Yes. The main opposition appoints a “shadow cabinet” and they do have some duties under our parliamentary system. Cabinet ministers introduce bills, and a minister’s “shadow” has a prominent role in debating those bills and first dibs in asking questions.
Additionally the main opposition is guaranteed 6 questions at prime minister’s questions every week.
Plus there are some guaranteed days for the Opposition to put forward particular issues, priority in proposing amendments, and places on committees (both legislative and standing departmental scrutiny committees, particularly the Public Accounts Committee). Other opposition parties have fewer of all of those.
Oops. Put on the spot over Sunak’s early return from Normandy, she was perhaps between a rock and a hard place, but Penny Mordaunt looks like she’s “on manoeuvres” for the inevitable leadership tussle after the election - if she can hang on to her own seat, that is.
So say Labor wins 450 seats, Tories win 65 seats and Lib Dems win 60 seats. Could Labor find 6 MPs that suddenly “defect” to being Lib Dems, thus depriving Tories of being official opposition status? Would this be of any benefit to Labor? Is there any conceivable universe where that would happen?
Hell, if they win the seats projected, they could split into Labor 1 and Labor 2 and be their own opposition and shut everyone else out of governing essentially?
Six? It only takes three defections for the Tories to have 62 and the Lib Dems to have 63 in your scenario. I can’t speak to the rest of it but your maths are suspect. 
Labour has 6 of their MPs defect to the Lib Dems so its 444 Labour, 65 Tories, 66 Lib Dems.
I believe he was talking about Labour MPs “defecting” not Tory ones. They would indeed need 6
I think Shalmanese meant 6 defectors from labour.
Hah, Doubly ninjified !
Improbable to impossible, because pointless - there’d be no great benefit to Labour, and the LibDems wouldn’t gain much either. Petty point-scoring games like that tend to rebound eventually.
There is an old joke that the first item on the agenda at the launch of any leftwing movement is “The Split”, but I don’t see Starmer’s Labour becoming that fissile for quite a while. On the other hand, having too many back-benchers hoping for opportunities to make their mark but no real prospects of ministerial office is a recipe for trouble down the line, so there might be some becoming perpetual rebels or even defecting.
Ahhhhhhhh.
Pedantry retracted and quashed.
Agreed; I think the British electorate would take such a dim view of such shenanigans that both parties would go out of their way for this not to happen.
And even if Labour could snap their fingers and change the opposition; are we that sure that the Lib Dems would be easier opponents? The tories are in complete disarray right now, and additionally have 14 years of mismanagement that they struggle to handwave.
Not to mention that the Brelephant in the room would need to be discussed again…
This is an amazing peel-back-the-covers look at how this disastrous day came to be.
The Guardian has a similar report of infighting within the Tories and blame being put on the behind the scenes advisers (it was the kind of Corbynesque blunder Tories just don’t usually make):
I was interested to see The Times writing up Lammy’s efforts to build up relationships with the French. There’s a lot of bridge-building to be done there.
In other news, the ReformUK candidate Farage pushed aside to stand for Clacton is planning on standing against him as an independent. And so the fun goes on:
Esther McVey’s attempts to sell the Conservative Party to voters is going well…
She sure convinced them!
Heh. Sure, Rishi, I’m sure they could, but they probably don’t WANT to.
More rats in a sack:
…no…don’t divide the Tory Party just at the time it will be most damaging to their electoral chances…no…stop…
Random thought:
Let’s say the scenario plays out that Labour wins, and the Lib Dems come in a close second to become the Opposition, with the Tories just behind and Reform winning a small handful of seats as well.
Could the Conservatives and Reform combine their seats to form a coalition Opposition? Is that a thing? Has that ever been a thing? The main benefits would be to visibility (particularly at PMQs) for the Conservative Party leader (whom I’m guessing will be Mordaunt) and more clout given to Reform. But I don’t know if they’re allowed to do that.
As far as I’m aware, they couldn’t do it by means of some agreement/deal/sacred oath of fellowship. They’d have to genuinely merge to become one new political party, with all that would entail.