Even as the UK changes prime ministers, voters now expect to hear the language of populism

Beyond the drama surrounding the Makerfield by-election and the race for British prime minister lies a more fundamental battle. It is the struggle between the progressive pragmatism of mainstream politics and the magical thinking of populism.

The big watchword of recent British politics has been “change”. Brexit, it was said, would change the country’s declining position in the world. Boris Johnson said after his landslide electoral victory in 2019 that he would tackle “problems that no government has had the courage to tackle before”.

Work 2024 election manifestotitled “Change”, said a Starmer-led government would “stop the chaos, turn the page and start rebuilding our country”.

Read more: English local elections 2026: the story of a new kind of politics

But people have different ideas about what change means and how quickly it can happen. In a world filled with unequal, entrenched social structures and complex, intractable global problems, change is inevitably a long-term project. But voters tend not to care about long-term evaluation.

Likewise, they are not impressed by charts showing that the British economy is currently the fastest growing in the G7 or that waiting times for NHS treatment in England are at their lowest level in more than three years.

There is undoubtedly better ways to communicate long-term change and identification of quick wins than those adopted by the current government. However, the real battle is not between rival narrators of the dominant narrative, but between two completely different conceptions of change. It will be crucial for Andy Burnham to remember this when he takes on Reform UK in the presidential election. Makerfield by-election in his bid to return to Westminster to challenge Keir Starmer for Labor leader and prime minister.

Feelings over facts

Populist leaders succeed not because they have more compelling policies for building housing, ending child poverty, or ensuring energy security. The change they propose appeals to visceral feelings rather than material needs. “Imagine how you will feel the day we come to power,” they say. “Think about how upset all those people who ignored you, criticized you, took your job and jumped ahead of you in line for services will be. »

Populists like Reform UK (according to current polls (the party most likely to win the next UK general election) are less interested in crafting a policy agenda than in connecting with the frayed nerves of voters.

Which is why the most crucial lesson for Labor from the 2026 local elections was not their devastating defeat, but the unstoppable rise in the Reform Party’s appeal among voters that threatened to leave them on the margins at the next general election. The Labor Party’s knee-jerk response was to consider removing its leader. And perhaps at least one of Starmer’s rivals for the job would be more effective in confronting this new form of political opposition.

However, it is more important to clarify what the fight against populism entails. A new prime minister will face exactly the same challenges as the current one and will not be able to bring about transformative change simply through the force of an attractive personality.

Europe will still be embroiled in its longest war since 1945. The United States will continue to be an unreliable partner. The climate emergency will continue to wreak havoc. Social protection for an aging population will remain a major challenge. The national debt will always limit public investment capacity. Regional disparities and indefensible social inequalities will always exist.

All of these challenges, and more, will result in sections of the electorate feeling alienated and disappointed – the same feelings on which populism depends.

The big question for whoever becomes prime minister in the next three years is not just about policy and implementation (although there is a lot of that too), but about offering an alternative to the psychic appeal of populism. This will involve adopting a three-point strategy.

First, politicians must recognize the deep disappointment felt by people whose parents and grandparents once believed that the government was there to take care of them in their time of need. The Prime Minister should declare an urgent mission to build a cradle-to-grave care infrastructure that exists not to tell people how they should feel, but to be democratically accountable for their needs and priorities as individuals and communities.

Secondly, there is a need for a complete overhaul of political languageled by the example of the Prime Minister, avoiding the lexicon of technocratic clichés and adopting the conversational tone of talking with people rather than addressing people.

Third, we must be bold in denouncing the ugly sentiments of populism and explicitly appealing to the more generous and positive feelings and beliefs of the majority that are too often excluded from the realm of hard-line politics.

A new prime minister will have to be imaginative to demonstrate that populists are not the only ones who can appeal to the population’s deepest apprehensions and desires. And they will need to show that politics can be more like an inclusive conversation than a PowerPoint presentation. In this case, the recent soap opera may not be as insignificant as many people think.