Thomas de Waal, Peter Kellner, and Anne McElvoy discuss the state of British politics and how it could impact EU-UK relations.
Despite Labour’s landslide victory in last year’s general election, support for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now sharply eroding.
Thomas de Waal, Peter Kellner, and Anne McElvoy unpack the rise of Reform UK and whether a pragmatic reengagement with the EU could revive growth in Britain.
Peter Kellner, October 18, 2025, “Reform’s Poll Lead Will Shrink,” The New World.
Peter Kellner, October 10, 2025, “Voters Are Not Listening to Labour,” Prospect Magazine.
Peter Kellner, September 22, 2025, “A History Lesson for Starmer and Badenoch,” Prospect Magazine.
Peter Kellner, May 14, 2025, “The Moment of Truth for a UK-EU Reset,” Carnegie Europe.
Anne McElvoy, December 5, 2025, “Despite Trump-pleasing Defense Boost, Britain’s Military Is Braced for Cuts,” Politico.
Anne McElvoy, November 20, 2025, “MAGA’s British invasion,” Politico.
Anne McElvoy, December 8, 2025, “Labour Together? Who Is Hastening the PM's Downfall,” Politics at Sam and Anne's.
Anne McElvoy, December 3, 2025, “Who Is Behind Farage-Tory Pact Plot?,” Politics at Sam and Anne's.
Anne McElvoy, November 27, 2025, “The Budget's Hidden Problems Revealed,” Politics at Sam and Anne's.
Thomas de Waal
Hello and welcome back to Europe Inside Out, Carnegie Europe's monthly podcast on major European issues.
My name is Tom de Waal and I'm a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, based in London. Today we'll be looking at the big changes happening in British politics. In October, there was a quite incredible parliamentary by election in the Welsh town of Caerphilly. The Welsh Nationalist candidate won the seat. The far right Reform Party came second. And what's more, between them, the Labour Party and the Conservatives, the two parties that after all have dominated Britain for more than a century, got just 13% of the vote. The political landscape here has never been so fragmented. A year after coming to office, Keir Starmer, and his Labour government are in big trouble. The Conservative parties in meltdown and Reform is rising. As elsewhere in Europe, voters seem to be looking at radical new options and identity issues are shaping their choices. So, has Britain radically changed or is this just a passing trend? And what does this mean for Britain's relationship with the EU?
I'm really pleased to be joined today by two super informed people who can help us get past the headlines. By Peter Kellner, who's a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, just for a little bit longer, I'm glad to say. Founder of the polling organization YouGov and author of an excellent Substack. And also by Anne McElvoy, who's actually in Brussels today. She's executive editor at Politico and she's also co host of the podcast Politics At Sam and Anne's. So welcome to you both.
And let me start, Peter, with this dramatic lapse in support for one year. Now we're looking at the broad trends. Obviously there areday to day calamities and mistakes and so on. But is this a signal of the fact that the British public just doesn't like what they voted for?
Peter Kellner
Well, the starting point, Tom, is that the public didn't really like what they voted for when they voted for it. Labour came to office, it was a landslide victory in parliamentary seats. But if you look at the votes, only just over a third of British voters supported Labour. Almost two thirds voted to Conservative or Reform or Liberal Democrats, all of the Nationalist parties, the Greens and so on. So it's a very peculiar start to a Parliament. Now, Labour is currently about half that, so now around 18%. And I'm taking now the IPSOS figures whose series go back half a century so one has a degree of continuity that is the equal worst share of any governing party. The last one was Gordon Brown's Labour Party back in 2009. But if you take the drop in support, given the low starting point that's by no means unusual. So there's a little bit of cheer lurking about in the undergrowth for the government. And here's the trouble. All the parties that dropped by that amount or more, you just take the drop, which is not unusual. But any government that has dropped by that amount or more, none of those prime ministers have gone on to win the following election. The only party that went on to win a following election after being in such our straits was in 2019 when Boris Johnson took over from Theresa May as Conservative Prime Minister. and that transformed Conservative fortunes and they then went on to win that election. But there's no way, even making allowances for the odd starting point of this Parliament, there's no way I can say that Keir Starmer is anything but a terrible place.
