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The World Ahead | Britain in 2025

Labour will spend 2025 doing what it loves: fighting itself

But it can afford to, because the Conservatives will be fighting everyone else

Illustration of Keir Starmer fighting with himself in boxing gloves
Illustration: Ellie Foreman-Peck

By Duncan Robinson, Political editor and Bagehot columnist, The Economist

The Labour Party hates two things, runs the old joke: getting its own way, and each other. In 2025, Sir Keir Starmer’s government may have a majority of 154 in the House of Commons; it may sit atop the world’s least constrained executive; it may have four clear years to bend the country to its will. Is it happy? Not really. Labour will spend 2025 fighting itself.

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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2025 under the headline “Backbenchers and backbiting”

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