Until we replace FPTP, progressives must avoid competing with one another and cooperate where possible

Harry Gold is media and press officer at Compass

Under our narrow electoral system, the options are clear – we either get a government led by Labour or the Tories. Come election time, the smaller parties, despite their best efforts, are often relegated to the sidelines. 

But what happens when there is little enthusiasm for neither Labour nor the Tories? Polling shows Rishi Sunak will be the most unpopular prime minister ever to have faced the electorate at a general election. In fact, he’ll be the most unpopular party leader to have done so – more disliked than Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 or Michael Foot in 1983. But things aren’t much better on the other side. If the polls are correct and Labour does emerge victorious at the next election, Keir Starmer will become the most unpopular party leader to win from opposition since Ted Heath in 1970.

This, despite Labour’s strong lead in the polls, has helped contribute to an exceptionally febrile and volatile political climate, with smaller parties jostling to fill the space vacated by the two main parties and inject some desperately needed energy into our politics. But under First Past the Post (FPTP), there is only a finite amount of oxygen on the political stage. Parties on the progressive wing of politics can only do well by taking support from Labour, and vice versa for the Conservatives. These small parties are now focussed not on cooperation with Labour and the Conservatives, or even on building a constructively critical relationship with them. Because FPTP shuts them out of power, they have to attack the two main parties to even be heard. This has the potential to throw up unexpected and undesirable results.

Polling in the Telegraph last week revealed that the populist Reform UK could be a key power broker at the next election, despite not winning a single seat. According to the Telegraph’s analysis, Reform could prevent a Labour landslide by standing aside in favour of the Conservatives. This, the Telegraph claims, could shift the scales so dramatically that we end up instead with a hung parliament. The vote-splitting effect of Reform UK is one we’ve seen borne out in recent months too – the party’s vote share in the Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth by-elections last year was greater than the Labour majority in both seats, suggesting stand-asides could have helped the Tories cling on in both cases. 

But the party’s leader, Richard Tice, has stamped out any suggestions of electoral pacts and has given a ‘cast iron guarantee’ that his party will not stand aside for the Tories come the next election. He told the New Statesman last year that “the Tories need punishing, they need firing.” Many progressives will rejoice at this, hoping a divided Right vote will be the midwife of a Labour victory. But, assuming we can even take Tice at face value, we should not be so hasty. Reform might not win any seats of its own and may even help to blast the Tories into electoral oblivion, but that’s not to say it won’t have a corrosive effect on our politics in years to come. FPTP gives the big parties two choices: assimilate the troublemakers or crush them. Many on the Conservative Party Right have been pushing for the former option, and there is now little difference between those on the Tory fringes and those in Reform UK. Tice acknowledged as much earlier this year, saying former Tory Deputy Chair Lee Anderson ‘agrees with 80 percent of our principles’ and claimed the same was true for ‘quite a number of Tory MPs.’

Regardless, it’s not the hope of a divided Right that will change the country for the better, but a purposeful progressive left. Sadly, this too remains elusive, at least for now. 

While it seems that Labour and the Liberal Democrats have at least some kind of informal arrangement about targeting their resources, the Greens have been left out in the cold. As a result, they are increasing their attacks on Labour and are intensifying their claims to be the party that best represents the Left. The Greens have also, it seems, become increasingly sceptical of electoral alliances – at least those negotiated at the local level. A rule change passed at the party’s conference in Brighton last year means the final decision on whether or not to select parliamentary candidates will no longer be held by local parties. This means Green Party HQ will now have the power to impose candidates on local parties that choose not to select one. 

Local campaigning agreements have been fruitful for the Greens in the past, such as in Oxfordshire, where the party helped Lib Dem MP Layla Moran win election in exchange for a free run at a handful of council seats. But while such arrangements have worked at the local level, they have stymied the Greens’ ability to contest seats at Westminster. This time around, the party is also hoping to field a candidate in every seat in England and Wales. This would be 575 candidates, 103 more than at the 2019 election, when it stood in 472 constituencies. 

I don’t begrudge them for this; it’s not tenable to expect the Greens to continue accepting Labour’s snubs and keep turning the other cheek. But this lack of cooperation could have consequences. Our analysis of YouGov’s recent MRP poll shows that the Greens, like Reform UK on the Right, could be key powerbrokers at the next election, and the Green vote could be decisive in helping Labour or the Lib Dems to beat the Conservatives in 98 seats across the country. Without the support of Green Party voters, however, these seats will stay blue. At Compass, we call such seats ‘progressive tragedies.’ These are seats where FPTP obscures the progressive majority and delivers a Conservative win because the vote is split. Labour need to be very wary of the Green vote holding up and denying them victory in these seats. Only a cast iron commitment to PR will persuade Greens to lend Labour their votes.

To make matters worse, reports have also suggested that Jeremy Corbyn is looking to form a new political party, which could create further progressive tragedies across the UK.

The door remains open, however. Green Party leader Carla Denyer told the BBC that her party was ‘always keen to work with people on areas where we agree,’ but refused to ‘roll over and hand over any unilateral gifts to other parties.’ The ultimatum is clear: Labour and the Lib Dems must play ball. 

But while the Tory strategy of dealing with Reform UK is to assimilate them, Labour’s is markedly less welcoming. The party has clamped down on pluralism by stamping out council coalition deals and threatening members such as Compass Director Neal Lawson with expulsion for backing the mere principle of cross-party cooperation. 

What’s in question is not the right of small parties to exist or to contest elections. A range of parties representing a diversity of opinions is a normal part of a healthy political ecosystem. But until we replace FPTP, progressives must avoid competing with one another and cooperate where possible, or risk handing power to a Tory Party cannibalised by Reform UK. This means the Greens and the Lib Dems working strategically in areas where they know they can win and leveraging their power for strategic and progressive ends with the ultimate goal of changing our voting system. 

As things stand, the problem is that FPTP distorts or suppresses the influence of small parties and pits natural allies against one another. This leaves progressives with the worst of both worlds: the Tories become an extension of a small, hard-right fringe party while Labour becomes a narrow clique. 

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