British politics is starting to resemble a bowling alley. One after another, political figures are tumbling–including the leading lights of the Brexit campaign. They sowed the wind and now are reaping the whirlwind.

First to topple was the prime minister. After the referendum, David Cameron announced that he would step down. Last week fellow Conservative Boris Johnson, the leading light of the Brexit campaign, said he would not run to succeed Mr. Cameron after his ally Michael Gove, the justice secretary, concluded, in quintessentially British style, that Mr. Johnson lacked “the team captaincy” required. Then Nigel Farage stepped down as leader of the UK Independence Party, saying “I want my life back.” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has lost the support of his parliamentary colleagues and may be next to fall.

The exit of the leading Brexiteers is a relief. The skills required to run a populist, fact-averse campaign are not the same skills needed to lead a nation. For all his mercurial talents, on full display during his colorful stint as mayor of London, Boris Johnson would have been a disastrous prime minister. The alternatives–especially Mr. Gove and Home Secretary Theresa May–are steadier souls. Both are also better positioned to unite Conservative members of Parliament and hold on until the next scheduled general election, in 2020.

Mr. Corbyn is likely to go; the question really is when. It he doesn’t, the Labour Party will break apart. In his case the departure will be only slightly about the vote to remain in or leave the European Union. Broadly, his fellow Labour MPs didn’t want him as their leader in the first place; it was the votes of more left-wing party members that propelled him to the leadership, and many see him as an electoral liability. (He is.)

There is no direct connection between Brexit and Donald Trump. But a few things can still be deduced on this side of the pond. First, Mr. Trump may succeed in making the connection tighter. His immediate announcement that the vote was about “declaring independence” reflected his sharpening political instincts. The day after the vote, Mr. Trump said: “The people of the United Kingdom have exercised the sacred right of all free peoples. They have declared their independence from the European Union. … Come November, the American people will have the chance to re-declare their independence. Americans will have a chance to vote for trade, immigration and foreign policies that put our citizens first.”

Independence is a powerful populist theme, one Mr. Trump is likely to exploit it to its fullest.

Brexit and the economic and political chaos it has already sparked are proof that no matter how crazy or far-fetched an electoral outcome appears, it can happen. Right up to the last minute, many believed that even if the vote were close, it would be to remain in the EU. At some level we just couldn’t imagine the alternative. Maybe Mr. Cameron and Mr. Corybn felt the same, which is why they were so complacent. Not so, the other side.

All this suggests the wisdom of treating every poll with a fistful of salt. Electorates are becoming more volatile and more visceral. Pollsters are getting it wrong as often as they get it right. The last general election in the U.K. is another case in point. Populist sentiment wrecks standard political models. When people are angry, they don’t weigh the costs and benefits of their actions in the usual way; that’s true in life and it’s true in voting.

It’s also why it’s risky to allow populist campaigners near the levers of power. I’ve written in this space before about the dangers of injecting direct democracy in a parliamentary political system. Think of referendums as akin to Ming vases: something rare, to be handled with great care. The British Parliament is now acting as a firebreak. The leading populists will not get the keys to 10 Downing Street.

But the United States holds direct elections for president. If Donald Trump wins in November, he will assume the most powerful office in the world. There is no firebreak, no buffer, no second chance.

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared on the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog.

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire on July 11, 2016. Theresa May has since succeeded David Cameron as UK prime minister.

Theresa May is poised to become Britain’s next prime minister on Wednesday. This means there is a reasonable chance the post-Brexit whirlwind of U.K. politics will quiet somewhat. Here are seven things that stand out about the next PM:

1. Her experience. Ms. May has been in the top ranks of British politics for almost two decades. She is one of the longest-serving home secretaries, overseeing domestic security, law and order, and immigration. With the exception of Michael Gove, who was knocked out early in the contest, she was by far the most experienced candidate in the race.

2. Her resilience. Ms. May is what Americans call a tough cookie. When I was in government, she was the Cabinet minister with whom David Cameron least liked to tangle. When Ms. May said no, she meant no. This did not always lead to perfect policy outcomes, of course. But few in Westminster doubt her strength.

