Starmer faced a tricky 2025 after winning a landslide victory the previous year, which brought the center-left party back into power after 14 years.
He was forced into a series of policy U-turns by his party, and sacked Peter Mandelson as U.K. ambassador to the U.S. after fresh details on the closeness of his friendship with convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein emerged.
Membership swelled under Starmer’s predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, with the party recording more than half a million Labour members at the peak of his popularity.
But under Starmer and his Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the party moved rightwards economically and on issues such as immigration and benefit payments, and expelled left-leaning party stalwarts such as Corbyn and Diane Abbott.
Such changes put the leadership at odds with its members, sections of whom are notably more left wing than the British public at large. The removal of the whip from several Labour MPs for voting against government welfare policies in 2024, and again in 2025, were watershed moments.
In 2023, Starmer told members: “If you don’t like the changes that we’ve made, I say the door is open, and you can leave.”