Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, left the door open for a post-election coalition with Labor on Sunday, after local council results last week suggested Britain could be heading for a suspended parliament.
Davey also hinted at the possible price of a deal with Labour, saying changing Britain’s electoral system to a more proportional model was “very important for the Liberal Democrats”.
Although Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer says he is on track to secure an outright majority in the House of Commons in the scheduled general election of 2024, polls last week confirmed that this remains a challenge. size.
Starmer has explicitly ruled out a coalition with the Scottish National Party, but he has been more circumspect about closing the door on a deal with Davey, who shares his goal of ousting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak from Downing Street.
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting tried to shut down discussion of a possible Lib-Lab pact on the BBC Sunday with Laura Kuennsbergsaying, “We’re not in this rough phase of talking about coalitions.”
Davey is also reluctant to start discussing potential deals, knowing it plays into a likely conservative narrative that the country could be heading towards a “coalition of chaos” in a parliament without a majority.
But he told the same program there was no way he would repeat the Lib Dems’ 2010-15 coalition with the Tories – a pact which cost the party dearly in political support – adding: ‘Our aim is to get rid of the Tory MPs.”
Asked about a possible deal with Labour, he said: “That’s a hypothetical question. We don’t know what will happen after the next election. We are not going to take voters for granted.
While Labor made big gains in last week’s polls in England, the results implied Starmer would struggle to win an overall majority in the House of Commons; Labor needs to win around 120 seats to even have a majority of one.
Sir John Curtice, an election expert at the University of Strathclyde, extrapolated from local results a projected UK national vote share of 35 points for Labour, 26 for the Conservatives and 20 for the Liberal Democrats. The Greens have also sounded well.
Curtice said while it was Labour’s biggest local election lead over the Tories since the party lost power in 2010, his tally was “no better than his tally in the local elections in the UK”. ‘last year”.
However, the success of Davey’s party in winning council seats from the conservative ‘blue wall’ in the south of England raises the prospect of the Lib Dem playing a key role in the outcome of the upcoming election.
The conservatives have no natural coalition allies in a hung parliament, so Sunak faces an uphill struggle to hold on to power. If there is widespread tactical voting by anti-Tory voters, his problems could get worse.
Labor and the Liberal Democrats share many goals in areas such as the environment, strengthening public services and repairing some of the damage caused by Brexit, but Davey’s call for electoral reform could be key.
Many Lib Dems see a shift to a proportional voting system as crucial to reshaping politics – and massively increasing the party’s representation in Westminster.
Streeting said he did not expect public relations to be part of the next Labor election manifesto, but many party activists support electoral reform – the party conference voted for it last year – and it could be the price the Lib Dems are asking for backing Starmer.
Lucy Frazer, Culture Secretary, acknowledged the Tories needed to ‘do more’ after losing around 1,000 council seats last week, but said Sunak would step up efforts to deliver on his promises on the economy, the NHS and migration in small boats.
The local elections have highlighted the problems Sunak faces in crafting a manifesto in the upcoming election that can sustain the 2019 Conservative electoral coalition put together by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
While Tory MPs in the north want to build more homes, some MPs in the south – including former minister Theresa Villiers – want Sunak to open a ‘new front on labour’ by saying Starmer would build inappropriately on green land .
A separate row has erupted over taxation, with right-wing Tories urging Sunak to slash taxes, while Tory MPs defending ‘red wall’ seats want more investment in their areas.
However, the idea of ditching Sunak is only being considered by a small sliver of the party – described by a Tory minister as “a few die-hard Boris and Liz crackpots”. The minister added, “Anyone who is serious about our election knows that Rishi is quietly fixing a lot of damage.”
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