3. Modernizing instincts. As the Conservative Party’s first female chairman, Ms. May pointed out in 2002 that to many voters the Tories were seen as the “nasty party” and that reform was essential. She helped to lay the ground for David Cameron to emerge as a new, more moderate face of the Conservative Party. Ms. May was also one of the first senior Conservatives to back same-sex marriage.

4. She backed Remain. As the only leadership candidate who was on the losing side of the Brexit vote, she is, paradoxically, well-placed to unite the Conservative Party in parliament. Most Tory MPs were, like Ms. May, in the Remain camp. But she was a lukewarm Remainer and has a history of being skeptical of European institutions–including the European Convention on Human Rights–which will endear her to Brexiteers. Already she has made it clear that “Brexit means Brexit” and that she will only trigger Article 50, which governs the process by which an EU member exits, when she has her negotiating position worked out. So far, so good. (Particularly for those worried about market volatility and the U.K. economy in the wake of the June 23 referendum.)

5. Government stability. Given her strong support among parliamentary colleagues, Ms. May is not likely to feel any need to trigger an emergency general election. Instead, she can make the case that the U.K. needs a stable government during the lengthy Brexit negotiations to come (and she’ll be right). Labour politicians calling for an election are whistling in the wind, especially given their own leadership civil war.

6. Gender issues and non-issues. Theresa May is about to become the U.K.’s second female prime minister and there has been refreshingly little commentary on her gender. The only real exception was the row caused by her opponent Andrea Leadsom, who clumsily implied in a recent interview that not being a mother made Ms. May less qualified. (Ms. Leadsom apologized shortly before dropping out of the contest.) If Labour MPs manage to dislodge their leader, Jeremy Corbyn (an outcome that may be decided in court), the favorite to succeed him is Angela Eagle, who is married to a woman.

7. Redressing the class balance. The United Kingdom has been run by posh people, since, well, forever. But David Cameron’s crowd was a particularly upper-crust bunch, mostly educated at private schools. Ms. May, by contrast, went to a comprehensive high school (in American English, a public school). To the extent that there is need for more class diversity among governing elites, this is another piece of good news.

None of this alters the disastrous economic implications of the Brexit vote. But by turning to May, the Conservatives will be better prepared to secure a period of stable government, with a little more class and gender diversity thrown in for good measure. That’s about the best one could hope for.

Britain’s Conservative Party just tore itself apart over the EU referendum; David Cameron was forced to resign as prime minister. Yet the party in meltdown is Labour. Polling out this past weekend shows Labour drawing 31%, vs. 37% for Conservatives, if a general election were held tomorrow.

The Conservative Party, showing once again its extraordinary capacity for self-preservation, is closing ranks behind new Prime Minister Theresa May. Still, how can the Tories be riding so high after such a political omnishambles? One doesn’t have to look far for an answer: the hard-left Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Asked who is or would be the best prime minister, just 16% of British voters give Mr. Corbyn the thumbs-up, compared with 52% for Ms. May. Fewer than half of Labour supporters (48%) think Mr. Corbyn would be the best PM. In her first outing in the House of Commons, Ms. May easily trounced Mr. Corbyn. (Her performance was described by the left-leaning Guardian newspaper as a “brutally brilliant” debut.) No wonder most of his parliamentary colleagues have abandoned him, forcing a leadership contest.

Again, the Conservative Party has just presided over an amateurish, disastrous session of British political history. That Tories still dominate is less about their strength than their political opponents’ weakness.

So: What will happen? I’ve just been in London, and conversations with political insiders suggest that this is the most likely scenario to play out:

First, Jeremy Corbyn, having attracted many left-wingers onto party rolls, fends off challenger Owen Smith to retain the leadership of the Labour Party.

Next, the majority of Labour MPs set themselves up as a separate parliamentary group.

As the second-largest group in parliament, these MPs would become the official opposition. They could call themselves anything–say, New Labour Party. (Read this excellent summary of the constitutional implications by Meg Russell of the University College London). This means money and status. If the anti-Corbyn MPs can’t get a new leader, they’ll get a new party.

