Britain’s Floundering Labor Party Is a Warning to U.S Democrats

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Britain’s Labor Party, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has tacked to the right on immigration and transgender rights, in particular. This strategy was designed to head off the rising popularity of Reform UK, Britain’s far-right party. It hasn’t worked. Polls show Starmer and Labor as increasingly unpopular, and Reform is now Britain’s most popular political party. Toby Buckle, a writer based in the United Kingdom whose pieces have appeared in Liberal Currents and The New Republic, says that Starmer’s failings are a lesson for center-left Democrats who are pushing their party to move right on some social issues. Such an approach, says Buckle, won’t appeal to conservatives but will anger liberal voters and make them harder to rally at election time. The Labor Party and Democrats in the U.S. are better off politically defending progressive social values instead of distancing themselves from them, he argues.