This article was written by Ali Erdem Altun, Academic Associate at the LSE Undergraduate Political Review.

In August 1485, a weary and battle-scarred England watched as the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, collapsed on the field of Bosworth, yielding his authority to the first Tudor king, Henry VII. This battlefield also marked the end of a series of wars known as the Cousins’ War or The Wars of the Roses between the House of York and the House of Lancaster, two branches of the same house. For almost three decades, England witnessed aristocratic backstabbing, shifting allegiances, and bloodshed, which reduced a once-mighty kingdom, the Plantagenets, all descendants of Edward III, to a fragmented, war-torn dynasty. At the time, the nobility was so occupied with its own survival that it had forgotten that a nation existed beyond its private ambitions, subjects left in perpetual despair. Though an unlikely claimant, Henry Tudor seized the throne, not because of his overwhelming legitimacy but because England found herself on the verge of a breakdown due to the years of instability she had endured, and Henry proved himself to be a balancing figure that could pull England out from the devastating rubble. He was, in many ways, the inevitable byproduct of a system that had destroyed itself. 

Today, one can draw parallels between that self-inflicted collapse and Britain’s current political landscape with ease, for the dynamics are strikingly familiar, albeit the country isn’t standing at the edge of a literal battlefield: a governing elite locked in endless internal feuds, a public growing impatient with political dysfunction day by day, and a slow but undeniable drift toward a systemic collapse that might, eventually, redefine the nation’s future. 

The reality of the Wars of the Roses, though many often frame it as a contest between the aforementioned two noble houses, each vying for the English crown, was messier and far more cynical. The war was less about principle and more about the ontological instability of a ruling class that had abandoned governing its people in favor of factional warfare. It started as the last Lancastrian king, Henry VI, reigned weakly and chaotically, which created a power vacuum that allowed ambitious nobles to carve out their own domains, playing kingmaker and then betrayer in turn. Kings were crowned and overthrown frivolously: Henry VI was deposed, reinstated, and deposed again. Edward IV, the first Yorkist king, seized the crown, lost it, and then reclaimed it. His brother, Richard III, and his short reign were defined by controversies surrounding the legitimacy of his power as well as the brutality through which he secured the crown, only to be defeated at Bosworth in two years’ time. Governance itself had become a casualty of this elite infighting, which left England weary. 

Drawing Parallels

In my opinion, the UK in 2025 is by no means any different. The nation presents an unsettlingly similar picture of institutional decay, for the country has cycled through five prime ministers in eight years. What’s perhaps more interesting is that each departure is not prompted by public rejection at the ballot box but also by internal party feuds. Before its electoral collapse, The Conservative Party had been locked in an endless succession crisis, and leaders cast aside as factional struggles overtook any sense of coherent policy direction. Brexit and the discourse around it proved futile, too, which was meant to mark the dawn of a new sovereign era. Instead, it fractured the governing party beyond repair, which produced leadership so volatile that it plunged the nation into a directionless and adrift state. The 2024 general election saw Labour’s return to power, but factionalism is by no means a purely Conservative affliction. Recent fractures within Labour reveal a rather similar dynamic at play: a political class so fixated on the internal positioning that it almost completely neglects the public it governs. Let’s look at the struggle over inheritance tax reform and how it has exposed key partitionings in Keir Starmer’s government. For instance, a Labour MP, Henry Tufnell, has publicly opposed Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s proposal to impose a 20% inheritance tax on agricultural property over £1 million by saying it unfairly targets farmers and rural communities. In a similar fashion, the resignation of Anneliese Dodds as International Development Minister over the government’s cut to the UK’s aid budget suggests that Starmer’s seemingly firm grip on party discipline is a deception. The emergence of Reform UK is highly relevant in this context, too, as the Red Wall Caucus appeared as a group of MPs concerned about Labour’s potential vulnerability to Reform UK. Senior figures like Harriet Harman warned that such factional blocs risk undermining Labour’s ability to maintain cohesion in government. The risk is that Britain is heading toward a moment of reckoning where governance simply ceases to function as intended, much like Britain prior to the Bosworth field. The Wars of the Roses did not destroy England overnight; rather, the kingdom decayed over decades as factional struggles consumed its institutions, which left it vulnerable to external and internal threats. Today, as I write these words, we begin to see that same pattern in the slow erosion of public trust in Britain’s political system. Economic stagnation has persisted for over a decade, with the UK’s GDP growth now forecasted at a meager 0.9% in 2025. The north-south economic divide remains stark, which fuels regional resentment that Westminister fell short of addressing. The monarchy, too, faces existential questions about its relevance in an era of declining public support despite being historically regarded as a pillar of continuity. 

A Question on the Future

The following question is at the heart of this piece: Who, if anyone, will emerge to fill the vacuum? It’s a widely acknowledged historical fact that Henry Tudor did not win Bosworth due to overwhelming strength. He won because England had already exhausted every other option at her disposal. He was a pragmatic man, consolidatory, but his most crucial attribute lay in his ability to show his subjects that he was willing to depart from the feudal bloodletting that had defined the previous decades. Who, then, in modern Britain, plays this role? Indeed, it is not Keir Starmer’s Labour government, no matter how hard it strives to present itself as a stabilizing force. Let’s assume there’s no Henry Tudor. Then what happens? The Wars of the Roses ended because Henry VII imposed consolidation and decisiveness. Britain today lacks such a mechanism, which is a crucial absence, one that’s almost impossible to compensate for. The current political parties are too factional and preoccupied with their own struggles to impose the genuine stability that the public yearns for. What I’m depicting is a post-Bosworth moment in which no Tudor ever arrives.

If we want to learn from history, grasping the following fundamental lesson should be our priority: when a system finds itself on the brink of destruction, something must be there to replace it. If Britain’s political class remains unable to provide such an alternative, then who knows, the worst may yet be to come.