A progressive alliance between Labour and the Lib Dems would strike fear into the Tories

Keir Starmer might soon have to make his mind up – pressure for reform is building in the Labour grassroots, writes Andrew Grice

Keir Starmer found warm words about electoral reform (AFP/Getty)

Whenever Labour is in the doldrums, it starts an agonised internal debate on the question: “Can we ever win power again?”. No surprise, then, that it’s happening after last week’s elections.

As ever, the debate includes whether Labour should come out for proportional representation to replace our antediluvian first-past-the-post system. There is also revived talk of a progressive alliance with the Liberal Democrats and Greens. The Lib Dems won a projected 17 per cent share of the national vote in the English local elections, while the Greens gained 88 seats and are snapping at Labour’s heels.

Keir Starmer found warm words about electoral reform during Labour’s leadership contest, saying: “We’ve got to address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their vote doesn’t count.” But he has gone very quiet on the issue since.

With his leadership increasingly under fire, going down this route would risk looking “weak and defeatist,” as one ally put it. The move would advertise Labour’s long-standing divisions over PR, although there is support on the left, including from John McDonnell and the grassroots Momentum group.

Of course, the Tories would accuse Starmer of plotting to sneak into power at the head of “a coalition of losers”, including the SNP. No wonder the Tories love an electoral system that delivered them a majority of 80 with 44 per cent of the votes. Indeed, they cynically plan to extend it to English mayoral elections, after Labour won 11 of the 13 posts last week under the supplementary vote system.

Starmer might soon have to make his mind up. Pressure for reform is building in the Labour grassroots; more than 200 constituency parties have backed PR and are trying to force a debate at the party’s autumn conference.

With the right-of-centre vote now united behind the Tories, the logic of a progressive alliance will become stronger. Campaigners reckon the Hartlepool by-election makes at least another 12 Labour seats in the red wall vulnerable. That, plus proposed changes to constituency boundaries, would leave Labour needing to gain 160 seats to win a majority next time, according to the Compass pressure group, which campaigns for a progressive alliance.

Neal Lawson, its director, told me: “If Hartlepool is now a safe Tory seat Labour really is in the last chance saloon. It changes or it dies.” He said the party’s stance on PR “is the litmus test of whether Labour want to join 21st-century politics.”

Opponents of reform argue that it’s a blind alley, as Labour first needs to win under the existing system. The cold reality is that doing so in one go looks increasingly unlikely. As things stand, Starmer might only get one shot. So he should be interested in a progressive alliance.

The Lib Dems came second in 80 seats won by the Tories in 2019; helping them defeat the Tories next time would be better for Labour than splitting the progressive vote and allowing the Tories to hold on. True, parties can’t direct their supporters to vote for someone else. But some voters are happy to vote tactically.

The Tories lost control of Oxfordshire County Council for the first time because of some cooperation between the Lib Dems and Greens. In Milton Keynes, Labour and the Lib Dems have formed a coalition with a Labour council leader and Lib Dem deputy. Compass hopes to see similar agreements in Sheffield and Bristol.

The Lib Dems, admittedly not from a strong position with just 11 MPs, are open for business with Labour; they rightly see Starmer as a less tribal figure than Jeremy Corbyn. I’m told the Lib Dems are floating the idea of informal cooperation in the two forthcoming by-elections, with Labour soft-pedalling in Tory-held Chesham and Amersham, and the Lib Dems not putting vast resources into Batley and Spen, where the Tories hope to repeat their Hartlepool success.

Such an arrangement would make sense. In Chesham, the Lib Dems want to make the main issue plans in the Queen’s Speech for house-building schemes to go ahead more easily, although the Greens might prefer to campaign against the HS2 rail project, a big issue locally.

Many Tory MPs in the south fear the house-building proposal will cost the party votes – and fear Boris Johnson’s focus on the red wall will alienate its traditional supporters in the south. They point out that the Tories also lost ground in Surrey, West Sussex and Cambridgeshire last week.

So, an understanding between Labour, the Lib Dems and Greens at the next general election would make sense – and not necessarily a formal pact in which candidates stood down in some seats. Such deals are very difficult to impose on local activists, and the Greens are understandably wary after getting their fingers burnt at the 2017 election.

More achievable would be an informal agreement for the progressive party best placed to beat the Tories in a seat to channel more campaign resources to it, while the other non-Tory parties prioritised other constituencies. Such a deal between Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown helped Blair win his 1997 landslide.

For now, it seems unlikely to happen. But things might look very different as the election looms. There’s one good reason why it should happen: the Tories would fear it.