Explainer: Why has Britain had seven prime ministers in 10 years?

Explanation : The joke is this: how do you know when it’s time to check the batteries in your smoke detector?

Answer: When the UK will appoint its next Prime Minister.

British prime ministers have had an incredibly short shelf life over the past decade, and Britain has become very familiar with the ritual of a dejected leader standing before the melancholy brick walls of 10 Downing Street, as Sir Keir Starmer did on Monday, announcing that he would step down as leader of the Labor Party and prime minister after just two years.

Starmer’s resignation gives the UK its seventh prime minister since July 2016, when David Cameron’s six years in office – which now seems a rather leisurely tenure – ended. Since then, not a single prime minister has served a full term.

Former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham appears ready to accept the somewhat poisoned chalice, but will he succeed where a host of leaders have failed – and what is the reason for the revolving door of leadership anyway?

As in New Zealand, the British parliamentary system does not require a general election to change prime minister. If a party loses confidence in its leader, a prime minister can resign before a humiliating leadership vote forces him out. And in the last ten years, this has happened five times.

“I think people on the street are quite skeptical about British politics at the moment,” BBC correspondent Rob Watson told RNZ. Morning report.

“I mean, that’s why we’re here because British voters very quickly seem to become very angry and very impatient with prime ministers and politicians. That then leads to their parties getting rid of them.”

There are many factors behind this shift: the lingering fallout from the Brexit vote and the 2008 economic crisis, as well as growing calls for electoral reform of the UK’s first-past-the-post system. This system produced results such that Labor received 33.7% of the vote in 2024, while securing a massive majority of 174 seats in the House of Commons.

“Most Britons want electoral reform and have wanted it for some time,” said Robert Patman, a professor of international relations at the University of Otago.

“And the two-party system, Conservative and Labor, has largely resisted this trend. So there is enormous disenchantment with the major parties.”

Chris Ogden, professor of global studies at the University of Auckland, said Starmer faced strong headwinds.

“Despite a large majority, Starmer inherited a country beset by deep-rooted economic and social problems, and an impatient public, fueled by social media, who expected rapid and successful change.

“The growing popularity of the far-right Reform Party has exacerbated these pressures, making its position appear existential for the country, its party and mainstream politics.”

Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist party, Reform UK, has consistently topped the polls for more than a year.

British writer and academic André Spicer recently told RNZ that expectations from leaders had created a cycle of over-promising and under-promising that was leading to increasingly short political careers.

“They realize very quickly that, firstly, you cannot deliver on many of the promises you have made. A senior official often tells you that as prime minister you can achieve one or two things. And you have promised hundreds, if not thousands.”

Paradoxically, Watson said that while polls indicate people are fed up with the status quo in Britain, they are also fed up with changes in leadership.

“Voters always say they hate it when parties engage in infighting and change.”

Since David Cameron, not a single prime minister has passed the three-year mark in power, led by Liz Truss’s dubious honor of becoming the shortest-serving leader in UK history with just 49 days in total in 2022.

Therese May: 3 years and 12 days

Boris Johnson: 3 years, 45 days

Rishi Sunak: 1 year, 255 days

Keir Starmer: 2 years, about 13 days so far

Well, sort of. This certainly seems to have started the turmoil.

Cameron campaigned against the Brexit vote for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union and, when it narrowly passed, he announced his resignation.

Ten years later, the impact of Brexit on the United Kingdom is being reconsidered and many economists argue that it has had a negative impact on the British economy.

“This has been a financial disaster, as many predicted,” Patman said, calling the move “probably the worst political decision since appeasement in the 1930s.”

Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, was also unseated by Brexit when she failed to gain parliamentary support for her plan to withdraw from the EU.

“There is a clear trend towards joining the EU,” Patman said. “And it will happen, I think.”

Boris Johnson, by contrast, has been humiliated by a series of escalating scandals, including parties at 10 Downing Street that broke Covid-19 lockdown rules.

Her successor, Liz Truss, was quickly sidelined over controversial tax plans, and her lasting moment of viral fame was having her tenure compared to the longevity of a head of lettuce.

Rishi Sunak, the first prime minister of Indian origin, succeeded Truss but also shouldered the burden of the Conservative Party’s troubles. Instead of being rejected by the party, he lost his job when Starmer’s Labor Party won a landslide victory in the 2024 election, returning Labor to Downing Street for the first time in 14 years.

The consensus is that the 2024 election was more of a referendum on the Conservative Party’s long run at the top than wholehearted support for Starmer, and the first-past-the-post system gave Labor a large majority.

“The change is starting now, and it feels good!” Starmer said at the time.

But Starmer has increasingly been painted with the image of ineffective and indecisive by the British press. His former adviser Peter Mandelson proved to be close to Jeffrey Epstein, and the Labor Party’s crushing defeat in the local elections in May sealed his fate.

“I think Starmer, one of the reasons he fell, has a good intellect, but I don’t think he has good political instincts,” Patman said.

Ogden said Starmer’s charisma was also an issue.

“In the absence of an easily digestible vision, combined with a lack of personal charisma, a series of policy reversals have reduced the authority and control of the prime minister.”

The lingering impact of Brexit has also played a role in debates over whether it should be abandoned.

“One of the reasons Starmer fell is because Starmer just couldn’t solve this problem,” Patman said, while pointing out that his likely successor, Burnham, has spoken out in favor of electoral reform and is pro-EU.

Watson said that although Burnham is seen as a “sunnier, more approachable and obviously likeable” person than Starmer, he still faces serious obstacles, including the popularity of Farage’s Reform UK.

“Based on what happened to Keir Starmer and his five predecessors, all of whom proved incredibly unpopular, logic would suggest that perhaps Andy Burnham will suffer the same fate as the others.

“I think it’s because if you step back from all of this, the challenges that Britain faces… the economic challenges, the social challenges, the public service challenges, I mean, they’re just not going to go away, Andy Burnham will face them.”

Political parties like the Conservatives and Labor are “in big trouble”, Patman said, but he felt more optimistic about Burnham.

“I think (Burnham) has a chance, but I think he has to show some real courage,” Patman said. “People like Farage are very powerful and very well financed.”

“My hunch is that Burnham could do well,” he said, calling him a “street fighter.”

“He is combative, and I think he has understood the two issues that need to be resolved quickly, which is electoral reform, and in fact he is much more proactive in building relations with the EU.”

Watson said the problems facing the country run deep.

“Part of Britain’s problem is a kind of cloud of sadness, despair and pessimism that has descended on this country since the financial crisis of 2008 and then exacerbated in 2016.

“Maybe if you had a leader who was a little sunnier, it might improve the weather more generally from a political standpoint. I mean, that’s what we’re about to find out.”