THE NEW YORK TIMES — OPINION: In Democratic primaries across America, a familiar debate is playing out. Is it the time for a moderate or a maverick? Should the party be looking for someone to heal and stabilize a troubled country or someone to energize supporters, antagonize opponents — Republicans, big business, maybe even the Democratic establishment itself — and promise sweeping change?
Until recently, Britain seemed to offer moderate Democrats a clinching case. In 2024, after leading the Labour Party to a crushing victory over a reviled right-wing government, Keir Starmer was hailed as a centrist hero. He marginalized progressives in his own party, enticed Conservative politicians to switch sides and secured Labour’s largest majority since 1997. For the Democratic think tank Third Way, the takeaway from Mr. Starmer’s triumph was clear: “Centrism wins elections.”
That seems a long time ago now. Britain’s government is in the doldrums and Mr. Starmer has become one of its most unpopular leaders ever — with negative approval ratings on a par with the short-lived prime minister Liz Truss, a paragon of political failure. Reform U.K., a Trumpian anti-immigration party spearheaded by Nigel Farage, has led the polls since last April. And in recent months, Labour has also been overtaken on its left by a surging Green Party.
This week, it’s going to get worse. In local elections across the country, which are being treated as a referendum on Mr. Starmer’s leadership, Labour is headed for a historic wipeout. The leader once heralded as centrism’s shining future now survives on borrowed time. In many ways, his fall is a very British story. But the Democrats, casting about for an election strategy, should pay attention — for Mr. Starmer’s collapse was written into the nature of his victory. » | GUEST ESSAY by Samuel Earle | Mr. Earle is the author of “Tory Nation: The Dark Legacy of the World’s Most Successful Political Party.” He wrote from New York. | Tuesday, May 5, 2026
If joylessness is your thing, if freedoms mean little to you, if you are unconcerned about democratic freedoms, if you like your leaders colourless, if your children’s rights as they grow into adulthood mean little to you, if your are indifferent to their infantilization as adults, if you are insouciant about being imprisoned for writing the wrong thing on social media, if you like your leaders to have a tinge of authoritarianism about them, if you like them stern, then Starmer could well be your man, and he could well be a role model for Democrats in America to emulate . Good luck with that! — © Mark Alexander