They certainly couldn’t do a sacred oath of fellowship - nothing is sacred to either of those parties.
But I suspected it wasn’t an option, otherwise it would have been done more often.
You can totally see Mordaunt and Farage entering into negotiations over a merger and both walking away thinking “Can’t believe that sucker fell for that, I am so going to screw them over”.
Penny Mordaunt may not even get back into the Commons. As the polls are, it’s not at all clear which senior Tories actually will.
Which is what Farage is openly hankering for, a Canada-style reverse takeover of the Tory Party. But since he’s unlikely to bring more than himself into the parliamentary arithmetic, that doesn’t seem likely
Meanwhile, various MRP models have come out, and are predicting potential wipe-out for the Tories.
YouGov gave a horrific-but-is-about-to-start-looking-optimistic prediction of 140 Tory MPs.
Survation predicts 71
Electoral Calculator predicts 76
And that’s based on pre-Farage, pre-D-day polling.
If you plug the latest Redfield and Winton Poll (Labour 46%, Tories 19%, Reform 17%, LD 10%) into the FT’s DIY predictor ( Predict the UK general election result (ft.com)) then you get…
34 Tory MPs.
Just one poll, just a bit of fun, but as @PatrickLondon says, this is looking cataclysmic.
Oh no. Anyway
At this point even if I was a big Labour fan I would be looking to vote Tory just to ameliorate the juggernaut.
At the risk of repeating myself, too big a majority could indeed be a headache for Starmer and his Chief Whip.
A joke that goes back to at least Yes Minister:
Government minister; Right, time to go to the despatch box and deal with the enemy.
Aide: You mean the [other party]?
GM: What? No! They’re just the opposition. The enemy are those bastards sitting behind me.
And if you want to play fun and games with new parties. Labour could end up with such a big majority they could detail say, 80 of their MPs to “split”, form a new party that would be the official Opposition, and spend their time asking PMQs like “Isn’t it tough being so great?” and still have a straight majority for “official” Labour.
Whereas what Starmer will be worried about is 80-100 MPs who actually are an effective internal opposition and are very hard to discipline because there aren’t enough government jobs to buy them off or threaten them with.
More embarrassment for the Tories:
Ah, how the land slides.
OK, I’m back to not understanding. How would Reform and Conservative merging prevent a Labour supermajority? Labour would still have the same seats, no?
Or, wait, I think I get it: There are some districts where Labour will currently have a plurality, but not a majority, and if the non-Labour voters in those districts unite behind one candidate, then that Retory candidate would beat Labour.
Short answer is that an R&C merger wouldn’t prevent a supermajority, that’s not what @Gyrate was getting at. The question was aimed at the post-election make up of the House of Commons. Being the second largest party is important because it makes you the official Opposition, which gives you rights to more questions at PMQs, places on Select Committees etc.
The hypothetical merger would be a way for a third-placed (per current polling predictions) Conservative Party to combine seats with Reform so as to leap frog the second-placed party (in this scenario, the Lib Dems) and become the official Opposition. Doesn’t change things re. Labour’s majority, but does have quite a significant effect on the status of the Conservative (& Reform) party.
Not what was being aimed at, but theoretically true that a united anti-Labour vote could scrape a majority in some places (although with national polls reading c. 45 vs [19+17], not too many such places). However, impossible to do now that nominations have closed and candidates are now official. It could be an idea that comes up at the next election, depending on the relative fortunes of the three parties.
Kind of mirrors what happened with the PCs and Reform Party in Canada in the 90s. Reform showed up as a reactionary right party, could never get more that regional support on its own, but sucked enough support away from the PCs that they were routed (it what admittedly would have been a major loss anyway).
Then later the two conservative parties, realizing that neither one had a hope of winning if they kept splitting the vote, merged into a combined party, making the whole thing basically just a shakeup in the leadership of the Canadian right.
For those not familiar with Canadian politics, what is PC?
Progressive Conservative. Also known as the Tories, because they were kind of the direct peer of the Tories in Britain.
The Speaker of the House of Commons is the ultimate decider of the Leader of the Opposition. Lindsay Hoyle takes his responsibilities in that role seriously. He’s been accused of being anti-Labour despite being a previous Labour MP. I seriously doubt he’d allow any shenanigans for creating a false opposition party.
And access to Short Money (named after Ted Short, who introduced it).
Sounds a lot like Von Papen and Hitler there…
And it has just happened…
I take no joy in this. The Tories deserve a complete shellacking, but Reform becoming a genuine political force is hugely concerning. It remains to be seen how such a share performance translates into representation in parliament. I’m still dubious they can win many seats…
I would be less bothered by Reform if it didn’t contain so many of the same Tories who were absolutely fine with all the corruption, criminality, incompetence and moral bankruptcy of the Conservative Party but jumped ship to avoid the consequences of it.
I mean, Lee Anderson should be on some sort of watchlist, not in Parliament. The man is a sociopath.