Thomas de Waal
So, Anne, I'd be interested in your verdict. Is this just a kind of day-to-day series of mishaps or is there something deeper going on? Obviously we'll be talking about the kind of broader trends in British politics, but, you know, it is a very calamitous start for this government.
Anne McElvoy
It's been a really bad and I think underperforming largely year for this government. I think you could probably take out their policy on Ukraine, where Keir Starmer has been clearly committed. He had a very clear proposition that he wasn't going to break with his predecessors. And in some ways that was, you know, unusually to his benefit because he defined himself as many Labour Prime Ministers tend to do against the many years of Tory torture that they say preceded them. And that often means that they've tied themselves into some knots. So they've blocked off some particular policy areas of continuity that they maybe could have used to their advantage. I'm thinking of things here, perhaps like welfare reform, etc, where it might have been better just to sort of go along with that, than to stop and then try to start it again, which clearly didn't work and which has hugely damaged Keir Starmer's authority and that of his chancellor, Rachel Reeves. But I do think what Peter started us off with is a reminder that the game is changing all the time and it's very fungible and it's very erratic. On what Peter said, you'd almost come to the conclusion that nobody could win the next election. If you look at the polls right now. So the disjunction perhaps between syphology and raw politics seems to me to be getting wider certainly than anything I have covered in my years doing politics. And interesting, how Peter sees that as well. I largely agree that I think it's hard to see the bounce back for Labour. It's not only the failure to perhaps have been more kind of open to better policy solutions, it's simply that it was unclear what Keir Starmer wanted. I say, you know, taking aside, I think a fairly intelligent approach to the international prism, he tried his best with Donald Trump on trade. He didn't get very far, but hey, that's Trump world. But I think other than that, voters would be hard pressed to say what's the one thing domestically that matters to this Prime Minister more than anything else? Because sometimes the answer is growth. When you can't get growth, he suddenly starts talking about alleviation of child poverty. When that's not working out, he keeps saying, judge me what I am, I'm wonderful person, I've got these fantastic values. But it's very odd to be having to reintroduce your Prime Minister after a year and a bit. I mean by now they should have an idea of what they've got in Downing Street
Thomas de Waal
So I mean Europeans listening to this may feel a sense of familiarity that, you know, we used to have a so-called two-party system but now isn't part of the issue that there are just many more parties out there which are making a credible claim. I mean, I mentioned the Caerphilly election which was won by Welsh nationalist party with a more kind of broadly nationalist party in second place. So are we just seeing a kind of Europeanization of British politics with more votes at the extreme left, extreme right, and people are just no longer signing up for those two kind of parties that felt they were entitled to rule Britain, Labour and the Conservatives.
Peter Kellner
I think that's right to a degree. I mean yes, Britain is becoming more Europeanized in the sense of having a greater variety, a smuggler's board of political parties where they used to be just two. But remember we still have a voting system which is designed for two parties, is not really designed for five, or if you're in Wales or Scotland, six substantial parties. And so as Anne says, it's very, it's very hard to predict the next election because we have a voting system whose operation is incredibly hard to predict when you've got five or six political parties. But I think there's one thing one can see cutting through this is that there, the load, there are many more parties. There are still two blocks. There's basically two parties on the right, Conservatives and Reform, and three or four parties on the left. You've got the Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and then the Nationalists in Scotland and Wales. And although, in the last year or so individual movements have been enormous, particularly the rise of Reform, the number of people supporting the right bloc has remained roughly similar through the year. The number of people voting for the left bloc has remained roughly similar through the year. So there's that constant. But I think the real, the big story is not just Reform on the right, but also now the Greens on the left. You've got these two clear insurgent parties which historically have done very little. And in last year's general election Reform got five MPs, the Greens got four. But now if you add together support for reform around 30%, you add support for the Greens around 14%, that takes you to 44. Add together Labour around 18 and the conservatives around 16, you got 34. So you've got substantially more people now supporting the two big or two insurgent parties than the two heritage parties.
