Jeremy Hunt served as Britain’s foreign secretary from 2018 to 2019 and chancellor of the exchequer from 2022 to 2024.
Britain has its fifth leader in less than five years. Though the Labour Party has overtaken Reform UK in several polls, early tremors in the bond market, driven by uncertainties over Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s agenda, could well lead to more political instability. Has Britain “gone Italian” just as Italy throws off its habit of revolving door prime ministers under Giorgia Meloni?
In fact, Britain’s political instability is far from unique. It is experiencing the same forces destabilizing governments across Europe.
As in many European countries, Britain’s two-party system has fragmented. It is now a five-party (or, in Scotland and Wales, six-party) system. In the 2024 election, just 57.4 percent voted for Labour or the Conservatives, the lowest combined share in modern history. That happened partly because the old class system, which used to be a safe predictor of voting habits, has eroded. Brexit then caused further upheaval, detaching Labour from its working-class base. At the same time, British voters have become more volatile, with over 40 percent changing who they supported between the 2019 and 2024 general elections — an astonishing figure.
But even countries without a traditional two-party system have been dealing with another challenge: the rise of populist parties. They have grown in strength by channeling legitimate grievances about uncontrolled migration or the unequal distribution of opportunity. But it is their mastery of social media that has made them a big threat to mainstream parties. Fear of Reform Party leader Nigel Farage was one of the biggest reasons Labour members of Parliament chose to remove Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
When it comes to social media, maybe mainstream politicians should take a leaf out of President Donald Trump’s book. I remember being sent to Stansted Airport to greet him on his first state visit to Britain in 2019. We waited for the doors of Air Force One to open. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, the president emerged. And the cause of the delay? He was engaging in a Twitter war with Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London. At the time, I thought it was all rather ridiculous. But the three hours he reportedly spent every day of his first term on TV or social media is a formidable part of his armory. No other leader I have met puts such effort into talking to voters even outside campaigns. But putting effort into communication is only the start.
I have worked closely with four prime ministers and concluded that there are three key qualities necessary for effective leadership in a democracy. Firstly, you need to be able to persuade people of the need for change. In Britain, Margaret Thatcher persuaded us (or enough of us) that we needed to embrace enterprise and hard work. Tony Blair persuaded the Labour Party to drop Clause IV of its constitution that committed it to state ownership. David Cameron persuaded the country of the need to cut the deficit in public finances after the global financial crisis.
Today, the central argument the new prime minister needs to make concerns the necessity of reining in Britain’s ever-expanding welfare state. It costs taxpayers a huge amount of money and keeps too many people out of the labor market. In his first major interview in office, Burnham said that the country has “got to get really serious” about bringing the welfare bill down. The real test will come in the fall, when two government reviews of disability benefits and youth unemployment deliver their final recommendations and he has to produce a plan.
But effective leadership is about implementation as well as persuasion. President Lyndon B. Johnson passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act by addressing the desires and vulnerabilities of individual senators, often personally negotiating the deals necessary to get their support. He then put in place the administrative frameworks necessary to make the new laws bite. When politics becomes too presentational, nothing changes — and voters become disillusioned. That’s why I hope Burnham will be as focused on administrative competence as grand statements of hope.
Finally, leaders need to be savvy enough to stay in power. Unlike presidents, British prime ministers can be deposed midterm. They can also be elected for multiple terms. But to do so they need to be sufficiently streetwise — and sometimes ruthless — to survive. Durability is not just about political self-interest; it is necessary if any fundamental changes are to be delivered.
The personality and capability of a leader really matters when it comes to the functioning of a democracy. Americans know this, too, as they confront different — but equally profound — challenges, such as polarization, in the functioning of their democracy. As we think about how to improve the plumbing of our democracies, we should remember what’s at stake. The central argument this century will be, once again, between autocracy and democracy.
Free societies need to show they are capable of not just debate but solutions. That means stable, effective governments in which leaders are successfully able to persuade, deliver and survive. If Britain and the United States, two of the world’s leading democracies, can’t figure out how to do that, other countries will look elsewhere for the answer.
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