In the end, the pressure on him to go was just to great.
最终，要求他离开的压力实在太大了。
Keir Starmer has resigned as leader of the Labour party, and so in time as the UK’s prime minister. In the end, despite his numerous assurances that he would fight on, after Andy Burnham’s resounding win in the Makerfield byelection, the pressure on Starmer became too great to withstand. It makes him the sixth British PM in a decade to stand down.
基尔·斯塔默辞去了工党领袖的职务，同时也卸下了英国首相的职位。最终，尽管他多次保证会继续战斗，但在安迪·伯纳姆赢得梅克菲尔德补选后，来自斯塔默的压力变得难以承受。这使他成为十年内第六位宣布退位的英国首相。
The immediate cause of his decision was the final collapse in support for him in the party and in cabinet, clarified in private conversations over the weekend. In setting out his plans, Starmer has avoided the avalanche of resignations that toppled Conservative PMs Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
他做出决定的直接原因是他在党内和内阁中失去了支持，这些情况是在周末私下谈话中得以明确的。在阐述自己的计划时，斯塔默避免了导致保守党首相鲍里斯·约翰逊和伊丽莎白·特拉斯辞职的那种“雪崩式”离职潮。
The overall aim seems to be a more orderly transition – “with good grace” – than those under recent Conservative governments. Yet his emotional statement reflecting on his time in the highest office still highlights a leader who knows he has failed.
其总体目标似乎是实现一次比近期保守党政府时期更顺利、更有“风度”的过渡。然而，他回顾自己在最高职位任期的情感声明，仍然凸显出一位深知自己已经失败的领导人。
Starmer was not popular the day before he walked into 10 Downing Street. On the eve of the 2024 general election, his net satisfaction rating with Ipsos stood at minus 21. This was a historic low for an incoming prime minister. While 31% of the public said they were satisfied with his performance, 52% were dissatisfied, marking the first time a leader had secured a parliamentary majority while holding a significantly negative approval rating.
斯塔默在走进唐宁街10号的前一天并不受欢迎。在2024年大选前夕，他在Ipsos的净满意度评级为负21分。这对一位即将上任的首相来说是一个历史低点。虽然31%的公众表示对他的表现感到满意，但52%的不满，这标志着一位领导人在获得议会多数支持的同时，首次持有显著负面的认可评分。
Yet in the environment of British politics since the Brexit referendum, such figures hardly seemed unusual. Starmer’s predecessor Rishi Sunak entered the 2024 campaign with a net satisfaction score of minus 56, according to YouGov.
然而，自英国脱欧公投以来，英国政治环境下的此类数据似乎并不罕见。根据YouGov的数据，斯塔默的前任里希·苏纳克在2024年竞选开始时，净满意度得分是负56分。
At the time, I argued that Starmer would likely see an upsurge in popularity having actually achieved a Labour victory after 14 long years. In 1997, Tony Blair enjoyed a record-breaking honeymoon with satisfaction ratings soaring to plus 60 in the months following his victory. Even David Cameron saw his approval leap to plus 21 shortly after forming the coalition in 2010. The office of prime minister typically confers a halo of competence on its new occupant.
当时，我曾认为斯塔默可能会因为工党在经历了14个漫长的年份后取得胜利而迎来人气反弹。1997年，托尼·布莱尔在他获胜后的几个月里享受了创纪录的蜜月期，满意度评分飙升至正60分。甚至大卫·卡梅伦在2010年组建联合政府后不久，其支持率也跃升到了正21分。首相职位通常会赋予新任占有者一种“能力光环”。
Starmer’s popularity did indeed improve. But only to a kind of tepid neutrality. In the immediate aftermath of the election, his net favourability rose to plus 3 in Opinium’s first post-election poll, while YouGov recorded a similarly rapid recovery to roughly break even. Unlike the sustained euphoria of the Blair years, Starmer’s “bounce” was in absolute terms a shallow recovery that barely lifted him above the water line before the tides turned once again.
斯塔默的人气确实有所改善。但这只是提升到了一种温和的中立状态。在大选后的初期，他在Opinium的首份选举后民调中净好感度上升至正3分，而YouGov记录的恢复速度也同样迅速，大致回到了持平水平。与布莱尔时期持续的狂热不同，斯塔默的“反弹”在绝对数值上是一次浅层的复苏，几乎没有将他提升到水面上，随后潮水再次逆转。
At the same time, measured by his majority, he seemed in an unassailable position. Yet the same could have (and indeed was) said of Boris Johnson. Following the 2019 election, talk was of the Conservatives securing a “decade of dominance”, arguing that the structural realignment of the “red wall” had created a near-permanent Tory majority that would keep Labour out of power until the 2030s. In the event, Johnson was out just over three years later and the talk now is of Conservative extinction.
