How might the Right Reunite?

In recent months, I have been making the case for Reuniting the Right, which, after the chaotic budget, is a moral imperative as well as politically advantageous, and a recent correspondent has asked me how this could be done.

Any pact would be most efficacious before an election rather than after one. Coalitions, as with the Lib Dems in 2010, or the Lib Lab Pact of the 1970s, are the consequences of losing an election or a majority, not of winning. In a first-past-the-post system, aiming for a post-election deal makes no sense. If there were a party with whom you would be happy to be in government, it would be more beneficial to prepare beforehand.

The best reminder of this is the 1983 general election, when a split on the left gave Margaret Thatcher a majority of 143. In that case, the SDP-Liberal alliance was so hostile to Michael Foot’s Labour Party that it was determined to see him defeated, even if that meant potentially five more years for the Tories.

Similarly, in 2024, Reform thought it was worth taking the risk of Sir Keir Starmer because the Tories were seen to have failed. This meant that there were many seats that could have been won, either by Reform or the Conservatives, which instead went to Labour, the Lib Dems, or even in one case to the Greens.

This might have been a rational position for Reform to take in the circumstances of 2024. But, having seen what a Starmer government is like, I doubt many Reform voters would take the same decision a second time.