The resignation on 22 June 2026 of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was recently seen as a symbol of returning stability after the chaotic period of Conservative rule, has become further evidence that the crisis in the British political system is not temporary but structural in nature. Over the past ten years, the country has had seven prime ministers, experienced Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, an energy crisis, record inflation, a wave of social protests, and a rise in political radicalism.
Today, Britain faces a question that goes far beyond the internal political struggle between Labour and the Conservatives. It concerns the state’s ability to maintain social stability, fiscal discipline, and investor confidence amid growing societal divisions. For Europe, this issue also holds strategic importance, as instability in one of the continent’s largest economies inevitably affects trade, financial markets, migration policy, and security.
When the Labour Party under Keir Starmer secured a convincing victory in the July 2024 general election, many observers expected an end to the era of political turmoil. After years of Conservative governance marked by Boris Johnson’s scandals, Liz Truss’s record-short premiership, and Rishi Sunak’s economic difficulties, British society hoped for a return to predictability. However, just two years later, it became clear that the structural problems ran deeper than a simple change of ruling party.
Since 2016, the United Kingdom has seen an unprecedented turnover of government leaders. Following the Brexit referendum, the position of prime minister has been held by David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and his successor. Seven heads of government in ten years is a figure more typical of politically unstable states than of one of the world’s oldest parliamentary democracies.
The events of autumn 2022 were particularly damaging to public trust. Liz Truss’s government introduced a large-scale programme of tax cuts without adequate financial backing. Markets reacted instantly: government bond yields soared, the pound sterling fell sharply, and the Bank of England was forced to intervene to prevent a pension system crisis. This episode demonstrated just how sensitive the British economy had become to political decisions.
By 2026, similar concerns were once again returning to the markets. Internal conflicts within the Labour Party, disputes over budget priorities, and poor local election results had created an atmosphere of uncertainty. A serious warning sign came from the local elections, where the rapid rise in support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party highlighted widespread disillusionment with traditional political forces.
The strengthening of Reform UK has become one of the notable political phenomena of recent years. Once viewed as a marginal force inheriting the political capital of the Brexit movement, the party saw a significant shift by 2025. In local elections that year, Reform UK won around 677 seats and took control of eight local councils. Particularly painful for Labour were the losses in traditional industrial regions of England, where the party had long been the undisputed favourite, but lost more than 150 council seats directly to Reform UK.
The growth in popularity of the new political force was driven less by ideology and more by protest voting. For a significant portion of Britons, Reform UK became a tool for expressing discontent over living standards, migration policy, and the authorities’ inability to resolve accumulated social problems. Public opinion polls show declining trust in the government, parliament, and traditional parties. Britain’s political system, long regarded as a model of stability, is now facing a crisis of representation.
Political instability has been accompanied by rising social tensions. Throughout 2025, protests the placement of asylum seekers in state-funded hotels took place across the country. According to official data, tens of thousands of migrants continued to live in hotel complexes at the taxpayer’s expense — a situation that many residents saw as a symbol of the state’s inability to control migration flows.
The protests occurred in various regions of England. In some cases, they were accompanied by clashes with police and counterdemonstrators. Anti-migration slogans spread rapidly on social media, and radical activists used individual crimes to mobilise supporters.
The most resonant events took place in the summer of 2026 in Northern Ireland. After a knife attack on a teenager in Belfast, in which a Sudanese national was suspected, mass riots broke out. Within hours of the news appearing on social media, hundreds of people took to the streets, and over the following days the protests turned violent, with cars and residential buildings set on fire — including properties linked to migrants. Police responded with water cannons and other crowd-control measures, and dozens of arrests were made. Later, thousands of Belfast residents joined anti-racist rallies, highlighting the deep divisions within society.
Experts note that the migration issue served merely as a catalyst for deeper discontent. The real causes lie in the rising cost of living, housing shortages, strained social services, and a general sense of economic insecurity.
Political instability and social conflicts are unfolding against the backdrop of deteriorating public finances. According to the UK Office for National Statistics, government borrowing in May 2026 reached £23.3 billion — the second-highest May deficit on record since the pandemic. Public debt approached 95% of GDP, compared to well below 50% before the 2008 global financial crisis.
The British budget is under pressure from multiple directions. On one hand, the government must maintain large-scale social programmes amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. On the other hand, rising interest rates are making debt servicing increasingly expensive. Added to this are growing defence expenditures driven by the war in Ukraine and the West’s push to strengthen military capabilities. At the same time, economic growth remains low, labour productivity is virtually stagnant, business investment is limited, and the consequences of Brexit continue to affect foreign trade. In practice, the British government faces a choice between three unpopular options: raising taxes, cutting spending, or increasing borrowing. Each carry significant political risks.
Unlike the pre-Brexit period, today’s instability in the United Kingdom affects not only its domestic politics. As the European Union remains the UK’s largest trading partner, any slowdown in the British economy impacts exporters in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and other EU countries.
Rising social tensions over migration could strengthen right-wing populist parties across Europe. Politicians in France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands are closely watching the British experience and using it in their own domestic debates. Defence cooperation is also significant: as one of NATO’s key military powers, any changes in London’s budget priorities could affect collective security programmes. The financial factor remains equally important. London continues to be one of the world’s leading financial centres, meaning rising UK bond yields and higher borrowing costs could trigger a chain reaction in global capital markets.
Analysts are currently considering several possible scenarios. The first assumes stabilisation if the new government leader can maintain fiscal discipline, reduce internal party conflicts, and restore public trust. In this case, the economy would continue slow growth, and social tensions would gradually ease. The second scenario involves further strengthening of populist movements, where growing support for Reform UK could lead to even greater fragmentation of the political landscape and call into question the stability of the traditional two-party system. The third and most dangerous scenario is that if political instability coincides with worsening budget indicators and a new rise in borrowing costs, Britain could face a full-scale fiscal-political crisis with consequences extending far beyond its borders.
The events described show that even mature democracies are not immune to systemic crises. Frequent changes of prime ministers, growing public polarisation, migration conflicts, and deteriorating public finances form a single chain of interconnected challenges that could shape the country’s future for decades to come. The main question is not who will become the next prime minister, but whether Britain can break out of the cycle of political turbulence and restore trust among its citizens and markets before the crisis becomes a long-term factor in the economic weakening of Europe as a whole.