Less than two years after Keir Starmer stood on the steps of Downing Street promising stability, the Labour Party is in open civil war. By the middle of May, more than 95 Labour MPs had publicly called on the Prime Minister to resign or set a timetable for his departure. A serving cabinet minister, four junior ministers and four ministerial aides have walked out. This is not a wobble. It is a collapse of authority at the very top of government.

And while they tear lumps out of each other, the country waits. Waits for the cost of living to ease. Waits for the boats to stop. Waits for a government that does what it was elected to do. The people of Preston East did not vote for a soap opera. They voted for someone to run the country.

A Mandate Squandered in Record Time

Cast your mind back to July 2024. Labour won a landslide of seats on a thin share of the vote, and Starmer told us the era of chaos was over. The grown-ups were back. Eighteen months on, his own Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has resigned citing a lack of confidence in his leadership. When the people closest to you decide you are the problem, the public has every right to ask why they should think any different.

The net approval rating of this government sank to minus 57 in the spring — as low as the Conservatives managed in the dying days before their 2024 wipeout. Labour told the country the Tories were uniquely incompetent. In record time they have matched them and arguably surpassed them. That is not bad luck. That is a failure of governing.

The Real Casualty Is the Country

A government consumed by a leadership contest is a government that has stopped working for you. Every hour spent counting votes for the next leader is an hour not spent on the small boats, the NHS waiting lists or the tax burden crushing working families. Westminster is staring at its own navel while Britain's problems pile up.

This is the rotten heart of two-party politics. Labour and the Conservatives treat Downing Street as a prize to be won and a trophy to be defended, not a responsibility to be discharged. The leadership manoeuvring, the briefing, the resignations timed for maximum damage — none of it has anything to do with the lives of ordinary people. It is a private game played at the public's expense.

Stability Was the Whole Promise

Starmer's single offer to the British people was competence and calm. Strip that away and there is nothing left. He cannot deliver his agenda because he no longer commands his party. He cannot reshuffle his way out because the talent has resigned in protest. He says he will "stay the course," but a captain whose crew is in mutiny is not steering the ship — he is simply refusing to let go of the wheel.

What Reform UK Would Do

Reform UK offers something the old parties cannot: a clear purpose and the discipline to pursue it. We are not interested in the endless psychodrama of who sits in which office. We are interested in controlled immigration, lower taxes on working people, and public services that actually serve the public.

Voters across the country are drawing the obvious conclusion. In council chambers from the West Midlands to Wales, they are turning to Reform because we talk about their priorities, not ours. Labour is proving by the day that it cannot govern itself, let alone the country. Britain deserves better than a Prime Minister hanging on for his own sake. It deserves a government with a backbone and a plan.