‘Grubby backroom pact’ that could end in chaos
LABOUR’S ‘grubby backroom pact’ with the Liberal Democrats could end with Sir Keir Starmer
in Downing Street at the head of a ‘coalition of chaos’, the Tories warned last night.
They claimed the two opposition parties were using a ‘secretive’ electoral deal to hoodwink voters into electing a weak minority government at the next General Election. And they raised fears that it would give the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon the whip hand over an administration with no Commons majority.
The warning comes amid mounting suspicions, reported by The Mail on Sunday last month, that Labour and the Lib Dems forged a secret by-election pact to win the Tory-held Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton seats – both lost by the Tories last week.
Experts say that even if Labour do not win the next election, Sir Keir could still become PM at the head of a minority or coalition administration. Both opposition parties have denied any such deal, with many MPs insisting tactical voting by the electorate – not a deal between parties – was the real problem for the Tories.
But former Labour adviser Ayesha Hazarika wrote in the i newspaper yesterday that Labour and the Lib Dems were ‘operating very sensible nonaggression pacts’. In The Times, election guru Sir John Curtice said Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey had ‘allied his party with Labour, while Labour have given Davey’s party an apparent free run in some recent by-elections’.
Last night, Tory deputy chairman Luke Hall told The
Mail on Sunday: ‘It’s clear that Labour and the Lib Dems have a secretive and grubby backroom pact. They should come clean rather than trying to hoodwink voters and have us end up with a damaging coalition of chaos.’
Former YouGov president Peter Kellner said that even if Labour had fewer seats than the Tories, Sir Keir could be PM with the other parties’ backing. He told The Guardian: ‘Labour might end up with just 260 or 270 seats and still have enough for Starmer to become Prime Minister.’