In the meantime, a few remaining anti-Corbyn MPs stay behind and try to recapture their party. The key here, for those interested in the details, is to take control of Unite, the U.K.’s largest trade union. (Unite’s leader, Len McCluskey, is a strong supporter of Mr. Corbyn and has rallied the union’s members behind him, but his term ends soon.)

If the Labour Party, reduced to a parliamentary rump, remains in Mr. Corbyn’s hands, the next general election would be the moment when the split becomes formal. The New Labour Party would try to attract Liberal Democrat and Green supporters, as well as pro-European conservatives.

Theresa May is likely to wait until the next scheduled general election, in 2020, to face voters. But if Labour were to split, she might decide to call a snap general election to take advantage of opponents’ disarray. Either way, it seems likely the Tories would win.

Center-left parties across the globe seem to be struggling to connect with the anxieties of ordinary voters, leaving them at the mercy of populist appeals. Between populist surges and volatile electorates, we are seeing destabilizing forces at work in politics. Strong political parties act as stabilizers in stormy waters. Whatever one’s individual politics, the fate of the Labour Party in Britain, and perhaps the Republican Party in the U.S., should concern us all.

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal. 

The tide of uncertainty that has swept the United Kingdom after its vote to leave the European Union has spared few—including its emerging class of innovation districts.

These hubs of innovation—where anchor institutions, such as universities and R&D laden companies cluster and connect with startups, incubators, and a host of public spaces, coffee shops, retail and housing—are now asking themselves important questions that will affect their future. Will the U.K. broker a deal to continue free trade with Europe? Will access to talent across Europe be curtailed? Will the devalued pound keep U.K. advanced manufacturers competitive for the medium to long term? Will European Union legal frameworks be replaced with a regulatory platform that continues to support advanced sectors? What will happen to EU funding on science and innovation, such as Horizon 2020?

Of course, innovation districts are no stranger to uncertainty, if not chaos. These districts thrive on random mixing, on smashing different kinds of disciplines and people together to generate new ideas and new products for the market. In this close-knit, highly networked ecosystem, chaos breeds creativity. At the same time, the backbone of districts is a clear regulatory and legal framework with rules on intellectual property, investment, and funding streams. The twinning of chaos and certainty is what makes these places simply superb spaces to incubate new technology, aggregate talent, and experiment in linking placemaking with innovation.

Yet from the distinctive innovation districts in London to those emerging in the middle of England, such as in Sheffield and Manchester, to those rising in Scotland, such as in Glasgow, this moment of uncertainty could be not only painful—it could be downright dangerous. 

In the face of such uncertain times, the temptation will be to sit back and wait for the cards to fall. But this tempered, conservative approach is ironically the more risky tactic.

We recommend another path.

Now is the time for the institutions and firms that are driving innovation districts to strengthen their competitive position and expand their reach.

Now is the time to try new forms of collaboration between universities, large companies, and local enterprises.

Now is the time to test more democratic modes of innovation with maker spaces, fab labs, and shared infrastructure and equipment.

Now is the time to forge new partnerships with other innovation districts in the United States and Europe to share promising strategies around commercialization, networking, and financing.

Now is the time to apply new energy to creative placemaking, including strengthening the innovation–place nexus around key nodes and applying quick interventions around traffic calming, bike lanes, and pop-up gathering spaces. 

U.S. cities and innovation districts have demonstrated that progress can persist even when higher levels of government are adrift. U.K. cities and districts can do the same.

Twenty-five years ago, in March 1991, shaken by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of nationalist-separatist movements in the Soviet Baltic and Caucasus republics, Mikhail Gorbachev held a historic referendum. He proposed the creation of a new union treaty to save the USSR. The gambit failed. Although a majority of the Soviet population voted yes, some key republics refused to participate. And so began the dissolution of the USSR, the event that current Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century.

Today, in the wake of the referendum on leaving the European Union, British Prime Minister David Cameron seems to have put the United Kingdom on a similar, potentially catastrophic, path. Like the fall of the wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fallout from Brexit could have momentous consequences. The U.K. is of course not the USSR, but there are historic links between Britain and Russia and structural parallels that are worth bearing in mind as the U.K. and the EU work out their divorce, and British leaders figure out what to do next, domestically and internationally.