与此同时，从他的多数席位来看，他似乎处于一个不可动摇的位置。然而，鲍里斯·约翰逊也曾有过（并且确实经历过）同样的情况。在2019年大选后，人们谈论保守党将获得“十年的统治期”，认为“红墙”的结构性重组创造了一个近乎永久的保守党多数席位，这将使工党无法执政直到2030年代。然而，结果约翰逊只在三年多后离开了权力中心，而现在的讨论已经转向了保守党的消亡。
A dangerous pattern
危险的模式
Where did it go wrong for Starmer? Paradoxically, the answer may be found in the fate of his predecessor as Labour leader. Jeremy Corbyn’s record now looks similar to Starmer’s. Between 2017 and 2019, Corbyn’s personal ratings plummeted from a competitive minus 11 during the 2017 campaign to a disastrous minus 44 by the time of his 2019 defeat. By then, the strategic ambiguity that once held his coalition together collapsed under the pressure of Brexit.
斯塔默哪里出了问题？矛盾的是，答案可能在他的前任工党领袖的命运中找到。杰里米·科尔宾的记录现在看起来与斯塔默相似。在2017年至2019年间，科尔宾的个人评分从2017年竞选期间的竞争性负11分暴跌至2019年败选时的灾难性的负44分。到那时，曾维系其联盟的战略模糊性在脱欧（Brexit）的压力下崩溃了。
Starmer’s rise and fall took almost exactly the same period of time. And it happened for a set of reasons uncomfortably similar for either side of the Labour party’s ideological divide to admit. In both 2017-2019 and 2022-24, Labour’s fragile polling lead was driven less by enthusiasm for the opposition and more by a collapse in government competence. As data from the 2024 “loveless landslide” illustrated, Labour secured around 64% of seats on just 34% of the vote – the lowest share for any majority government in history.
斯塔默的崛起和衰落几乎花费了相同的时间。而其发生的原因，是工党意识形态两派都难以启齿地承认的相似原因。在2017年至2019年和2022年至2024年这两个时期，工党脆弱的民调领先优势，更多地是由于政府能力的崩溃，而非反对派的热情所驱动。正如2024年“缺乏爱意的大胜”数据显示的，工党仅凭34%的选票就获得了约64%的席位——这是历史上任何多数政府都达到的最低份额。
Just as Corbyn was squeezed by the populist-right Brexit party and pro-EU centre party the Liberal Democrats in 2019 over its middle-of-the-road position on Brexit, Starmer faced a similar pincer movement in the mid-2020s. On one flank, Reform UK eroded the Labour vote in post-industrial heartlands; on the other, the Green Party and pro-Gaza independents successfully targeted urban progressives. The Greens ended up quadrupling their MPs in 2024 and independent candidates secured historic wins in Labour strongholds.
正如科尔宾在2019年因其在脱欧问题上的温和立场，被民粹右翼的脱欧政党和亲欧盟中间派的自由民主党夹击一样，斯塔默在2020年代中期也面临了类似的钳形攻势。一方面，改革英国党（Reform UK）侵蚀了工党在后工业化核心地区的选票；另一方面，绿党和支持加沙的独立候选人成功地瞄准了城市进步派群体。最终，绿党的议员人数在2024年增加了四倍，而独立候选人在工党的传统票仓也取得了历史性的胜利。
Labour’s electoral results in office reflected this – byelection losses to both Reform UK and the Greens, disastrous local election results in England, and failing to dislodge a struggling and scandal-plagued Scottish National Party north of the border.
工党在执政期间的选举结果反映了这一点——补选输给了改革英国党和绿党，英格兰地方选举结果惨不忍睹，并且未能推翻边境以北一个陷入困境且饱受丑闻困扰的苏格兰民族党。
Fittingly, this latest resignation took place almost exactly ten years to the day of the 2016 Brexit referendum. Make no mistake, the divides created and solidified as a result of the Brexit moment are still at the heart of British politics – even if many people have forgotten the details of that dispute.
颇具讽刺意味的是，最近的辞职发生在与2016年脱欧公投几乎整整十周年纪念日。毋庸置疑，脱欧事件所造成并固化的分歧仍然是英国政治的核心——即使许多人已经忘记了这场争论的细节。
As Professor Tim Bale has recently argued, British politics is best seen as an example of two-bloc polarisation. Voters are locked into broad identity-based camps and Brexit position is the key underlying variable. Yet this reality is obscured by the fact that these blocs are internally fragmented and only occasionally address the issue directly.
根据蒂姆·贝尔教授最近的论述，英国政治最好被视为双极化的一个例子。选民被锁定在基于身份的宽泛阵营中，而脱欧立场是关键的底层变量。然而，这种现实却被这样一个事实所掩盖：这些阵营内部是碎片化的，并且只有偶尔才会直接讨论这个问题。
While voters may occasionally unite against a common enemy, they remain deeply divided on other aspects of policy, leaving leaders like Starmer (or Corbyn, for that matter) trying to hold together a sandcastle coalition that crumbles the moment the tide comes in.
尽管选民偶尔会为了共同的敌人而团结起来，但在政策的其他方面他们仍然存在深刻的分歧，这使得像斯塔默（或者说科尔宾）这样的领导人，只能试图维持一个沙堡联盟，而这个联盟在潮水来临的一瞬间就会崩塌。
Nicholas Dickinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Nicholas Dickinson 不受雇于、不为任何会从本文受益的公司或组织提供咨询服务，也不持有其股份，且未从其获得资金，并且除了其学术职位之外，没有披露任何相关隶属关系。
