Wheeling and dealing
Posted on August 8, 2010Conservative Home’s poll of Conservative party members explores an interesting idea this week – should the Coalition partners step aside for each other in key seats at the next election?
The results are mixed – 55% of Conservatives think it “may be necessary” but are withholding final judgement, but 35% view the idea of a non-agression pact as “totally unacceptable”.
This is an extremely sticky topic. The Coalition partners don’t need to decide yet, or for quite some time, but they will eventually have to make their minds up about what to do. They will be desperate to avoid discussing it for as long as possible, because the eventual decision will crystallise what the Coalition is really all about – is it a temporary and uncomfortable marriage of convenience, a happy and lasting ideological meeting of minds or something between the two?
It also plumbs the existential questions which the Liberal Democrats have brought upon themselves by joining the Coalition in the first place. The polls already show them suffering not because people dislike what the Government is doing but because people are starting to wonder what the point in voting Lib Dem is. If they are seen to be too keen on a non-aggression pact it could be interpreted as a sign that they are scared to face the public, but there are great electoral risks if they try to fight every seat.
Consider the recent history of non-aggression pacts. The Better Off Out campaign, which I launched when I worked at The Freedom Association, brokered a deal that UKIP would not stand against true, out and out anti-EU Conservatives. In places like Shipley (Philip Davies) and Harwich and Clacton (Douglas Carswell) it worked fantastically, helping to land whopping majorities for anti-EU MPs in previously marginal constituencies.
The problems came in places where UKIP couldn’t control their local activists, who broke the deal their leaders had agreed to. Instead of trust and co-operation, you end up with an embarrassing mud-slinging match.
The rebellion in UKIP only really sprung up in the South West, but it’s a safe bet that such disobedience would be far more widespread if there was a deal sewn up between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. If 35% of Tories deeply oppose a deal, then a lot more Liberal Democrats would probably do so. Could Nick Clegg and David Cameron bring them all to heel?
Tags: Better Off Out, Coalition, Conservatives, David Cameron, Douglas Carswell, Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, opinion, Pact, Parliament, Philip Davies, Politics, The Freedom Association, Westminster
Categories: Opinion, Politics, Westminster
A sticky issue. Tory candidates for Taunton (Formosa) and Wells (Heathcoat-Amory) had not signed up to BOO, so in mine – and many a Ukipper’s – eyes, they were fair game. They should have had some backbone and signed up to it, or else where’s the sign they will stand up on principle in the House?
03.08.2010 08:09
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mark Wallace, John Youles. John Youles said: RT @wallaceme: Crash Bang Wallace: Non-aggression pacts, and the UKIP experience http://bit.ly/bEcGxQ [...]
03.08.2010 10:25
Theresa May has just said that she supports the European Investigation Order — any who voted conservative and is not a EU-Phile should be feeling pretty stupid right now.
To be a conservative candidate you must either be a genuine EU-Phile, or more interested in your own career than the fate of the UK.
03.08.2010 10:31
A sticky issue indeed, however as Mark points out the deal run by UKIP and a very limited number of candidates (both Tory and Labour) who were committed ‘outers’ worked in most places in which it was tried. Outside Somerset it had an excellent result, and it certainly got other Tory candidates thinking. I lost count of the number of candidates who got in touch with UKIP to try and get our candidate to step down. Obviously without evidence of a hard committment to the BOO cause there was to be no deal with them.
That being said if you look at the actions of those UKIP did stand aside from they are the only real bright spark in the current HoC. Mark Reckless, Philip’s Holobone and Davies, and Carswell have all done exactly what they said they would.
That being said I cannot see the Tories standing down for anyone. Their God given right to govern, or at least their beilief that they have a God given right to govern would preclude that. If Dave really wants to see mass defections to UKIP, of course he can try to give free seats to the Lib Dems, but somehow I doubt it.
03.08.2010 10:55
Totally agreed Mark vis a vis Better Off out campaign. There were some very strongly eurosceptic tory candidates but due to a lack of control in the UKIPs local association they stood against the Conservative Candidate anyway, even though in all likeliness this would decrease the chances substantially of a Eurosceptic Candidate being elected. This shows the problems with non agression pacts in general, the elites may be for it, but the local activists may not abide by it. Where the non agression pact was succesfull though, it did help in re-elect people like Phillip Davies, and get into Parliament people like Mark Reckless.
Those where UKIP didn’t stand against are some fantastically eurosceptic MPS who will do the house of commons crowd, but there are others like for example Christopher Heaton Harris, who was eurosceptic although not a boo member where UKIP pointlessly stood against him.
03.08.2010 11:01
If you are a true eurosceptic then you are in UKIP. If you are not in UKIP then you are fair game. Those members of any other party who claim to be Eurosceptic (and I’ve even met some Lib-Dims who claim they are Eurosceptic) are just fooling themselves. I reluctantly supported the UKIP Step aside for signed up BOO Members but never again. All that happened was UKIP were stabbed in the back! No deals with anyone!
03.08.2010 17:47
I’m not sure that the idea of a non-aggression pact is at all relevant to the coalition. The chief aim of the Lib-Dems in all this is electoral reform; if that doesn’t get through I can’t see them holding it together through to an election. The one great beauty of the option on the table, AV is that it allows the voter to express their first choice and then vote the pragmatic option in without letting a third party through.
The Lib-Dems also have the relatively recent experience of the non-aggression pact of the 80′s between the SDP and Liberals which didn’t really work out well for them.
04.08.2010 11:56