Labour will target just TWO Liberal Democrat seats to win the next election in anti-Tory manoeuvre
- Labour will only target two seats held by the Liberal Democrats at next election
- Rather than ‘scattergun’ approach, party will focus on seats it thinks it can win
- Sir Keir Starmer previously denied accusations of secret pact with the Lib Dems
- Labour won Wakefield by-election after the Lib Dems put their focus elsewhere
Labour will attempt to strengthen an anti-Tory pact by targeting only two seats held by the Liberal Democrats in the next election.
Rather than have a ‘scattergun’ approach, Sir Keir Starmer will focus the Party’s efforts on seats that he thinks it can win against the incumbent Tories.
Sir Keir has previously denied accusations of forging a secret pact with the Lib Dems.
Labour will attempt to strengthen an anti-Tory pact by targeting only two seats held by the Liberal Democrats in the next election, according to a senior Labour source
But a senior Labour source told The Sunday Times: ‘If you look at the 120 or so key marginal seats, only one or two are Lib Dem-facing fights for us. It’s Sheffield Hallam and another seat in Scotland – all the others are non-fights with the Lib Dems.
‘Why would we take our resources and put them into a seat when it’s a Lib Dem-Tory fight? Why would we send the Shadow Cabinet to Tiverton and Honiton when we needed to win in Wakefield?
‘It’s pretty obvious that we are not going to be adopting a scattergun approach.’
Labour won the crunch Wakefield by-election earlier this year after the Lib Dems said they would put their focus elsewhere.
Instead, Party leader Sir Ed Davey concentrated efforts on winning the Devon seat of Tiverton and Honiton where it ousted the Tory MP.
Sir Keir has, however, ruled out doing a deal with Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP to win power at the next general election. The SNP’s grip on Scotland has led to questions over whether he would need their support through a so-called ‘progressive alliance’ to unseat the Tories.
The Labour leader has said there would be ‘no coalition going into those elections and no coalition coming out of it’. Sir Keir told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme yesterday that there was now a ‘belief’ that Labour will win the next general election.
Labour won the crunch Wakefield by-election earlier this year after the Lib Dems said they would put their focus elsewhere. Party leader Sir Ed Davey (pictured) concentrated efforts on winning the Devon seat of Tiverton and Honiton
He said: ‘Something has happened in the Labour Party this year, which is that the hope of a Labour government has turned into a belief in one.
‘And if you consider where we were in 2019, to now be in a position where there’s a belief that Labour will win the next general election is real progress for our Party.’
But he faces a split with members over changing the voting system after the Labour conference chose to consider electoral reform.
Calls to ditch the first-past-the-post system and replace it with proportional representation at general elections were made by several constituency parties at the first day of Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool yesterday.
Sir Keir told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme yesterday that there was now a ‘belief’ that Labour will win the next general election
They warned the current system – in which the candidate with the most votes in a constituency becomes an MP – favours the Conservatives and encourages voter apathy.
Instead they are calling for Labour to pledge to introduce PR, which would see the distribution of Commons seats more closely linked to the number of votes cast.
The conference is scheduled to debate the question but Sir Keir told The Observer: ‘A lot of people in Labour are pro-PR but it’s not a priority.’
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