Anne McElroy
I wonder whether this will turn out to be as predictive as it sounds though, Peter, because I think you've got a moment, haven't you, where people, if you like, and if they were teenagers, you'd say they're indulging in their search behavior. So as you say, when your children stay up too late and you have to make excuses for what might be going on with them. In the parts of the electorate, I think are able to have their say and to punish the big parties as they see it, for what they see as the state of the country, the state of the economy, the lack of their own opportunities, their fears about the future cost of living, crisis, et cetera. And at the moment it seems, as you point out, I mean, you could add, that up and say, well, here's this left block as you describe. The difficulty with that is if the strategy, and you can see Keir Starmer and his communications team thinking, is there some way we can kind of get into this? Is this, is this, is this what it's going to look like then? Is it going to be a block that we can work with? It can shift around quite easily. Do we think that, for instance, when the Greens come under more pressure on the more outlandish bits of their economic policy thinking and some of their, you know, their views, on the wider world, how is that going to stand up? Where will the Lib Dems then position themselves vis-a-vis the Green? So if everybody, if you like, is doing Britain's Got Talent, then everyone looks as if they've got something new and shiny to offer. And then you've got the poor old parties trying to fight it out, in the trad way and Reform getting a lot of limelight. Each of those, it seems to me, has yet to really come under the kind of scrutiny that they will. If it looks like, to your analysis, which I think sounds very credible, we're going to go for these two big blocks, then I think there is going to be an almighty scrap for dominance within them and also a lot more scrutiny on some fairly dotted line politics that are being practiced both in Reform in the Greens and in the Lib Dems, let alone, we'll probably come on to it when Tom guides us that way. What on Earth is going on in the two main parties and how are they hoping to get back to contention?
Peter Kellner
I agree absolutely with what you say, but I would simply add that if we're going to see at some point a move back towards the old sort of center-left, center-right heritage parties, their own reputation has got to be cleaned up. At the moment we've got a Conservative Party that was thrown out last year with by far its worst ever election result. When I say ever, it's been around for 200 years, this was by far its worst result. And I didn't see voters coming back in huge numbers back to the Conservatives for some years, just as Labour after 19, Labour after 2010, the Conservatives after 1997 were out for some years. And now you've got a Labour Party which is seen to be stumbling and failing. And the backdrop of this is a very, very sluggish economy. And I think this is true across Europe, a lot of the rise of the populists has been because the old trend towards gradually and consistently higher living standards, children ending up better off than their parents. That's all gone. So if you've got broken societies, broken economies, and broken mainstream parties, then people will start to look at the alternatives. And you're absolutely right. The Greens and Reform have been pretty easy so far. The spotlight hasn't been on them, but when it is turned on them, I think they'll be in trouble. But I'm not sure that many voters will be particularly happy to go back to Labour or Conservative. They may in the end reluctantly do so, but I see no signs of enthusiasm for any such return.
Thomas de Waal
So we're talking just after the U.S. released this extraordinary national security strategy where it talks about there being civilizational erasure in Europe and saying but there is a beacon of hope which is these so-called patriotic parties which they basically mean the far-right parties. So the U.S. seems to be making a bet that the same sort of culture war issues about you know, European identity, Christian values and so on being under threat, they resonate as strongly in the U.S. as they do in Britain. And we know that certain European countries have gone down that route. Hungary and Italy have elected governments which have played the patriotic card quite strongly. So to what extent do you think looking at the figures, maybe I'll start with you Peter, voters are actually moved by those kinds of issues? Or is Britain still a bit of an exception?
Peter Kellner
Well I would have said up to 18 months ago that Britain was an exception, that its politics were almost completely secular. When I was a young kid, many, many years ago there was a sort of Catholic-Protestant divide in parts of England and Scotland but that died out half a century ago. But now you've got certainly amongst Muslim voters it's returned to a degree. And the Labour lost a number of seats to Muslim candidates and candidates who then concentrate on the Gaza war. The Gaza was the political dagger driven by to some extent religious and cultural attitudes. So I'm no longer as confident as I was18 months ago that British politics would remain secular. It might end up going like some other countries, but we'll have to see how that pans out.
