Will Britain’s New Prime Minister Miss the Moment?
Brexit and Trump are both products of politicians stuck playing defense.
Max Mottola is a communications intern at the Renew Democracy Initiative, which publishes The Next Move. He is a student at the University of Chicago, where he is studying political science and economics.
Last Monday, Andy Burnham became the seventh prime minister of the United Kingdom in the decade following Brexit. If ever there were a data point that illustrated leaders failing to meet the moment, this is it.
Burnham’s immediate predecessor, Keir Starmer, announced his resignation last month. Starmer squandered a landslide Labour Party victory to become one of the most unpopular prime ministers on record.
That’s no small feat considering who came before Starmer: Liz Truss’s 45-day tenure was outlived by a head of lettuce, while Boris Johnson partied at 10 Downing Street while his poor handling of Covid yielded needless deaths.
Ultimately, Starmer’s historically bad numbers stemmed from his inability to deal with the economic grievances that plagued prior governments while the Iran War made things even worse. Impatience was mounting before Starmer even took office. The frustrations that drove Brexit—from immigration to the economy—have only intensified in the decade since the referendum.
Voters took a chance on Starmer’s Labour Party for the first time since the referendum to leave the European Union (Starmer is also the first Labour premier since 2010). Ten years on, most Brits want to rejoin the EU, yet institutional hurdles stand in the way. Accession requires the Council of the EU’s unanimous approval and a years-long negotiation process. The EU has changed in the absence of its noncontiguous free-thinking former member, and the UK’s unceremonious departure complicates a smooth homecoming. Neverending debate without a clear path to accession may simply antagonize voters seeking immediate economic relief.
Meanwhile, discontent over the Labour/Conservative duopoly ultimately empowered fringe excesses. The same appetite for change that saw the Tories lose control in 2024 energized radical ideologies, expanding the two party system into a five (perhaps now even six) party contest.
Nigel Farage drove Brexit and benefited from it. His far-right Reform UK is surging in British election polls.
Reform supporters have conveniently forgotten that Farage was the original face of the Brexit movement and thus the person most responsible for the current predicament. Populist parties like Reform thrive on voters’ short memories and appetite for distraction. In this case, Reform found an easy diversion in the tried-and-true practice of scapegoating immigrants. Farage profits from sensationalist claims intended to spark outcry, like false accusations of government housing programs prioritizing immigrants. Nativist rhetoric will only get louder with images flashing across phone screens of thousands of Moroccans pouring over the Spanish border in Ceuta.
“Before long many will be crossing the English Channel,” Farage wrote on X of the people streaming into Spain’s North African exclave.
Brexit lowered immigration from EU countries, but post-Brexit immigration reforms, including relaxed restrictions on work visas, increased non-EU immigrants. The far right responded by fearmongering around assimilation concerns and the demographic “risk” to white Christians.
Starmer tried to counter Reform’s growing influence with a rightward pivot, doubling the wait for permanent settlement status, ending recruitment of overseas care workers, and declaring in a controversial speech that Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers.” It’s unclear how Burnham will tackle immigration, but he has kept on Starmer’s home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, who limited pathways to citizenship for migrants and refugees alike.
American readers might find this pattern familiar. Donald Trump was first elected president in the same year that the Brexit referendum passed, tapping into many of the same grievances as Farage: immigration, race, and economic anxiety among them. Like Britain’s hapless post-Brexit prime ministers, many of Trump’s opponents have tried to imitate the monster they’re fighting rather than offer an alternative.
With immigration a top voter concern in 2024, Kamala Harris mirrored her British counterparts by adopting a more hardline stance on the border to try to match Trump. She compromised on her previously held positions. For example, Harris was among Democrats in 2020 to advocate for decriminalizing border crossings, rendering illegal entry into the country a civil rather than criminal offense and freeing up resources while ensuring more humane treatment of migrants. Yet the vice president retreated from that opinion four years later.
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In the sole Trump-Harris debate, Harris failed to fact check her opponent when he falsely claimed that there were “millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.” She could’ve also pointed out that the first Trump administration deliberately separated thousands of children from their families, an inhumane policy rejected by 69% of Americans. Instead, Harris cited voting for a bipartisan border bill that Senator James Lankford called “by far the most conservative border security bill in four decades.” The bill, if passed, would’ve restricted asylum access and staffed the southern border with 1,500 additional agents.
Trying to outflank a Trump or Farage on immigration by turning right is morally questionable and strategically unsound. When the immigration issue devolves into a competition over who is “tougher” on border security, right-wing populists, who aren’t constrained by moral or factual guardrails, tend to win out.
Instead, mainstream leaders from center-left to center-right should offer an alternative that provides for a secure border while offering humane outcomes for immigrants. If these leaders want to actually lead, they must not be afraid to set the terms of the discourse and confidently frame their arguments in an effort to sway public opinion. It takes time, discipline, and skilled messengers to alter the views of a critical mass, but difficult work must be undertaken when it comes to combating far-right demagogues. Pivoting back across the pond, we should remember that David Cameron’s decision to call a referendum on Brexit was ultimately the consequence of playing on his populist opponents’ turf.
Lawmakers should start with a change in messaging that centers immigrant contributions, making it clear that immigration provides a great benefit to our society. They should confidently dispel widely circulated falsehoods that immigrants disproportionately commit crimes, drain public resources, and are a drag on the economy. James Talarico, the Democratic US Senate nominee in Texas—an R+6 state on the southern border—is leading the charge, posting on his campaign website that “our border should be like a front porch—it should have a welcome mat out front and a lock on the door.”
On the legislative front, Congress should push to undo draconian border deterrence policies that cause needless deaths, and instead invest in hiring more immigration judges and humanitarian aid workers to expedite the asylum application process and protect human lives. Legislators should expand skills-based legal immigration and pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, starting with those who qualify under DACA, those who’ve lived in the US for 10 years or more, parents of service members, and business owners. They should resume targeted humanitarian parole programs that have historically lowered border crossings. Lastly, they should go for the root of the issue by resuming the Biden administration’s effort to provide humanitarian aid to Central American countries, disincentivizing southern border crossings through peaceful means.
The Democratic and Labour approach to dealing with the far right has been rooted in a backwards-looking politics of defense. Before Trump and Farage, perhaps it would’ve been prudent to take a page out of the opposition’s playbook if voters seem more receptive to it. That strategy isn’t viable when the opposition is unrestrained by norms and ethics. Populist, nativist rhetoric demands a confident, head-on approach.
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I agree: the right has to be confronted on our own ground, not theirs.
At the same time, we should remember that the fears about migrants stoked by populists of every kind are absolutely real to citizens. The ancient Us-vs-Them instinct works without fail. And the greater the uncertainty about the future, the less controllable that fear becomes.
That is why an offensive on this front cannot be merely confident or logical. The context has to be changed. The key is to make sure the dividing line does not run along national borders.
It can be a broadly humanist context. Or a historical one. Or it can be built around shared qualities: the desire for freedom and democracy, care for one’s children, the wish to become part of something larger, and so on.
And, of course, visuals - because where would we be without them - that appeal to people’s sense of justice, compassion, empathy, and belonging to a great country that knows how to be both generous and strong.
Show migrants not as pitiful, hounded refugees, and certainly not as criminals and freeloaders, but as strong, responsible people who want to work, earn a living, and live with dignity.