Great Britain is currently navigating what it describes as a political crisis.

It's actually not a crisis at all. It's not great. But it's more a symptom of health than a signal of dysfunction.

Last week, local elections were held. In Britain, the local councils determine a lot of how life is experienced in towns, boroughs, counties, and metro areas. Local elections not only determine local representation, but they indicate how people feel about national parties.

The Labour Party, which took over government two years ago with a historically large margin of victory, got battered. The party lost nearly 1500 local seats, meaning their platform and philosophy will have a lot less to say about local decisions.

Now there are calls for the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, to step down and sponsor a contest within the party to nominate a replacement. For now, they are merely "calls" ... fortified to a degree by a few resignations, but short of the level of opposition necessary to trigger the parliamentary mechanism to replace the PM.

But it's not great. Because it beckons instability. Britain was seduced by false prophecies into removing itself from the EU ten years ago.

Economic instability has been the only constant ever since. Triggered by Brexit. Aggravated by the pandemic. Held down by energy shock from the invasion of Ukraine. Entrenched by tariffs. Re-aggravated by another Middle East war.

In the time those things happened, the primary countermeasure available to maintain a semblance of economic and social order was political stability.

But it has rarely predominated. Britain has chewed through five Prime Ministers in that time. Five governments. Five policy platforms.

That's not good for markets or businesses.

Cost of living remains a problem tied to inflation driven by externalities Britain can't control. But the economy isn't growing fast enough. Jobs are too hard to get, too hard to hold, and don't pay enough. And after 14 years of proving that cutting government doesn't solve problems, there is unwelcome social austerity that can't be addressed with spending since the budget is broken. Privatizing public services put money in the pockets of investors instead of taxpayers, all in exchange for new debt, trains that don't run on time, and polluted waterways. Social media companies are distorting youth on a mass scale, and drug gangs are in some cases occupying the void left by shrunken police departments.

Brits elected this government to see new energy addressing these and other issues.

This government has not sufficiently differentiated itself from its predecessor. It doesn't feel, so far, like a party championing the interests of working people. This recent vote is putting Labour on notice about that.

But "no notice" is different from "you're fired." Another leadership challenge doesn't feel warranted, at least not yet.

Starmer has been sluggish, boring, stodgy, and hasn't sold his achievements forcefully enough.

But after years of chaos, boring is good. And none of his ministers or party colleagues have said jack all until now. So if this challenge is about a legitimate division of party philosophy, it is at least valid, if painful. If it's a symptom of his party being a nest of duplicitous pit vipers with inflamed ambitions and too little regard for their country's best interest, it's not valid. It's just a stable of egos jockeying for celebrity. No one wants to see that.

But either way, here's why it's not a crisis. At least not in a way this America-born dual citizen understands the term.

The challenges to Starmer are coming from within his own party.

This is an exhibit of how healthy systems are self-accountable, and attempt to self-heal.

The Labour Party understands it has fallen out of step with constituents, so it must either re-establish confidence with them under the current regime or it must change leaders and start over again.

In Britain, there are multiple parties. One party losing seats to others provides the healthy pressure to adjust. To meet the demands of the electorate, as expressed via local elections.

Reacting is what prevents crisis. It limits the crisis to the boundaries of a political party or ruling faction without allowing that crisis to infect the general functioning of the country as a whole.

Starmer's government has done some good. More to address illegal immigration than the preceding government. More to help working people than has been done in a long time.

But ultimately, Brits voted for a Labour government, not "Tory Lite."

So people are looking for an alternative. A third way. And they are voting Reform, which is essentially a vote for no functioning government at all. It's a raft of empty promises fueled by sensational rhetoric and convenient scapegoats to explain economic and social frustration.

It was the nationalist bombast of proto-Reform that got this shit train rolling a decade ago. Given the chance, they'll take Britain into the grim populist thicket in which America is currently lost.

So it's good that there is a tussle within the party to sort things out. I sure as Hell wish Republicans in the US had the same courage to listen to voters and react. I wish Democrats would too. Neither is offering a platform that addresses the concerns of the general public, so the public are choosing a third way which is actually no way at all.

Reacting, grappling to meet the needs of the voting public, is a signal of healthy functioning in representative government.

Pretending nothing is wrong, as we routinely now see in the US as the temple of democracy burns, is the opposite.

That's the real crisis.

All that said, I reckon Starmer's goose is cooked. For whatever reason, his teammates are not rallying around him. His speech on Monday to rally the troops only emboldened challengers.

It's possible he's not the guy. If he is the guy, he will benefit from this scrutiny.

Either way, the circus continues.