The UK at the Dawn of 2026

As 2025 draws to a close, OPUS invites you to reflect on your experience of being a UK citizen at the dawn of a new year.

We have a Labour government led by Sir Kier Starmer and the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves. The government continues to enact unpopular neo-liberal economic policy, despite increasing calls to ‘tax the rich’ and invest in public services.
We have a far-right party, Reform, that is surging in the polls despite accusations of racism. The Green party is also enjoying unprecedented success under the new leadership of Zac Polanski. The ‘first past the post’ electoral system remains in place, but the minimum voting age has been lowered to 16.

In 2025, the mysterious appearance of Saint George’s Cross in public spaces up and down the country divided public opinion. Small scale protests at immigration and asylum centres were followed by the largest ever far-right demonstration in UK history, in which 100,000 people marched alongside Tommy Robinson under the banner of ‘Unite the Kingdom’.
Elsewhere, the environmental activist group ‘Just Stop Oil’ declared success and hung up their high viz jackets. The non-violent direct-action group ‘Palestine Action’ was proscribed as a terrorist organisation and ‘Defend Our Juries’ continued to test the government’s resolve with over 2000 of its supporters arrested for holding placards.

The ‘Palestine Solidarity Campaign’ continued to organise near weekly mass demonstrations in opposition to the genocide in Gaza, even after a ceasefire was declared. British Jews warned of increasing anti-Semitism in the UK before armed assailants attempted to gain access to a Manchester synagogue during Yom Kippur, resulting in three deaths and multiple injuries.
We now have a new legal definition of a woman based on biological sex. And, speaking of sex, the former Prince Andrew, now known simply as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, was stripped of his royal titles as a result of his association with the disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

There is much to discuss, even before we consider the international context – President Donald Trump’s re-election to the Whitehouse, trade tariffs, war in Ukraine and Gaza, the third hottest year on record (after 2023 and 2024), more frequent extreme weather events and the continuing rise of Artificial Intelligence among many other things, no doubt.

Please join us to discuss it all and, importantly, what it’s like for you to be a citizen of UK or global society at the dawn of 2026.