The year ahead looks bumpy for many governments across Europe.
Many administrations are unpopular already. Some are divided by internal squabbles. All are troubled by economic and other difficulties. Gloom for 2026 is compounded by cost-of-living rises, economic under-performance in 2025 and big foreign policy dilemmas.
Emanuel Macron is said by pollsters to have the lowest popularity rating of any French president since the Second World War. Germany’s far-right AfD party is now consistently riding high in polls especially in the old East Germany amid divisions and squabbling within the more traditional mainstream parties.
In the UK, the big Westminster question for next year is Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership – or lack of it. Leadership upheavals in Downing Street were once spoken about in whispers. Now they are shouted from the front pages of newspapers. Some speculate that the Prime Minister may not be still in the job by next Christmas, even perhaps ejected much sooner if next May’s local elections in England plus Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections are as dismal for the governing Labour party as polls predict.
Nevertheless, Mr Starmer has breathing space. He has often performed well on the world stage, navigating US President Donald Trump’s unpredictability with skill. Despite grumblings from ambitious rivals and newspaper gossip, there is no obvious challenger and no general election necessary before 2029. Yet Labour rivals are considering a leadership bid next year if the party’s dismal popularity doesn’t improve soon.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting is touted as a possible replacement. Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham is another. Both are talented, ambitious and good communicators. Mr Burnham, however, would need to quit his current job to become an MP.
He could possibly find a supposedly “safe” Labour seat, but there is no such thing in these fractious times. He would need to win a by-election and faced with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party continuing to poll well in 2026, a Burnham bid would be fraught with risk, and a Streeting bid might look disloyal and self-serving.
Yet Mr Starmer’s position remains uncertain. If Labour does as badly as predicted in those May elections, the party’s discontent could turn into rebellion. Labour MPs have returned home for the Christmas and New Year break, and they will hear from constituents about the threat from Mr Farage and Reform, but they may also hope that Mr Farage has peaked.
For months, Reform has attracted endless publicity, new members and some admittedly not very exciting low-level defectors from other parties. But there are also scandals, setbacks and controversies. A Thailand-based businessman has given Reform an astonishing £9 million ($12 million) donation – perfectly legal, but politically tricky.
Nathan Gill, Reform’s one-time leader in Wales, has been convicted of taking Russian bribes. The party’s head of policy, Zia Yusuf, disowned Mr Gill claiming that “most people in [Reform’s] senior leadership team have never really heard of the guy”. But then numerous pictures of Mr Gill with other leading Reform politicians appeared in the media suggesting Mr Yusuf was, at best, seriously misinformed. Mr Farage was forced to concede he knew Mr Gill “very well” and for a “long time”, but this was then superseded by other revelations.
Former schoolmates at Dulwich College, the expensive London school that Mr Farage attended, offered damaging and very unpleasant revelations, insisting that Mr Farage repeatedly made offensive anti-Semitic and racist comments to Jewish, Asian or black school mates, including praise of the Nazis and for the Holocaust. Mr Farage’s denials led to further allegations until he insisted it was all a long time ago and anyway the BBC transmitted programmes in the 1970s about race that would be unacceptable nowadays.
This sounded like a classic distraction – “Look over there! Not at me!!”
Reform controversies this year, its leader and the resignations of a considerable number of its elected councillors undoubtedly mean more scrutiny of the party next year, but that alone will not remove Mr Starmer’s own New Year problems.
The Scottish National Party is fighting the Holyrood parliamentary elections promising a second referendum on independence. Independence is more popular in Scotland than the SNP themselves, so that promise may help them save seats and remain in government, hurting Labour. The Welsh parliament (Senedd) elections also suggest a Labour wipeout. They are currently a dismal 10 per cent in opinion polls.
The political story of 2026, therefore, looks like one of potential political turmoil in Britain and other European democracies. Voters constantly tell pollsters they want change. Outsiders are in. Sitting governments are unpopular.
Voters in the US are in an equally restive mood. Democrats hope that the November Congressional elections for all the seats in the US House of Representatives and a third of those in Senate could produce a massive rebuke for Mr Trump. Perhaps. But despite the potential for turmoil in many democracies worldwide, maybe those of us who vote should wish our politicians a Merry Christmas, and for all of us a peaceful and truly Happy – but less disruptive – New Year.
After all, what else is New Year for if not for hope?
