Image: flickr.com
A Labour of Love: Overcoming the Starmer Legacy on Public Opinion
By Invitation: ria littman
3 Minute Read
20th August 2026
Has Starmer Left Labour Without a Fighting Chance?
Certainly, Burnham inherited the party in a difficult situation when it comes to public opinion: Starmer left the party deeply unpopular. But, even with Burnham’s passion and Northern grit, is it salvageable, or does the Labour party face an unfixable crisis?
Increasingly, we are seeing a fragmented political system, with the traditional two-parties rivalled from both left and right with Polanski and Farage fighting it out for the hearts and minds of disillusioned Brits. Many ex-Labour voters are being pulled in one of these directions by the strings of immigration rhetoric or climate change. What did Starmer do to cause this, and are things now looking up?
A Loss of Trust
Under the former Prime Minister, GDP grew moderately, ONS reported a slight rise in unemployment, and national debt that, frankly, looked bleak: all of which have been used against Labour, with many accounts claiming it is fatally wounded. On the ground, it seems the people it matters to are most offended by things like the benefit U-turns, whether it be their initial proposal or their abandonment. Seemingly, Starmer managed to lose trust on both sides of the coin.
The image of competence that he relied on so strongly following the landslide election win seems to have faded within just two years. The polls reflected this sense of sincere disappointment in Starmer from the public, with voting intention dropping from 34% to 17% by March 2026 (POLITICO).
In what was dubbed the Halloween budget, Reeves inspired fears over a squeeze on the already suffocating job market, as rises in the national living wage threatened many small businesses. While many wage workers appreciated the uplift, many others resented the danger to their job security.
Did Starmer fall into the press’ trap of ‘chasing the narrative’? Contentious and provocative issues such as immigration and public spending were integral to the public decline in support for Keir Starmer. In defensive attempts to appease the press and the people it writes to, it seems clear that the party, and indeed its leader, made concessions to the Reform UK immigration narrative; the ‘island of strangers’ speech as one example.
A Soothing Bedtime Story
In a 2017 article, George Monbiot lays out his theory whereby narratives, rather than parties or leaders, control politics and to be successful, one simply needs a compelling story through which people can make sense of what is happening around them. Over rationality, humans are loyal to their chosen narrative, and facts can rarely compete. This, I think, is where Labour have failed: they do not have a story strong enough to compete with that of Reform or the Greens, or even the Tories.
To take on the right, Burnham needs to dispel their anti-establishment narrative, and replace it with one in which Farage is the big bad wolf raking in vast donations from climate change deniers while wildfires ravage our countryside. Starmer did not have such gall to alienate Labour’s big-business friends. Still, Burnham must draft a compelling story, and the opening chapter seems to be putting the cost of living at the forefront. Will this garner a new wave of support for Labour, or is Burnham another story-less Starmer?
Where Does This Leave Burnham?
Currently, they are polling identically to Reform, with 24%, according to POLITICO, holding a Labour voting intention, an increase of 5 percentage points since Burnham’s takeover, suggesting that all is not lost.
Burnham needs to focus on winning back the hearts of those who feel betrayed, and it seems that he is at least a likeable-enough character to be in with a shot of doing so. YouGov’s favourability ratings show Starmer entered No. 10 at net -3, and after 100 days dropped to -26. Burnham is currently at net 3, the highest net rating of an incoming Prime Minister since Theresa May. Despite the honeymoon-period theory, this, surely, can only be positive for the new PM, and a decent foundation for building real public support.