There is something almost absurd in the way British politics often behaves as though replacing the Prime Minister will somehow solve the country’s deeper problems.

The ritual has become familiar. A Prime Minister arrives with promises of renewal, reform, and leadership. For a brief moment, they are presented as the person capable of steering the nation through its challenges. Yet before long, the machinery surrounding them begins to grind into motion: factions within their own party, parliamentary rivalries, entrenched interests, and an information ecosystem dominated by outrage-driven media and tabloid narratives.

Public opinion, itself shaped by this relentless environment, turns against the Prime Minister. Every mistake is amplified, every compromise portrayed as weakness, every failure personalized. The Prime Minister becomes less a leader than a lightning rod, absorbing the frustrations of an increasingly dissatisfied public.

Eventually, the image of weakness becomes politically intolerable. Colleagues who once championed the leader begin distancing themselves. Internal rebellions emerge. Calls for resignation grow louder. The Prime Minister is discarded, replaced by a new figure who arrives promising a fresh start.

And then the cycle begins again.

What makes this process particularly striking is the assumption that changing the individual at the top can resolve problems that are fundamentally structural: stagnant productivity, regional inequalities, housing shortages, strained public services, demographic pressures, and a political culture increasingly driven by short-term media reactions rather than long-term planning.

The result is a political theatre in which the cast changes regularly, but the script remains largely the same.

As for #Brexit, it remains difficult to think of another modern democratic decision in which a nation voluntarily imposed such profound economic, diplomatic, and administrative costs upon itself while simultaneously convincing itself that doing so would restore control. Whatever one’s views on sovereignty, it stands as one of the most consequential acts of national self-harm in recent European history.