The Conundrum Of Labour’s Unpopularity

A year and a half ago Labour was elected with a historic majority, giving them the power to shape the country however they want.

Since that election victory the party is historically unpopular and changes have been slow and almost unnoticeable to most.

Despite this, nobody can truly seem to agree on where it is that the government has gone wrong. Regardless of political persuasion, people are unhappy. Starmer is painted as a radical socialist by right wing media, while left wingers see him as a Conservative in a red tie, continuing the legacy of austerity.

Media coverage has focused mainly focused on scandals, continuing the politics as a soap opera approach to coverage that has been the norm since Boris Johnsons time in office.

The unpopularity of the government itself isn’t so surprising, internally there has been constant rebellions and infighting, many flagship reforms have been backtracked on, U-turns seem to happen every other week.

But the level of vitriol surrounding Starmer is staggering, for a man who has built a public persona of being as inoffensive as possible.

Credit Wikimedia Commons / Manuel Gegenhuber

Robbie Scott, 21, moved away from Labour due to their economic policy, after voting for them in 2024. He sees them as too moderate, continuing the Conservatives policies in many respects.

He is the now the Green Party candidate for Ouseburn ward in Newcastle.

“I think the country was just looking for something different, and they believed that they (Labour) could do something better, that’s what Labour promised us.

“When I voted them in I thought maybe things would be a bit better now.

“What turned me away from Labour is that two years into this government things feel very much the same.

“Labour has always had a history of being an economically redistributive movement, I think they’ve turned away from that.

“They’re limiting their commitments to nationalising transport, nationalising utilities, not meeting their promises on energy bills, they’ve refused to implement more progressive tax measures.

“They’ve got a historic majority, but they only seem to want to tinker around the edges, we expected more and until they do more I don’t think people will go back to them.”

This feeling that Labour has failed to meet expectations is common among voters.

This is despite Full Fact’s government tracker showing that a vast majority of Labour’s promises have been fulfilled or on their way to being so.

This disconnect between what the government has been doing and how people perceive the governments work could be put down to a lack of communications strategy.

IPSOS polling from late 2025 showed that although people were broadly supportive of government policies in a vacuum, the public knowledge if such policies was incredibly low.

This allows for online echo chambers to take up the information space.

Credit: James Nicod

Reports have shown huge amounts of misinformation is flooding social media, claims that Starmer is implementing national curfews, a £500 Christmas decoration tax, or that the government will be requiring ‘access cards’ for the NHS.

Despite the videos being shared being fairly easy to recognise as Ai, many have fallen for them nonetheless.

Online misinformation can’t explain all of Labours woes however.

Chris Lloyd, the political editor of The Northern Echo sees the vitriol towards Starmer as a product of the traditional Labour vote swinging to the right, as well as the prevalence of online echo chambers in modern politics.

“This is all a product of changing times, Labours traditional voter base, especially in the North East, has moved right, due to issues like Brexit, Labour has entirely alienated them.

“There were also great expectations coming out of the election, Labour had a landslide win, mostly on the back of Tory unpopularity it must be said, but since then they’ve just made very bad decisions.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Number 10

“They means tested the Winter Feul Payment for some pensioners, their welfare cuts didn’t go down well, but they’ve also been very unlucky, especially with Trump.

“Trump is a master at controlling the political conversation, at home and internationally, and Starmer has struggled to break through there.

“Starmer is not a good communicator, Tony Blair had a clear message when he was campaigning, people knew where he stood and they could connect with it.

“Starmer has none of that, nobody knows what he stands for, even political commentators struggle to see where he stands on things.”

In terms of the unique vitriol Starmer is subject to, Lloyd contributes that to social media.

“Starmer is a decent man, it’s nonsense to say he’s weak.

“You can’t be the director of public prosecutions, the leader of a political party and then Prime Minister by being weak, he’s an incredibly successful person.

“I’ve been surprised to see how the Tory’s have attacked him personally at PMQs, it seems that their strategy is to create viral clips, they think they can take out a political party by taking out their main politician.

“I certainly don’t think Starmer has been a great Prime Minister, but him being the worst ever, which is what polling suggest, is a sign of our current political environment.

“There’s no nuance, you have accusations flying around all over the place, and that is the fault of these online echo chambers, people believe what they want to believe.

“I find it hard to see how Starmer can break out of that.”