is set to take office today. The British parliamentary system can be seen to be dysfunctional. What has caused the ‘Mother of All Parliaments’ to become so broken?

I believe we can trace this all back to an event that took place in 2016. That was the year that the British people defied the establishment, the media, big business and the commentariat and voted to LEAVE the European Union. The political earthquake that this created cost the then prime minister David Cameron his job. Cameron had campaigned for the UK to REMAIN in the EU, and so his position became instantly untenable. It is suggested that 75 per cent of all MPs in Parliament campaigned for Remain; that was 56 per cent of Conservative MPs and 95 per cent of Labour MPs. Here was the huge disconnect in British politics laid bare. 52 per cent of the British people voted to LEAVE, but 75 per cent of MPs voted to REMAIN.

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David Cameron was replaced by fellow Conservative Theresa May. She was also someone who had campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU, so this was sending a signal that the British Conservative government itself, regardless of leader, was still spiritually linked to the EU, even though May pretended that she would respect the vote to leave it. May was prime minister from July 2016 to July 2019. Her time in office was totally dominated by Brexit, including the loss of her parliamentary majority in the 2017 election and repeated defeats over her withdrawal deal. It was obvious that she was lukewarm on Brexit, and this created the space for a leadership challenge in 2019 from Boris Johnson.

Johnson posed as the man who “would get Brexit done", and based on this promise, he won the leadership! In December 2019, Johnson then won a massive majority and became the third Conservative prime minister in three years. Within a year of this, Boris Johnson announced his Brexit deal, which Parliament later approved overwhelmingly. In Johnson’s version, parts of the UK left the EU customs union and single market, free movement ended, and trade continued without tariffs or quotas on goods that meet the rules of origin. It was not a full-throated Brexit, but it was probably the only deal that the rotten Remain Parliament would accept. It's worth pointing out that the political and media class remained hostile to the very idea of Brexit. Johnson got himself mired in scandals, and by September 2022, he was gone, and Britain welcomed its fourth prime minister in the form of Liz Truss.

She was prime minister for 49 days! Like David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, she had ALSO voted to remain in 2016. Her political judgement was calamitously exposed! Her downfall was mainly caused by the mini-budget of 2022 and the market chaos it triggered. The tax-cut plan spooked investors, the pound fell, mortgage costs rose, and her authority collapsed after repeated U-turns and resignations.

Within a month, she was gone, and Rishi Sunak became Britain’s fifth prime minister in October 2022.

Unlike the others, he had campaigned to leave the EU in 2016, but he showed little interest in trying to finish off the work Boris Johnson had started. His downfall was driven by a combination of party fatigue, weak public trust, and a badly received election campaign. He inherited a damaged Conservative Party after Cameron, Johnson and Truss and never quite managed to rebuild enough support. His two-year tenure saw a party hit by defections, internal divisions, and a sense that it looked detached from ordinary voters. Put simply, people were sick of the Conservatives.

In July 2024, after 14 years of chaotic Conservative government, Labour swept to power with a massive majority. As we discussed earlier, Labour was fervently pro-EU, and the new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer had a record of campaigning against Brexit. He was devoted to trying to reverse as much of Brexit as he possibly could, despite promising the British people he would not do so!

Starmer talked of a “reset” with the EU rather than full re-entry. This was subtle but still disingenuous as it went against what people had voted for in the 2016 referendum! His approach focused on closer trade, stronger cooperation on defence and security, a youth mobility scheme, more alignment on rules such as food standards, energy and emissions, and closer education and cultural links. His party supported all of this, but once again the British people were unhappy at having a prime minister who disrespected their wishes. This came to a head two months ago in May when Labour suffered historic defeats in regional elections. Starmer’s fate was sealed and so he resigned just over a week ago.

His replacement, Andy Burnham is set to become prime minister, today, ie, on Monday. What has gone wrong in the UK is that successive governments have refused to fully implement the wishes of the 2016 Brexit referendum. The divide between Parliament and people has therefore never been as great. When this happens, confidence in the political system collapses and chaos prevails.

Out of all this chaos, a major realignment of the British system seems inevitable. The two-party system seems broken, incapable, if not unwilling, to do what the people want done. The man most closely associated with Brexit, Nigel Farage, is now leading in the polls with his new REFORM party, and it looks possible that he may become our eighth prime minister in 2029. Of course, politics is unpredictable, but it seems logical that a political party that supports the popular view of the people is best placed to win power. Britain is going through an existential change, and the hope must be that at the end of it, we have the sort of stability we see in the Indian Parliament.

(David Vance is a political commentator and author. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)