Only two seats held by the Liberal Democrats will be targeted by Labour in the upcoming election in an effort to strengthen an anti-Tory alliance.
Sir Keir Starmer will concentrate the Party’s efforts on seats that he believes it can win against the incumbent Tories rather than taking a “scattergun” strategy.
Sir Keir has repeatedly refuted claims that he had a covert agreement with the Lib Dems.
However, a senior Labour source told The Sunday Times that just one or two of the 120 or so crucial battleground seats were favorable to the party. The only two battles with the Lib Dems are in Sheffield Hallam and another seat in Scotland.
“Why would we use our resources to support a seat in a contest between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives?” When we needed to win in Wakefield, why would we send the Shadow Cabinet to Tiverton and Honiton?
“It should be clear by now that we won’t be taking a shotgun approach.”
After the Lib Dems declared they would focus on other issues, Labour was able to win the crucial Wakefield by-election earlier this year.
Instead, Party leader Sir Ed Davey focused his efforts on gaining the Devon district of Tiverton and Honiton, where his party succeeded in unseating the incumbent Tory MP.
To win the next general election, Sir Keir has, however, ruled out striking a deal with Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP. Given the SNP’s dominance in Scotland, it has been questioned if he would need their backing in a purported “progressive coalition” to defeat the Tories.
There would be “no coalition going into those elections and no coalition coming out of them,” according to the leader of Labour. Yesterday, Sir Keir said that there is now a “belief” that Labour will win the next general election on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show.
The hope for a Labour government has evolved into a belief in one, he claimed, which is a change in the Labour Party this year.
And if you think about where we were in 2019, for our Party to now be in a situation where people believe Labour will win the next general election is significant development.
But since the Labour convention decided to take into account electoral reform, he now confronts a rift with members over modifying the voting process.
On the opening day of Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool yesterday, numerous constituency parties called for the elimination of the first-past-the-post system and its replacement with proportional representation at national elections.
They cautioned that the existing system, in which an MP is elected based on who receives the most votes in a constituency, favors the Conservatives and fosters voter indifference.
Instead, they are urging Labour to commit to implementing proportional representation (PR), which would more closely tie the allocation of Commons seats to the number of votes cast.
The issue will be discussed at the conference, but Sir Keir told The Observer that “many Labour members are pro-PR but it’s not a priority.”