Thomas de Waal
And will you say that's true of Reform voters as well?
Peter Kellner
I mean broadly. I mean what you see culturally is the Reform supporters very few of them are non-white, very few are Muslim. A lot of reform voters feel that Islam is a threat. So there is a sort of, there is a cultural stroke, religious dimension to eform politics. There's a reaction against Muslim candidates and Muslim politics. But if you're saying are a lot of Reform activists, are they active Christians in the way the American Christian rightists? No, I don't see that.
Anne McElvoy
I'm not too sure that Reform won't attract more nonwhite voters. And I think the prominence of figures like Zia Yusuf has also I think, potential to run a candidate, a female candidate with Muslim background, in London for Reform. I think it is perfectly possible to run, to run Reform candidates who if you like are not only speaking to a kind of white majoritarian script, but certainly where they are drawing a dividing line it would be certain against political Islam, the sort of charge of Islamism, as some would see it in Reform, infecting the politics of the country. I'm not sure that the presentation is exactly the same as it is in the States. I went off to do a piece in Christian Conservative America, actually with Liz Truss. You know, looking at the MAGA circuit that a number of British politicians have got themselves embarked on, including Truss, Boris Johnson, and Nigel Farage. So yes, they do lean into it, but there's also a nod and a wink. I mean in all cases, you know, Boris Johnson who barrels around saying his faith comes and goes like Classic FM in the children's. You've got Liz Truss who's you know, says the CoE needs to change. It's a dreadful institution. It's all gone woke. But in the end, you know, she kind of ducked when, when we were doing the sort of Christian Conservative full praise the Lord moments at Liberty University, you know, she was keeping her distance from that. So I think there's still, if you like, a more arm's length relationship with that. It's unlikely to divide so much between faiths, but it can, and this possibly is the more dangerous side of it. It can become anti other people's beliefs. It can be defined by opposition rather than by what a lot of Brits I think are often rather foolishly sniffy around, which is a sort of belief in Christianity or Christian conservatism or indeed Christianity or whatever your faith is driving your politics, which American politicians, left or right, have little problem with. You know, Barack Obama, channels very much that that element of faith. Even Bill Clinton, fingers crossed behind his back on occasion. But it comes quite naturally to speak in those ways, I think for American politicians. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't bubble under in the UK. I think it's more likely to be about what you're against than what you're for. but I think it is as most trends do cross the Atlantic to some extent. That's certainly true.
Thomas de Waal
There was a very interesting study done by the Hope Not Hate foundation, which was founded in the wave of the murder of the MP Joe Cox. I think it was about a month ago, they talked to 11,000 Reform voters and they broke them down into five different categories which they called the working right, which would be the classic working class, postindustrial, predominantly males; hardline conservatives, people who were you know, used to vote conservative but are disillusioned; squeeze stewards, people for whom it's m basically much M, m more kind of cost of living issue; contrarian youth, which, which turns out to be young people who you know, just want a radical option, whether it be on the left or the right. They can just easily vote green. And the final category was reluctant reformers, which I guess is people who just don't see any other option at the moment. So it does look like a rather very broad coalition. And maybe I put it to you that once they, you know, if they keep their lead in the polls, they're going to have to start having policies on a range of issues where there'll be, you know, like tax rises versus tax cuts, which actually might divide those groups quite a lot.
Peter Kellner
Yes, I agree, let me just say, although I agree with that broad picture of the variety of Reform voters, I think sometimes these segments analyses offer more than they actually deliver. They're useful for parties as for commercial companies. If you want to target particular groups with a particular message, you know, what, what message do you use for that particular group. But for those who's trying to understand the big picture, I think it is the fact of the variety which as you say means they may have to start making some difficult decisions, with policies that will please some group and displease others. I mean I'm not sure right wing is the correct label for Reform because certainly since Karl Marx writers tend to be about small government, about free markets, about you know, privatized life. Well that's not where Reform is at. Reform is in some respects significantly more socialist than the Conservatives. If they, they feel strongly about, you know, water and the railways and various privatized industries that aren't working very well, they certainly want government to be stepping in to protect people from the vicissitudes of life rather than say, as said the American right “Well it's up to people to stand on their own two feet.” But, yes, your proposition that Reform, if they're going to be serious with contenders for power, will have to start disappointing some of their voters in order to please others. And it's not quite clear how they'll do that.
