Whilst you should never be surprised by anything that happens to the Conservative Party these days, this was perhaps one of the more readily predicted events. And, naturally, because you’d have to have a heart of stone not to get some amusement from this, there have been a number of Liberal Democrat responses to the news that Reform UK Ltd has its first MP.
The official response first though…
Rishi Sunak can't govern his own party, never mind the country. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/Xh8970KYmU
— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) March 11, 2024
Wera Hobhouse was quick to point out what the defection says about the modern Conservative Party…
The fact the ex-Deputy Chairman of the Conservatives has defected to Reform confirms what we already know:
This government gives a leg up to intolerance.
Even now, Sunak is too weak to rule out Nigel Farage joining his Party.
Divisive language has no place in modern Britain. https://t.co/y4ci89Gt1q
— Wera Hobhouse MP 🔶 🇺🇦 (@Wera_Hobhouse) March 11, 2024
Our Party President was keen to emphasise Anderson’s inability to pick a side and stick to it…
I see Lee Anderson changes his mind about which political party he wants to be in almost as much as he changes his mind about being for/against/abstaining on the Rwanda Bill.
— Mark Pack 🔶 (@markpack) March 11, 2024
But Tim Farron has a valuable warning for us all…
Yikes. He’s been in Labour, Tories, now Reform… it’ll be our turn next 😱 https://t.co/hZCOiqNtMO
— Tim Farron (@timfarron) March 11, 2024
There is more than a little irony here, in that Anderson voted in favour of automatic by-elections in the event of defections. But then, there’s more than an element of “do as I say, not what I do” about the Member of Parliament for Ashfield…
So, what do readers think about the news, and what impact do you think it will have both on the Conservative Party and on prospects for the General Election?
* Mark Valladares is the Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice.
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12 Comments
Over the last 2 weeks The Conservatives have lost 2 or 3 percent from their Polling Average, its not comparable to the Truss slump but in some ways it might be more dangerous for them because those lost Votes are going straight across to Reform. Already we have seen a Conservative low of 18% & a Reform high of 14%, if the current trend continued for only a couple of weeks we could see a single Poll putting Reform equal with or even ahead of The Tories – that could create complete Hysteria on The Conservative Right.
We can’t rule out Sunak being forced into a May Election even if that wasn’t the plan.
Whether Reform can hold on to those Votes in an Election Campaign is another question. In any case less Votes for The Conservatives means more MPs for Us.
Fingers crossed Reform split the Conservative vote, but fail to win any seats.
It looks like the right wing vote will indeed be split between the Tories and Reform. Many will be expecting this will lead to a huge Labour majority.
However, the intention of Galloway and the Workers Party to stand 300+ candidates could split the left vote too. There are 20 or so Labour seats which have a high Muslim vote and are similar to Rochdale. Some could be a win for the WP. Even if they aren’t, just a handful of votes in Labour’s target seats could make the difference and prevent Starmerite Labour candidates from winning. There are plenty of politically homeless socialists who won’t vote Labour this time. The WP doesn’t totally rely on its Muslim support.
Galloway will get just as much pleasure from thwarting Starmer’s ambitions as he will in actually winning seats for his own party. Also, the Tories and Reform may yet cobble together some deal which would limit the damage of a split vote.
Starmer is not at all popular in Scotland which is good news for the SNP. Labour is unlikely to do as well as they need to reclaim substantial numbers of seats there.
The next election is not quite the foregone conclusion that many claim it to be.
Galloway claimed after Rochdale that he could win “Across London from Tower Hamlets to Ilford” (that’s less than an hour’s walk). I think that was a massive overestimate but there is no seat there that Labour could lose to the Tories at the next election if he took half their potential vote. Reform on the other hand is getting significant support in most of the seats the Tories hope to hold.
@ Peter
It’s not just about winning seats from Labour.
Galloway has stated that he either wants to win or prevent Starmer from winning. So I would expect that he’ll also be targetting the seats that Starmer needs to win from the Tories to get his Parliamentary majority.
So, for example, if Starmer needs a 15% swing to Labour, Galloway can put a spanner in the works even he wins just 1% of the vote. The swing will then only be 14%.
I would dispute that Galloways “Workers Party” are Left Wing in any sense & the idea that they can do anything except in a handful of Seats – they don’t have the activists or the money. Even Wiki doesn’t have Membership numbers so we can assume they are embarrassingly low.
@Paul Barker
Galloway’s Workers Party believes in ‘the redistribution of wealth and power in favour of working people’, a wealth tax on the richest, and being a social alternative to the Labour Party. That all aligns with a left-wing standpoint.
@ Paul,
The Workers Party has a mixture of both leftish and rightish political elements. It’s this mixture of economic socialism with social conservatism which does give Galloway his appeal to the broader working class, and which extends beyond a Muslim base.
The rightward movement of Labour under Starmer has created a vacuum on the left which was widely expected to be filled by a Jeremy Corbyn led breakaway political party. He’s missed the bus I’m afraid but Galloway is firmly on board.
Curiously I notice that the WP isn’t included by the pollsters when asking about voting intentions. I’m not sure why.
@Paul Barker
Apologies I should have state ‘a socialist’ alternative to the Labour Party rather than a ‘social’ alternative…quite an important typo…,
@ Peter Martin I’m happy to predict now that Galloway will not hold Rochdale at the General Election, that his proposed army of 300 candidates is simply a whistle in the dark, and if any of them do stand (are you going to be one ?) none of them will save their deposit.
In terms of realistic left-wing beneficiaries of Starmer’s move to the vague centre, the Green party (E&W) seems most likely – they have been consistently polling at about twice their 2015-2019 levels for quite a while now. They could well win a second seat that way and provide one of the few Labour losses on election night – but if Reform performs at its current level (not particularly out of line with where UKIP managed in 2015) they’ll certainly be pulling more votes away from the Conservatives than the Greens (and miscellaneous “who?” parties) take from Labour.
Electoral changes tend to occur throughout Europe. In Portugal on 10th March the governing Socialist party lost 43 seats and 12.8 % of the vote, the Centre right gained 2 seats with a loss of 1.2% of the votes but the Right Chega party rose from 12 to 48 seats, rising from 7.2 % to 18.1% of the votes . Reform might get a similar success and the Conservative Government a much bigger fall in the number of seats because of our electoral system. If Reform overtakes the Conservatives this could result in a very interesting situation.