Why unelected power brings us a strange comfort

🔍 WHY THIS STORY MATTERS
Britain may soon face another change of prime minister without a general election, raising urgent questions about democratic accountability, party power and public tolerance of unelected authority.

KEY TAKEAWAYS...

● The UK can change prime ministers through internal party processes without voters choosing the new leader.

● Andy Burnham’s expected route to Downing Street will continue a recent pattern of unelected transitions.

● Voters may accept this because hierarchy and authority are psychologically normalised.

● Stronger democratic accountability requires challenging backroom power, apathy and elite control of leadership.

T he UK is not usually thought of as the kind of country that’s prone to a coup d’état.

Yet in the UK too, power can change hands without a general election. Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Theresa May, Liz Truss – in each case, internal party dynamics determined who occupied 10 Downing Street.

In the current situation, all eyes are on the former mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. It’s widely expected that Burnham will become prime minister through an internal Labour party manoeuvre rather than a general election. But this would reinforce the same uncomfortable point. The UK accepts major political transitions without the electorate ever casting a vote. Once again, the public may simply be expected to accommodate the outcome.

Keir Starmer won a landslide in the 2024 general election. But dissatisfaction within the party and across the country soon led to grumblings, cabinet resignations and a collapse in the PM’s public approval. In such a trigger-happy system, any political misstep (or series of missteps) becomes potentially fatal.

Normalising hierarchy

So why do voters accept pressure from within a PM’s own party as legitimate grounds for removal? The answer may lie in psychology, namely the human tendency to justify existing systems, defer to authority and treat hierarchy as normal. Understanding that process is the first step towards challenging it.

“Social dominance orientation” describes a preference for social hierarchy, in which some groups are seen as more deserving of power than others. People higher in this tendency are more comfortable with unequal relations and more likely to support policies, institutions or leaders that preserve hierarchy rather than reduce it. In social psychology, this matters because hierarchy survives when many people come to see it as normal.

One reason for this is that hierarchical settings themselves can make inequality feel natural. Military organisations, policing, workplaces that are structured around hierarchies and elite educational systems all expose people to repeated signals that some voices matter more than others. Over time, this can make hierarchy seem less like a political choice and more like common sense.

That helps explain why internal party decision-making can sometimes be accepted by the wider electorate. When groups such as the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs (which sets out the rules for Tory leadership contests) or a party’s national executive use internal rules to shape leadership outcomes, their language and formality can create an air of authority. This may make many voters more inclined to accept it.

But this raises a deeper democratic question: if people simply absorb the outcome of these elite processes, how representative is that democracy really? One way of thinking about this is through voter apathy and disengagement, which can leave surrogate decision-making unchallenged.

There are ways to push back against this. Meaningful interactions between people from differing social groups (known in psychology terms as “high-quality inter-group contact”) can reduce support for hierarchies. This is especially true when it takes the form of genuine one-to-one contact, rather than just symbolic interaction.

And so can “cultural humility”: the willingness to recognise that we do not fully know other people’s experiences and should approach difference with respect, curiosity and awareness of inequality. These are practical ways of loosening the hold of hierarchy on politics.

Internalised classism adds another layer. This is the process by which people absorb negative beliefs about their own social group and begin to see themselves, or those like them, as less entitled to lead. That can make the acceptance of unelected elites easier, especially when those elites come from the upper classes. The privileged upbringing of Eton-educated Johnson, for example, did not prevent him from appealing to some working-class voters to win a general election in 2019 and lead the UK through Brexit.

Of course, the easiest way to alleviate internalised classism is for the governing party to change its rules to ensure that any new prime minister must be elected via a public vote, rather than leadership challenge. However, this small change would have a seismic effect and is unlikely to happen.

Ultimately, the strongest defence against unelected leaders is democratic accountability. That means questioning backroom power, reducing political apathy and encouraging citizens to care about who governs them and how. If democracies fail in this, they risk normalising elite rule and weakening the foundations of democratic life.

🔮 WHAT MATTERS NEXT...

🎯 WHAT TO WATCH NEXT:

● Whether Burnham’s transition to Downing Street proceeds without a contested Labour membership vote.

● Whether Labour MPs frame the handover as constitutional routine, emergency repair or democratic discomfort.

● Whether opposition parties turn the absence of a general election into a wider legitimacy attack.

● Whether Burnham offers early accountability signals, including a timetable, mandate argument or policy reset.

● Whether public opinion treats the transition as normal Westminster practice or another sign of political exclusion.

🎯 MOST LIKELY OUTCOME:

● The transition is likely to be accepted institutionally, but it will deepen the argument that Britain’s parties can change prime ministers faster than voters can judge them.

🎯 WHAT COULD CHANGE THE PICTURE:

● A sharp public backlash, a formal leadership challenge or demands for an early general election could turn an internal Labour process into a national legitimacy crisis.

🎯 WHY THIS MATTERS:

● The way Britain accepts unelected transitions may determine whether party management continues to substitute for public democratic choice.

GOING FURTHER

• Burnham’s gamble could rescue Labour, or deepen Britain’s crisis | Europeans TODAY

• Who are the main contenders to replace Keir Starmer as prime minister? | Europeans TODAY

• TODAY’s Briefing ~ 19-Jun-2026 | Europeans TODAY

• Andy Burnham secures Labour leadership with landslide support of MPs | The Guardian

• How could Labour remove Keir Starmer? Four possible routes | The Guardian

• Labour MPs fear backlash over expected Burnham coronation | Sky News

• Andy Burnham plans blitz of policy announcements on entering Number 10 | Financial Times

• Andy Burnham to promise to ‘fix the big things’ in first speech as Labour leader | The Guardian

Sources:

▪ This piece was originally published in The Conversation and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 16 July 2026. | The authors write in a personal capacity.

▪ Cover: Flickr/NUMBER 10. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)