Before a vote was cast at the Labour conference, Keir Starmer had told delegates that the issue of electoral reform most of them supported, proportional representation (PR), would not appear in his election manifesto. Despite suggesting that he might support the policy in his party leadership campaign, and his spokesperson saying the leader was relaxed about the conference vote on the matter only this week, Starmer has now tried to shut the door on reform. Why?
It is partly because the leadership don’t want any talk of coalitions that PR implies. The “coalition of chaos” charge is regularly made by tabloid newspapers against the prospect of Labour allying with smaller parties to govern, but it will be so whatever Starmer says. It will stick for as long as Labour has neither a sustained 20 per cent poll lead, nor a plan for a coalition of coherence. The right makes it not because of the threat of chaos – we have that already – but because it knows that a hung parliament after a general election could lead to PR, which would sink the prospects of Tory majority government for good.
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