LONDON — Britons’ confidence in their courts and police fell sharply in 2025, with both institutions experiencing their largest single-year declines on record.
Fifty-seven percent of U.K. adults now express confidence in the judicial system and courts, down 12 percentage points from 2024. Similarly, confidence in local police dropped 11 points to 64%. These declines mark the first time since Gallup began tracking the measures that trust in either institution has fallen by more than 10 points in a single year.
Multiple Pressures on the Legal System
Britons’ declining confidence in their national courts comes amid the record backlogs and significant case delays documented by the Law Society of England and Wales, the professional body for the country’s solicitors. The justice system’s crumbling buildings and unreliable technology are contributing to the slowdown. And in an effort to reduce the backlog, the government recently announced plans to end jury trials for crimes with sentences of fewer than three years.
The judiciary has also become increasingly politicized in the court of public opinion. The gap in judicial confidence between those who approve (74%) and those who disapprove (48%) of the country’s leadership widened significantly in 2025, reaching its largest extent in a decade. After 2015, the gap in views of the courts by leadership approval had gradually narrowed across successive governments, achieving parity in 2022.
Earlier this year, top judges proposed new sentencing guidelines that would have made ethnicity and faith greater factors in determining jail terms, sparking controversy; these were later abandoned. Conservative members of Parliament have repeatedly accused the government of presiding over a "two-tier" justice system, a characterization the government rejects.
Like their confidence in the courts, Britons’ confidence in their local police had been significantly higher among those who approve than among those who disapprove of the country’s leadership from 2007 to about 2019. After that, trust in local police in the U.K. became less politicized, reaching near parity in 2023. But in the past two years, the divide reopened, with a current gap of 27 points in confidence between those who approve and disapprove of the country’s leadership, in line with the biggest on record.
British police forces are also under increased workload pressure, with a recent official report finding police overworked, lacking in resources to investigate crime, and failing victims, contributing to eroding trust in the legal system.
U.K. Loses Distinction Among Other Liberal Democracies
Over the past two decades, Britons have generally been more likely than residents of many other liberal democracies to express confidence in their judicial system. However, the 12-point decline this year brings the U.K. (57%) in line with the median (58%) for the 30 countries that rank highest on the V-Dem Index for Liberal Democracy. (The index measures the extent of voting rights, fairness of elections, freedom of expression, civil liberties and executive constraints.)
On the other hand, over the past decade, Britons’ confidence in their local police has lagged behind median confidence among other liberal democracies, whose 79% confidence this year is typical of readings since 2016. Still, the 2025 drop in Britons’ confidence in their police opens up the biggest gap between those countries and the U.K.
Courts Alone Among Major National Institutions in Decline
The sharp drop in Britons’ confidence in their courts is unique among their ratings of other national institutions. Public confidence in the national government, financial institutions, the military and honesty of elections has been steadier since the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is the first time since the 2008 global financial crisis that the British public has expressed equal confidence in national courts and financial institutions. Trust in banks has remained above 50% since 2020, after being below that threshold for a decade following the financial crash.
Sharp Divisions in Confidence by Political Affiliation
Gallup's latest U.K. survey included political party identification for the first time, revealing clear differences in institutional confidence across party lines.
Supporters of the Labour and Conservative parties express similar levels of confidence in the judicial system (67% and 63%, respectively). In contrast, less than half as many Reform UK supporters (30%) share this confidence. Similar patterns emerge regarding financial institutions, election honesty and the local police.
The military is the only national institution to receive comparable trust across all three parties, with at least three in four supporters of each expressing confidence in it.
Bottom Line
The decline in Britons’ confidence in law-and-order institutions represents one of the most notable shifts in public opinion during Labour’s first year in power since 2010. With Reform UK riding high in domestic polls and its supporters expressing markedly lower trust in both courts and police, restoring public confidence in the justice system presents a significant challenge for the government.
Before entering Parliament, Prime Minister Keir Starmer served as Director of Public Prosecutions, one of the country's most senior legal positions. Whether Starmer can reverse these trends in a sector he once led may become a defining measure of his time at No. 10 Downing Street.
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