The tribes battling it out in Keir Starmer's Labour Party
After winning a landslide election victory last summer, Keir Starmer will be hoping his years in power aren't marred by the infighting and factionalism that dogged the final years of Conservative rule.
Yet arriving in Downing Street as he has with swathes of ambitious MPs, both new and party veterans, means it will be a challenge to keep them all happy.
The Labour Party has a history "crammed with bitter bust-ups", said the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, and tensions are already rising just months into the new Labour government. The looming "squeeze" on benefits, backlash over winter fuel payment changes, and divisive immigration plans mean Starmer may soon be spending more time on party management than running the country.
The 'old' left
"The Labour Party has never been a socialist party," influential left-wing grandee Tony Benn said in 2006, "but it’s always had socialists in it." That sentiment remains nominally true today, even as Starmer's new Labour Party has actively tried to sideline the Corbynite left of the party.
The left's opposition to the direction of the party under Starmer and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney is now seen as a "badge of pride" in the PM's inner circle, one government aide told The Spectator. Once hugely influential in the party under Jeremy Corbyn, factions such as the Socialist Campaign Group have been pushed to the margins and are down to just 24 MPs.
But as discontent over benefits cuts and disability support grows in the parliamentary party, some on the left have spied an opportunity to expand their influence once again, potentially working with those on the "soft" left of the party who don't want to see a return to the type of cuts seen under the Conservatives. "The challenge for us on the left is to work with those people – then we'll have a sizeable rebellion," one left-wing MP told Kuenssberg.
The 'soft' left
Members of the soft left have long been dismissed as "political invertebrates" and "fence-sitters" by both Labour’s left and right. And until recently they have largely avoided outright confrontation with the party leadership, said The Times.
But tensions over foreign aid cuts have pushed some into open dissent. Anneliese Dodds resigned as international development minister over Starmer’s decision to prioritise defence spending – and it proved something of a turning point.
"Aid matters viscerally and emotionally to the Labour tribe," said Andrew Marr in The New Statesman, and they are unlikely to stay silent over further cuts or reforms. And Dodds' departure only "sharpens the coming battle between Starmer Central and the soft left", he said.
The unruly new recruits
Of Labour's 406 MPs, 243 are newcomers – and they're proving more independently minded than expected. Their first act of defiance came over the assisted dying bill, with some party insiders warning that the Labour leadership has underestimated the potential for resistance from this group. "There are areas where blind allegiance is expected, and I think they’ll be surprised when say, 'Hang on here, I don't agree with that',” a veteran MP told PoliticsHome.
Members of the new intake appear to have understood their own power as "the biggest non-party group in Parliament". One whip has described the newcomers as a "nightmare" who "won't do as they're told".
The Starmer loyalists
Among the newcomers are the particularly ambitious MPs who have been quick to align themselves with Starmer’s leadership, earning the somewhat unflattering nickname of "toadies", said Kuenssberg. They have actively championed the government's tougher policy stances on welfare, defence and economic reform, often acting as vocal cheerleaders in public letters and media appearances. One MP has wryly described them as "pop-up pressure groups", happy to call for Starmer's reforms to go further.
Of all the groups, these loyalists are the least likely to cause Starmer any headaches, but as the party settles into government, having fought off the Tories and the hard left of his party, he'll need to make it clear to his loyalists "what the party is united on now".