Anne McElvoy
That said, I mean, doesn't that pretty much, in a nutshell describe what's happened to the Labour Party? It came into the election promising all sorts of things, which it turned out were if didn't have money to spend, and also you couldn't really decide what your guiding ideology was in power, have done exactly that. You know, Reform might say if you're going to effectively say we are being too contradictory in what we're offering, I mean, please may or I offer you the last two budgets from our chancellor, Rachel Reeves. I mean, they're absolutely inchoate, as major fiscal events supposedly showing us a line through labor thinking. So I think that parties on the whole are rather lost and are trying to unite bits of their DNA, bits of where they think they need to get to electorally, bits where they think, you know, they're as worried as the rest of us and generally want to do some good rather than some bad about prosperity, the economy and the society they live in are just quite confused. So I think that that is not going to change. If you remember, I thought one of the great mistakes of the establishment across all kinds of establishments about analyzing Brexit's chances was it just ruled out people who didn't like the EU very much. I just kept meeting them, but somehow it was, oh, no, like we can deal with them. You know, we'll just tell them the EU is really good for them, and then the government will want it and then there'll be a big coalition. So by the time you'd finished this, you'd sort of missed the point that a lot of people were just gonna vote “No.” I do think there is a, however, a challenge for Reform to be serious about that for a moment, Tom, which is, you can feel it, particularly, I think, on tax and tax and spend yes, you can say we're going to run a national economy that will be a clear line through for them. There will be much less interest in perhaps in international sort of tie ups than the other parties. But then how are they going to drive Britain in the world to get trade growth? That must be something that is on Nigel Farage's mind. He's not, not unused to this kind of conversation at all as a former city chap. And I think you can see that there is a bit of attention perhaps in putting Richard Tice, who's quite fiscally quite conservative, seems to be in the driving seat at the moment on backing out of tax cutting pledges. If, however, there is a deal, and I think there'll be some deal or understanding with the Conservatives, the numbers suggest it, the trajectory of no recovery that would take the Conservative closer to power suggested then you have to give jobs to people like Robert Jenrick. Is he possibly a contender for a leading role or even for a potential chancellor job. At which point, you know, you're going to have to have a mafia sit and sort out about who is going to decide which areas of policy. That will tell us much more about where Reform intends to go as it goes towards the next election.
Peter Kellner
I agree absolutely with what Anna's saying and it occurs to me because Reform, as Anna said, has a problem reconciling its various groups and as does Labour and indeed the Conservatives. Can I, as a recovering pollster, make a subversive suggestion that all these politicians should for the next, say three months, not commission or look at a single poll. Polls are not good for parties. If they're trying to work out what to do and what I would suggest to each of the parties, they should have a go away for a weekend, the top 20, 30 people and say, what do we actually believe in? What do we think should be done for the country? Work out their actual stance, what they want to do on the economy, on taxation, on Europe, on defense, whatever, immigration, and then come back to people like I used to be when I was a pollster and say, right, this is what we want to do now please help us get how, tell us how to get the message across. What's the best way of reaching voters. So polls aren't used to decide policy, they're used to help them get the message of their policies across.
Thomas de Waal
That's a great suggestion and I'm sure that people will listen to it and absolutely pay no attention Peter, but it's a great idea. Let me just finish with a European question. Because if we're talking about a kind of big defining policy, there's actually a clear majority in the country now who thinks Brexit was a mistake. And if the left is looking left to center parties are looking for a defining policy and also looking for growth, then maybe the radical position would be that “Vote for us and we'll reverse Brexit.” Now how likely does each of you think that that is? And I'm not even talking about the Brussels perspective, I mean, because I think there'd be big problems in Brussels about taking Britain back in. But I'd be interested in whether you think that's on the cards in the next three years. Anne, why don't you begin?