A quick Russian history recap

The British and Russian empires formed at around the same time and frequently interacted. Queen Elizabeth I was pen pals with Ivan the Terrible. The union of the Scottish and English parliaments in 1707 that set the United Kingdom on its imperial trajectory coincided with the 1709 battle of Poltava, in which Peter the Great ousted the Swedes from the lands of modern Ukraine and began the consolidation of the Russian empire. The Russian imperial and British royal families intermarried, even as they jockeyed for influence in Central Asia and Afghanistan in the 19th century. The last Czar and his wife were respectively a distant cousin and granddaughter of British Queen Victoria. The Irish Easter Uprising and the Russian Revolution were both sparked by problems at home, imperial overstretch, and the shock of the World War I. 

Like the fall of the wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fallout from Brexit could have momentous consequences.

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.K. and Russia have both had difficulty figuring out their post-imperial identities and roles. The U.K. in 2016 looks structurally a lot like the USSR in 1991, and England’s current identity crisis is reminiscent of Russia’s in the 1990s. After Gorbachev’s referendum failed to shore up the union, the Soviet Union was undermined by an attempted coup (in August 1991) and then dismantled by its national elites. In early December 1991, Boris Yeltsin, the flamboyant head of the Russian Federation, holed up in a hut deep in the Belarusian woods with the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus and conspired to replace the USSR with a new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). With Gorbachev and the Soviet Union gone by the end of December, the hangover set in. Boris Yeltsin was the first to rue the consequences of his actions. The CIS never gained traction as the basis for a new union led by Russia. 

The Ukrainians, Belarussians, and everyone else gained new states and new identities and used the CIS as a mechanism for divorce. Russians lost an empire, their geopolitical anchor, and their identity as the first among equals in the USSR. The Russian Federation was a rump state. And although ethnic Russians were 80 percent of the population, the forces of disintegration continued. Tatars, Chechens, and other indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation, with their own histories, seized or agitated for independence. Ethnic Russians were “left behind” in other republics. Historic territories were lost. Instead of presiding over a period of Russian independence, Boris Yeltsin muddled through a decade of economic collapse and political humiliation.

Separating the U.K. from Europe...could be as wrenching as pulling apart the USSR.

Is Britain laying the same trap?

Another Boris, the U.K.’s Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and main political opponent of David Cameron, risks doing the same if he becomes U.K. prime minister in the next few months. Separating the U.K. from Europe institutionally, politically, and economically could be as wrenching as pulling apart the USSR. People will be left behind—EU citizens in the U.K., U.K. citizens in the EU––and will have to make hard choices about who they are, and where they want to live and work. The British pound has already plummeted. The prognoses for short- to medium-term economic dislocation have ranged from gloomy to dire. The U.K is a multi-ethnic state, with degrees of devolved power to its constituent parts, and deep political divides at the elite and popular levels. Scotland and Northern Ireland, along with Gibraltar (a contested territory with Spain), clearly voted to stay in the European Union. The prospect of a new Scottish referendum on independence, questions about the fate of the Irish peace process, and the format for continuing Gibraltar’s relationship with Spain, will all complicate the EU-U.K. divorce proceedings. 

Like Russia and the Russians, England and the English are in the throes of an identity crisis.

Like Russia and the Russians, England and the English are in the throes of an identity crisis. England is not ethnically homogeneous. In addition to hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens living in England, there are many more English people with Irish as well as Scottish ancestry––David Cameron’s name gives away his Scottish antecedents––as well as those with origins in the colonies of the old British empire. And there are the EU citizens who have drawn so much ire in the Brexit debate. 

As in the case of the USSR and Russia where all roads led (and still lead) to Moscow, London dominates the U.K.’s population, politics, and economics. London is a global city that is as much a magnet for international migration as a center of finance and business. London voted to remain in Europe. The rest of England, London’s far flung, neglected, and resentful hinterland, voted to leave the EU—and perhaps also to leave London. At the end of the divorce process, without careful attention from politicians in London, England could find itself the rump successor state to the United Kingdom. If so, another great imperial state will have consigned itself to the “dust heap of history” by tying its future to a referendum.