Ben Anderson, Durham University
Keir Starmer resigned as Labour leader with opinion polls indicating he was the most unpopular prime minister in modern times. This is despite the fact he had secured the second-highest postwar parliamentary majority only two years earlier.
But over those two years, “Keir Starmer is a wanker” was chanted at anti-asylum protests, in football grounds, at festivals and during televised darts competitions. Facebook and X feeds were full of anti-Starmer content. “Vote Reform, Get Starmer Out” was Reform UK’s campaign slogan at the May local elections.
The left and right had their own favourite (albeit contradictory) reasons as to why he should be disliked. But there was something strange about this vehemently hostile public mood towards such a sober, unemotional politician. It seemed to go beyond the normal anger that many prime ministers face from opponents.
The politics of feeling
Dislike, even apparent hatred, of Starmer was only partially about his performance as prime minister. It also exemplifies what Anna Secor and I call the “politics of feeling” in our book of the same name. We argue that in the turbulent period since the 2008 financial crisis, politics in the UK and US has no longer been about coherent ideology expressed through policy and programmes.
We argue that, instead, political movements such as right-wing populism or left progressivism now offer people a way of feeling about the past and the future. They offer intensity and attachment as people live with insecurity in the post-2008 world. Feelings also connect and disconnect people. Some would have felt elated, sad, relieved, or nothing much at all on Starmer’s resignation. That reaction alone is enough to connect voters to like-minded others.
A key condition for “Starmer hate” was how Labour won its “loveless landslide” in the 2024 general election. In the book, we show how centrist politicians struggled in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to regain their political hegemony amid challenges from populists and progressives.
Labour’s general election campaign responded to this challenge in two ways. First, the party offered the promise of “change” to try to resonate with a longstanding public desire for something different, as expressed in events like Brexit.
Second, it claimed that politics will, once again, tread lightly on people’s lives. Being boring was made into a virtue in comparison with the antics and stunts of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and other right-wing populists. What was offered was being able to detach from politics while some kind of positive change happened.
These promises helped to secure the landslide in a context of voters’ exhaustion with the Conservatives after 14 years of government. But it was the lack of love that made Starmer a prime target for strong feelings. The absence of attachment meant that Starmer soon became the repository for a range of longstanding frustrations and grievances. These intensified when people didn’t immediately see or feel the change they desired.
From the left, Starmer’s position on issues such as immigration betrayed the faint hope for progressive change that some had placed in him. From the far-right, Starmer became the latest example of a corrupt elite or establishment that had betrayed the British people.
Little positive attachment to Starmer meant there was no constituency of supporters to push back against the intensifying anger and outrage that social media both created and depended on. That maelstrom of negative feelings could stick to Starmer because his political style placed him firmly within the centrist, technocratic tradition that was being rejected.
Equivocation, flatness and what was often judged as an absence of political commitment stood in stark contrast to the self-confidence and ease of figures as politically diverse as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and New York mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Hatred is intense, and that intensity is central to today’s politics of feeling. And so an apparent hatred of Starmer is about the experience of feeling something intensely – and the difference this makes to people’s everyday lives. Intense feeling interrupts boredom, loneliness and other kinds of ordinary malaise. And in uncertain and anxious times, hate offers the illusion of reassurance. It establishes an unequivocal position against something.
What’s more, sharing the same strong feeling with others – even if it is a negative one – is a collective experience. Chanting “Keir Starmer is a wanker” with other people might be nihilistic, or even aggressive, but it is also a way of connecting with strangers who feel the same way.
Strong feelings about Starmer will fade. But the conditions that meant contempt and loathing became part of UK politics remain. If Andy Burnham becomes the next prime minister, how he responds to those conditions and today’s politics of feeling will be vital to the success of his political project.
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Ben Anderson, Professor of Geography, Durham University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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