Even tactical voting will not help Labour survive a Tory-Reform pact

As the English philosopher RG Collingwood didn’t quite say, “the only clue to what a man can do is what a man has done”.

Given that Nigel Farage denied he would do any kind of deal with Boris Johnson’s Conservatives – until, that is, he did one in 2019, standing down Brexit Party candidates in Tory-held seats – nobody should put too much faith in his attempt to pour cold water on reports that he has told donors to expect some kind of pact or merger between Reform UK and the Conservatives at the next general election.

Doubtless the story has brought some desperately-needed solace to Labour politicians and strategists. That a number of former Conservative MPs most people have never heard of have defected to Farage’s outfit (whether out of genuine conviction or because they believe it now offers them a surer route back to the Commons than Kemi Badenoch can) has already enabled his opponents to suggest that Reform UK doesn’t quite present the clean break with the past and the failed establishment that its leader is always banging on about. The idea that Farage actually has a secret plan to team up with the Tories to get into government provides even more grist to their mill.

Likewise, Liberal Democrats hoping to hold on to the swathe of southern English constituencies that they took off the Tories in 2024 will be more than happy to tell voters in their largely (though not entirely) Remain-voting, graduate-heavy seats that their opponents are getting together with the man who brought you Brexit, and now wants to finish the job by deporting a whole lot more people than have already departed our shores due to the blindingly obvious damage it’s done to the UK economy.

The Greens, too, will be pleased. After all, Zack Polanski, who, however “progressive” he might paint himself, is pound-for-pound just as much of a populist as Farage, will clearly jump at the chance to point to a Tory-Reform pact or merger as proof positive of a plot by wicked one-percenters to do down the virtuous 99 per cent.

But progressives shouldn’t start celebrating too early. If the Conservatives and Reform UK can come to some kind of formal arrangement, it could mean curtains rather than Christmas-come-early for this country’s centre-left.

That’s because mounting evidence suggests that, for all the fragmentation of the British party system brought about by the advent of five-party politics (eight, if we count Plaid, the SNP, and – stop laughing at the back! – Your Party), what we’re actually seeing is a sorting of the electorate into two distinct blocs, with most votes flowing not between them but between the parties within each bloc: the Conservatives and Reform in one, and all the rest in the other.

Right now, it looks as if plenty of Conservative and Reform supporters might well be prepared to trade votes if it means locking a Labour or Labour-led government out of power. A pact (or, perhaps better still, a full-blown merger that would negate the need for complex negotiations around which party gets a crack at which seat) would do a more reliable job than informal tactical voting to prevent the splits on the right that help cost it dear last year – especially, as looks likely, the left can’t find a way to respond in kind.

A pact or merger also helps Reform overcome one of the biggest doubts that people have about voting for it – namely its sheer inexperience. Nigel Farage as prime minister and Robert Jenrick as chancellor? Be afraid – be very afraid.

Tim Bale is professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London, and co-author of The British General Election of 2024, published this month by Palgrave