Anne McElvoy
I'm skeptic on this issue. I believe it is possible to do the politics of reconnection. In fact, I'm here this week to do an interview with Europe minister Nick Thomas-Symonds. Von der Leyen is also going to give a big outing with Politico. I am, however, much more skeptical that I think this is something that is a winner. I think it is something that you can put into your mix the way that Keir Starmer is trying to do in the politics of small steps, as we would say in German. I think once you start to get to “Are we having a customs union or are we not?” Let alone. I mean the full, the idea of full rejoin I think is, is for the birds. For foreseeably you then have to ask what it is that you're prepared to trade away and at that point you really do think go back. It's easy for people to say I don't think Brexit worked out very well. Which I think you could say whether you voted in or out, there's a good defense of that position. Once you have to say what would we have to give up in order to reconnect? Once you start getting into things that would you want to pay into things so you think about being in the single currency, I think you will still get pretty hard No’s. And that's quite easy for a lot of people who embrace the proto bring back remain, maybe tend to dial down too much.
Peter Kellner
Anne rightly talks about small steps, but I think there's a problem here because small steps to what ends now, I'm sure Anne finds the same as me when you talk to the more pro-European ends of the ministerial spectrum. What they say is “Look, these are small steps towards a really ambitious end. Something much nearer frictionless trade. But we don't want to frighten the horses, so we'll just do it bit by bit so people get used to it and then one day, hey presto, will have solved a lot of the economic problems.” My problem with that is, A, I think it's dishonest, B, actually I think they'd be better off saying this is our eventual destination and making the case for that eventual destination. But then say quite realistically “But we don't expect to get there this year, next year, this parliament, or possibly the next parliament. But that is our goal and this is why it is our goal.” Now, am I certain that they would win that argument with the public? No, I'm not. but I do think that's the best chance of both getting to a substantially improved relationship with the EU and for getting the public to go along with that.
Thomas de Waal
But there's also, a strong economic case for this. I mean, you have been suggesting that, Peter, that a Labour Party which wants growth, where is it going to get that growth from?
Peter Kellner
That is why they got to make the argument. And that is why if you just talk about small steps, that means you can't talk about the big opportunity of a much closer economic relationship, much closer trading relationship with the EU. If you start talking about the big opportunity, then you can talk about the big gains to our economy, the big losses we've suffered, and how do we reverse what has happened over the last nine years. But that's why I think you need to make it clear that you have an ambitious destination. Even if you accept you're not going to get there in one go or even two or three goes.
Anne McElvoy
I would test perhaps a bit more why you think that is the case. I mean, fairly moribund Eurozone, even Germany, where I've just been, been the past week, it's been a lot of time, the economy in doldrums. Like, where is this brilliant opportunity for UK trade with Europe? It would certainly be better to dial down frictions. I do not accept that it would be the answer to our growth problems in any magnitude. And remember, you would then, if you do it through more formal route, as Peter says, come away from this humming and hiring, go into something approaching a Customs Union again, then you are ruling yourself out of, of other trade deals globally. So there is give and take, on that point I've yet to see. And I think that the whole projection of kind of, you know, you've lost 4% over 10 years or more by not being in the Eurozone was always a zombie figure. And I think you'd still have to make a better case that there was much more to be gained for UK growth. I think you could certainly take some friction off, but I don't in itself believe that that would be a major game changer for the UK economy.
Thomas de Waal
Well, so what I'm taking away from this is massive uncertainty. No one is a clear leader. Everything is to play for. We’ve got a very much more diverse political system, but still an electoral system designed for two parties. So, really plenty more to talk about. Anne McElvoy, Peter Kelner, thanks so much for j oining us.
Anne McElvoy
Pleasure. Really enjoyed it.
Peter Kellner
Pleasure Tom. Good fun.
Thomas de Waal
Thank you everyone for joining us for this edition of Europe Inside Out. For more of our coverage on the UK and the EU more generally, please follow us on X, Bluesky, and on LinkedIn. Until next time.