Feeling political? Turbulent emotions in the age of Starmer and Reform UK
Soundings - Print ISSN 1362-6620 - Online ISSN 1741-0797
Volume 2025 Number 90 & 91
Feeling political? Turbulent emotions in the age of Starmer and Reform UK
Sarah Bufkin, John Clarke, Jo Littler pages 76‑91
DOI: 10.3898/SOUN:90-91.05.2025
Abstract
What can we understand about the current political conjuncture in the UK through the lens of ‘feelings’? This article traces some dominant threads of current ‘political feelings’ through three sections. The first outlines the emotional depletion and disillusionment further cultivated by Starmerism on the back of the structural neglect of the last neoliberal half-century. The second section traces the emotional re-routings and political-libidinal rewirings of such feelings by the radical right, and in particular by the Reform UK Party, around ‘flashpoint’ topics like local government and migration. And the third considers nascent stirrings: the feelings of progressive change and the ways in which they are being, and might be, nourished. Ultimately we ask: what might an ‘emotionally intelligent’ progressive politics need to think about today?
To cite this article
Sarah Bufkin, John Clarke, Jo Littler (2025) Feeling political? Turbulent emotions in the age of Starmer and Reform UK, Soundings, 2025(90 & 91 ), 76-91 . https://doi.org/10.3898/SOUN:90-91.05.2025