A year ago, The Constitution Society commissioned a large-scale poll investigating how the public would respond to a formal electoral pact between the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party. It predicted that at the height of the Conservatives’ ‘vaccine-boost’, an electoral alliance could deprive the party of its majority. One year on, we have repeated the exercise. The full results and analysis of the latest poll can be found in this new paper by Professor Andrew Blick.
The poll comes in the context of recent reports suggesting that Labour and the Liberal Democrats have been cooperating informally at byelections and local contests. Yet, the recent local election results indicated that Labour’s support – while growing – remains partial and patchy. Whilst Labour might emerge as the largest party at an imminent general election, the party could still be short of a majority. Such a prospect might make forming an alliance with the Liberal Democrats and the Greens appealing, as it would avoid the need for the support of the Scottish National Party in the event of a hung parliament.
The results of the recent poll, which used statistical regression techniques to get more accurate and geographically detailed results, were striking, predicting a landslide for an electoral alliance and the loss of up to two-thirds of the Conservatives’ seats.
The paper’s author, Andrew Blick, Professor of Politics and Contemporary History, King’s College London and Senior Adviser to the Constitution Society, said: “There are various political and practical obstacles to bringing into being the pact we have modelled for this poll. However, the results suggest that – if the three parties are willing and able to overcome these blockages – it could enable them to remove the Conservatives from power. What happened next would depend on how far the three parties had coordinated in advance. But it could involve policy commitments that might include a permanent change in the electoral system, and possibly a lasting change in the political balance of power in the UK.”
This publication presents the personal views of the author and not those of The Constitution Society, which publishes it as a contribution to debate on this important subject.