Zac Goldsmith’s decision to resign as a Tory MP and contest his Richmond Park seat in a by-election as an independent, in protest at the government’s decision to build a third Heathrow runway, has raised the thorny issue of electoral pacts. With the Conservatives and UKIP choosing not to contest the seat, Labour came under pressure to promote one candidate of the anti-Brexit left.
MPs Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy and Jonathan Reynolds all urged Labour to consider standing aside in favour of a Lib Dem candidate in order not to split the anti-Brexit vote. This way, they argued, the by-election could be turned into a referendum, not on Heathrow expansion, but on the xenophobic politics that Goldsmith symbolises. Continue reading
At a time when pluralism versus tribalism is so much talked about, is it not surprising that one of Labour’s great taboos remains discussing electoral arrangements with other parties — pre-election deals? And yet we now have, for some elections, electoral systems which at least some of the time mean that a Labour vote is absolutely wasted, not because we’re doing badly but because we’re doing so well.