Liverpool, England —

A year ago, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won the largest majority in Parliament this century and consigned the Conservatives, Labour’s historic rival, to its worst defeat. Now, after 15 months in power, Starmer has become the most unpopular British prime minister on record.

Although previous leaders have joined despised foreign wars, bungled responses to a pandemic and nearly sent the economy into meltdown, none have been as unpopular as Starmer, according to Ipsos, a leading pollster. Just 13% of voters say they are satisfied with Starmer, while 79% are unsatisfied.

Labour has “suffered the worst-ever fall in support for a newly elected government,” said John Curtice, the doyen of polling in Britain. But he is not surprised: Thanks to Britain’s electoral system, Labour won about two-thirds of seats with just one-third of the votes cast. Accounting for low turnout, Curtice said just one in five Britons voted for Starmer’s Labour Party. As landslides go, Starmer’s was loveless.

Things have only gotten worse since then. Labour has slumped to around 20% in recent polls, while Reform UK – the upstart hard-right party led by firebrand Nigel Farage – has surged to around 35%, the same share that Labour won last year. Many in Labour fear they face handing Reform UK a majority as large as their own in the next election, due in 2029.

That fear hung over Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, on England’s northwestern coast, where members of