The recent political fortunes of Germany, the UK and the USA may not seem all that similar at first glance. They have all had national elections within the last 14 months. But in the UK a left-of-centre party took power; in the USA a left-of-centre party lost power and in Germany a left-of-centre party went from being the senior partner in a governing coalition to being the junior partner. Three seemingly very different outcomes which belie the eerily similar lesson which emerges from each of them. Namely that across the west, the technocratic, managerial style of left-centrist politics is being rejected.
One might ask how such a lesson can be drawn from the last year in British politics? After all, the Labour party, running on a fiscally conservative manifesto, won a historic majority after 14 years out of power. The Prime Minister, who was a former barrister and led the Crown Prosecution Service, campaigned to bring back sound management to British politics and to tread more lightly on the lives of the electorate. The image conjured up, was of a hive of grey, anonymous ministers busily setting about imperceptibly keeping the country ticking over without rocking the boat too much.
There were promises to enact reforming changes, but none seemed like they would go a significant way to decisively fixing the deep-seated problems left behind by the Conservatives. In fact, Prime Minister Starmer said in a recent interview that he believes the country isn’t really broken at all.
On the surface, then, it seems like the 2024 UK general election was a ringing endorsement of the centre-left technocrats. But a closer look at the figures shows support to be less enthusiastic. The quirks of the British electoral system mean that Labour won 63% of the seats with only 33.7% of the votes and only a 59.8% voter turnout. This means that only a fifth of the electorate actually voted for Starmer’s Labour party. In many of their seats, they only have a razor thin majority, just ahead of the populist, right-wing Reform party.
Not to be deterred, Labour celebrated their landslide triumph. In government they enacted their conservative fiscal plan. This included cutting welfare for disabled people; cutting fuel allowance for pensioners and international aid and keeping a controversial child benefits cap. Understandably, confusion and anger over how a supposedly progressive party could implement these policies was quickly reflected in the polls.
In recent local elections, Labour suffered heavy losses, to Reform. Voters believe that Labour is simply continuing the Tory austerity policies which they had overwhelmingly rejected in 2024. Despite the large victory in 2024, voters reject the style of government Labour is offering and the impressive parliamentary majority only reflects the fact that Labour weren’t the Tories.
In Germany, this rejection was clearer. The 2021 SPD manifesto contained pledges to raise the minimum wage, accelerate housebuilding and reforms to the welfare state. All well and good, but there was no proposed significant change to a system which was broken. It was moderate and championed by the man who, if there ever was one, is the archetypal moderate technocrat – Olaf Scholz. Nonetheless when the SPD, Greens and FDP formed the Traffic Light, or Ampel, coalition in 2021, there was optimism after decades of CDU-run coalitions. But it wasn’t to last.
But the coalition became beset by internal conflicts between partners. Under pressure from the war in Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis, tensions grew as the parties struggled to find compromises. Controversies over heat pumps, fuel discounts and, crucially, the debt brake made it difficult for the Ampel coalition to enact significant reform. Eventually the government collapsed.
In the 2025 federal election, the SPD was punished by an electorate which felt it had failed to deliver. The party got its worst result since 1887. Now there is palpable dissatisfaction amongst the SPD’s own base. Lars Klingbeil, Scholz’ former deputy and current co-leader of the party, received only 65% of members’ votes in the party’s co-leadership contest despite running unopposed. Bärbel Bas – on the left of the party was untarnished because as Bundestag president she was not in the Ampel cabinet. She received votes from 95% of the members to share the co-leadership with Klingbeil.
Was this a rejection of technocratic managers? After all, their representatives on the right, in the form of the Union, were elected to power. But this victory was more of a rejection of the incumbent rather than an enthusiastic embrace of the opposition – just like Labour in the UK. Merz’s approval ratings have dropped after taking power. The parties with the most forward momentum are Die Linke, and, unfortunately, the AfD.
In the USA, yet another very different political system, the Democrats were convincingly ousted from the White House by Donald Trump’s populist MAGA movement. The American Democratic Party ran on a decidedly centrist manifesto and were punished by the repugnant, broad-strokes politics of Donald Trump.
This is, America’s second foray into populist politics having elected Trump once already. So perhaps it provides a look into the futures of countries like the UK and Germany. Will the rejection of the centrist managers eventually clear a path for right wing populist parties like Reform and the AFD? It seems plausible. In Germany, the UK and the US there is widespread dissatisfaction with politicians and the way democracy is currently functioning. Fertile ground for the parties of the populist right.
If so, then progressives cannot allow themselves to cede the advantage to the populist right and must find a way to offer an alternative. In contrast Keir Starmer attempts to win back Reform voters by imitating Reform. Besides this is likely to be disastrous at the next election, it also causes anger and confusion on the left. The result is the spawning of a new, but as yet unnamed left-wing party led by former Labour MP Zarah Sultana and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Since no developed policy programme has emerged yet, it is unclear whether it can stop the rising tide of Reform support.
In Germany, Die Linke has risen in popularity since the 2021 election with a significant increase in membership. But it is still too weak in electoral power to compete with the AfD. In the US, there seems to be a movement coalescing around Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. There are also promising local campaigns like Zohran Mamdani’s race for the New York City mayoralty. Top Democrats carry on as usual and aren’t capitalising on Trump’s falling approval ratings. In none of these countries is there a progressive vision to compete on a national level with the populist right parties.
The next national elections in the UK, Germany and the USA will be in 2029, 2029 and 2028 respectively. Over the coming years progressive, pro-democracy parties must find a way to build electoral programmes which gain traction amongst the electorate and take momentum away from the populist right. The dangers of failing are all too evident from Trump’s second term. There are no easy answers as to how this should be done, but one thing is certain – it can’t be left to the technocratic managers of the centre-left.
