The Lib-Lab pact that isn’t but could still hurt the Tories
Veteran coverer of Westminster by-elections, Michael Crick, has an interesting piece out on Mail+ observing the remarkable degree of collaboration that seems to be going on between LAB and the LDs over by-elections.
He notes that in the summer that the LDs only had a token presence in Batley and Spen while it was the same for LAB in Chesham and Amersham.
The same seems to be happening in the December contests with the LDs just have a token presence in Old Bexley and Sidcup while LAB seems to give the LDs a free ride in North Shropshire. Crick notes:
Have the two parties discussed and negotiated a pact? Possibly, but maybe not. It doesn’t matter. But they have both gamed what they need to do not just for themselves, but for the wider interest of collectively beating the Conservatives. They don’t need to talk, or strike a deal. What they should do is obvious..Look what happened in this summer’s two big by-elections – in Chesham and Amersham, and Batley and Spen. Ed Davey visited the Buckinghamshire seat 18 times; the Yorkshire seat not once. Keir Starmer made several trips to Batley and Spen, but avoided Chesham and Amersham. ‘This wasn’t only a coincidence,’ a senior Liberal Democrat told me. And Labour happily let the Lib Dems hoover up their supporters in Buckinghamshire in the wider interests of defeating the Tories. The price was Labour’s worst-ever result in a parliamentary by-election.
If this continues to the General Election it could make Johnson’s re-election plan that much harder to achieve.
My own view is that there has been no deal or even conversations between the two parties. Instead, we have a joint understanding of what is the best way of beating the Tory on a seat-by-seat basis.