Britain Is Dying Under Keir Starmer

By Noah Rothman

Friday, April 17, 2026

 

British Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s initial reaction to the outbreak of the war against Iran was schizophrenic.

 

He seemed wholly unprepared for a scenario in which Donald Trump would actually use the forces he had spent the previous two months flooding into the region, confounding the former Royal Navy officers and opposition lawmakers who somehow understood that Trump’s ultimatums weren’t just talk.

 

At first, Starmer was appalled, and he blocked the Pentagon from using U.K. bases to launch sorties against Iranian targets. But the impracticality of that protest sapped his resolve, and his government swiftly changed course. After all, British interests were under attack by Iran as well.

 

So, under pressure, Starmer committed his nation to a show of force — one more visible than his deployment of defensive airpower to the Middle East. The Royal Navy’s HMS Dragon would lead the way, but it would do so alone. Britain’s five other Type 45 Destroyers were not fit for deployment. The Dragon set sail on March 10 and finally arrived at its destination, a Royal Air Force base in Cyprus that had been targeted by Iran, 17 days later. But within days, the Dragon succumbed to a “technical” issue and had to retreat to port for repairs.

 

This attempt at a demonstrative display of force — the sort of mission that used to be standard fare for the once mighty British Navy — had the opposite of its intended effect. The Dragon’s misadventure serves as a metaphor not just for the decline of British naval power but the deterioration of Britain’s role in the world.

 

Critics of the British social contract in the post–World War II era have long scolded London for relying on Washington to meet its essential needs, as profligate politicians sank ever more taxpayer-provided sums into unsustainable welfare programs. That criticism can be overstated, but it is inarguable that British readiness has cratered over the last 15 years. And in a strategically incomprehensible turn of events, it has cratered even as Westminster has allowed the “special relationship” with the U.S. on which it depends to atrophy.

 

“If the U.K. is simultaneously more distant from the U.S. and failing adequately to fund defense commitments in our own near neighborhood,” wrote the British historian and longtime foreign policy adviser to 10 Downing Street, John Bew, “then two of the principal pillars of our enduring national security strategy are in danger.” It’s an existential dilemma, but it’s one that the U.K. chose for itself. And Britain’s problems extend to the home front, too.

 

“The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday lowered its forecast for U.K. growth this year to 0.8% from 1.3%,” the Wall Street Journal reported this week, “the largest downward revision for an advanced economy.” True to form, the Starmer government responded to the news by blaming the United States and Israel for its predicament, with Exchequer Rachel Reeves mourning the impact of “a war that we did not want” on Britain’s bottom line. Of course, London’s financial hardships were much longer in the making.

 

The U.K.’s current fiscal crisis stems from both its reliance on foreign energy sources and its central bank’s decision to keep interest rates steady to avoid an inflationary shock. But Britain’s energy shortages are a result of both Westminster’s decades-long war on nuclear energy and London’s more recent hostility toward shale-gas extraction.

 

“As a result, gas production in the U.K. has declined 70 percent since 2000,” The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson wrote last year. Indeed, Thompson observed that the U.K.’s commitment to “self-imposed scarcity” extends to the British housing market, where anti-growth policies, environmental regulations, and lawsuits artificially limit inventory. “Europe has an energy problem; the Anglosphere has a housing problem,” Sam Bowman, the co-author of a 2024 report on “why Britain has stagnated,” told Thompson. “Britain has both.”

 

There’s little hope for a British recovery under Starmer, if only because his government refuses to acknowledge his nation’s many woes. The birthrate in parts of the U.K. has fallen to record lows, well below the replacement rate. One in five Britons sees immigration as the country’s biggest national problem, and not because there isn’t enough of it. That’s the highest rate of discontent over immigration of any of the 107 countries Gallup surveyed in 2025. Crime has become a source of increasing concern for British adults, with “a majority saying they have little to no faith in the system’s ability to reform offenders, investigate minor crimes, hand down appropriate sentences, or even keep prisoners locked up,” YouGov’s pollsters related last month.

 

More than one-quarter of working-age citizens are economically “inactive,” neither working nor seeking work. Twenty percent of Britons between the ages of 16 and 64 claim social welfare benefits — a fact that produces much consternation in Westminster but little else beyond complaints. “By the end of 2007, Britain had a higher GDP per capita than the United States, though this was partly a product of a strong sterling,” the American Conservative’s Azeem Ibrahim wrote last month. “Today, GDP per capita at purchasing power parity is back down to 71 percent of the U.S. level.” If somehow absorbed into the United States, British citizens tell pollsters they believe the U.K. would rank among the top ten wealthiest states in the Union. In fact, it would be the poorest.

 

Charles Krauthammer famously said that “decline is a choice,” and the British have chosen it. These trends didn’t begin with the Starmer government, but they have accelerated under its hapless leadership. To placate the restive British public, Labourites channel their discomfort into hostility toward America. But the United States military underwrites the U.K.’s profligacy, and the value Britain once brought to that arrangement is steadily eroding.

 

The United Kingdom is on a trajectory toward slow-motion collapse. Unless its voters make different choices and prioritize prosperity over mere comfort, Britain’s greatness is destined to be discussed in the past tense.