Starmer has delivered key wins for the UK, so why is he so unpopular?

A year into the job, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has scored some key wins, including recently signing major trade deals with the U.S., India and European Union that will boost the British economy and wages.

Opinion polls paint a different picture of his success.

A survey by pollster YouGov, published in mid-May, showed that the British public’s approval the prime minister has plummeted to a record low, with 69% of voters now having an unfavorable view of Starmer, while just 23% regard him enthusiastically.

More worryingly for the Labour Party leader, the fall in popularity is concentrated among Labour voters, half of whom (50%) now have an unfavorable view of Starmer — a 17-point increase from the last poll in mid-April. The share of Labour voters with a favorable opinion of him has meanwhile fallen from 62% to 45% over the month.

With things seeming to point in the right direction for the British economy, what’s going wrong for its prime minister?

The U.K.’s leadership might be touting their impressive record on trade deals recently, but cost-of-living pressures continue to worry ordinary British voters, and businesses are reckoning with Labour-led tax rises.

The U.K.’s annual inflation rate hit a hotter-than-expected 3.5% in April, up sharply from 2.6% in March, according to data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Wednesday.

The data highlighted increasing pressures on British households, as prices of electricity, gas and other fuels rose by 6.7% in the year to April. The prices of water and sewerage meanwhile added 26.1% in the month to April, marking the largest monthly hike since at least February 1988, the ONS said.

British businesses now face a higher tax burden as a result of government policies introduced in the “Autumn Budget,” as well as other measures deemed be many economists to be “anti-growth.” These include limits on immigration set to affect foreign workers — who are key to a number of sectors — a rise in the national minimum wage and reforms to workers’ rights, which put pressure on many small and medium-sized firms.

As such, lofty trade deals promising economic growth and investment that will take time to feed through are cold comfort for many British consumers and businesses struggling right now.

“On domestic policy, this government hasn’t scored well so far; let’s give it a C-minus,” Kallum Pickering, chief U.K. economist at Peel Hunt, told CNBC’s “Europe Early Edition” on Wednesday. “[We’ve seen] mostly anti- growth measures and that’s the thing that disrupted bond markets over the past few months.”

On foreign and international policy, the government is “doing a fairly good job,” with its latest trade deals a testament to that, Pickering said.

“Starmer has contained the downside risk that the U.K. and the U.S. could really escalate on trade. It’s not a good deal, but it contains downside risk. The U.K.-India deal is actually a strong signal that the U.K. is open for business. And if you read the press, people that are unhappy with the deal that the U.K. and the EU is striking but, actually, what’s the alternative?” he asked.

Big business leaders say they’re happy with the British government’s general direction of travel, with C.S. Venkatakrishnan, group chief executive of Barclays, telling CNBC Thursday that it was “absolutely on track.”

“If you look at if you look at what they’ve achieved over the last few weeks, they’ve had trade deals with the U.S., with India, with Europe, important trading partners. They continue to be repairing relationships with Europe, which they need to,” he told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick.

Inflationary pressures, he noted, were evident but were not yet leading to “consumer distress,” the Barclays exec believed.

“We’re in fact seeing conduit continued consumer strength, but it’s coming because of people managing their balances and their finances prudently. So [they’re] economizing. The job market is still strong. But as you see … people are worried about inflation. People are worried about cost, whether it’s winter fuel bills or whether it’s more generalized inflation from tariffs, and the only real answer to that is growth, which is what this government is focused on, and what we want to help them.”

Although some quarters welcome Keir Starmer’s calmer and less bombastic approach to leadership than politicians like Reform UK leader Nigel Farage or former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, he continues to face criticism that his leadership style and personality hold him and the Labour Party back.

CNBC has contacted the Labour Party for comment on Starmer’s poll ratings and is awaiting a reply.

“Starmer has great positives — [signing] the trade deals” for one, Bill Blain, strategist and founder of Wind Shift Capital, said that the prime minister’s lack of charisma is a deficit.

“But he is dull, boring and precise. He is competent, but he is not a personality and lacks political charisma … Farage has it in spades. So did Boris Johnson,” he told CNBC Tuesday.

“A additional problem is Starmer lacks able cabinet colleagues able to create the illusion of a cabinet of smart, leaders. Some are settling into their roles but most look out their depth. This is particularly true of Rachel Reeves … who is naturally not a risk taker,” Blain added.

“The bigger issue is the narrative — Labour present it as doing the right thing to control spending, but it’s backfired as insensitivity to their voters. They are perceived as cruel,” he said.

Starmer is coming “under pressure,” Blain noted, increasing the risk that rank and file Labour lawmakers “will revolt if the polls bite.”

“That may be happening — [meaning] mutiny!,” he said.