Keir Starmer, like Joe Biden, wanted to restore what the center-left sees as normalcy in politics after years of disruption. Like Mr. Biden, the beleaguered British prime minister has discovered that political normalcy has gone the way of the dodo.
When a narrow majority of Britons defied the leaders of the three major parties by voting to exit the European Union in 2016, one the world’s oldest parliamentary democracies entered a new era of disruptive populism. As a succession of Tory prime ministers rotated through Downing Street, the public soured on Brexit. Increasingly large majorities told pollsters that leaving the EU had been a mistake.