Author Archives: Chris Moore

Proportional Representation for Westminster as a red line in coalition negotiations with Labour has the overwhelming support of Lib Dem members.

But a Lab-Lib Dem coalition is an extremely unlikely outcome at the General Election. Based on May’s opinion polls, Baxter’s Electoral Calculus predicts an overall Labour majority of 190. We are on 20 seats. Adding tactical voting assumptions to the calculus raises our total to 25 and gives Labour a “wafer-thin” majority of 268. And even if by a combination of “socialist” scandal and Tory re-invention, Labour do fall short, they may well choose to govern with the support of other parties or as a minority.

Still, do we not need to think about and be prepared for all eventualities, even the roughly 5% chance (my estimate) of going into coalition? We do.  But that is precisely what we are NOT doing. In fact, all the attention about possible electoral outcomes has been focused on the wished for (and feared) scenario in which we hold the balance. The problem is that the red line we have custom-designed to protect ourselves in the unlikely scenario of coalition will damage our chances in ALL electoral scenarios.

I share fellow members’ anxieties (and hopes) about a coalition with Labour. Our electoral debacle in 2015 was a pointed lesson in what can happen to a junior partner post-coalition in a FPTP system. PR might mitigate such post-coalition damage; though if our share of the vote is as bad as in 2015, we would fall below the minimum quota for a seat in the vast majority of STV constituencies.

In any case, you may say, PR is not only a prophylactic to electoral damage, it’s also our most popular policy. It certainly is! Amongst Lib Dem members, it enjoys possibly unanimous support. But the election won’t be won by appealing to party members. It’s the rest of the country we have to appeal to. It’s not even that the electorate actively REJECTS PR. So it’s not a matter of persuading the unenlightened of the superiority of PR. Voters just have other much more pressing priorities:  the cost-of-living crisis, the state of the NHS and our rivers and other such mundane matters. PR comes far down their list.

From previous experience of General Elections, we know that the media loves to talk about our stance on coalition, who we will go in with, what we want from it etcetera. Such talk absorbs a disproportionate amount of our precious broadcasting time; particularly given how infrequently we do actually go into coalition. But if we choose PR as our red line, that is what the electorate will hear about us most. They will realise that we value PR above all else. They will understand their concerns are not our concerns. And it will affect their vote accordingly.

This is, of course, unfair. And fortunately, it’s an avoidable error, once we understand that a red line intended for negotiation with a potential coalition partner is possibly the key message in our positioning at the election itself.

We must have red lines, not just one red line, and those red lines must resonate with the electorate, not just garner an indifferent approval.