Trying to make predictions about politics is obviously a fool’s errand but I read an article yesterday which floated an intriguing idea. It speculated that if the parliamentary arithmetic after the next general election was favourable, might Labour and the Conservatives form a grand coalition?
Is the idea so outrageous? Much of their opposition to each other is a performance. What really divides the MPs on the “right” of the Labour Party from their so called opponents in the One Nation wing of the Conservative Party?
Plenty of Conservatives could easily have served in Tony Blair’s Cabinet. Likewise, a lot of Labour MPs could have done the same in Cameron’s administration.
The one thing these two parties certainly do have in common is a love of power. They have shared it between them for a century. They have a mutual interest in clinging onto it and seeing off the insurgent parties. Lots of Conservatives have little time for Reform, while lots of Labour MPs have even less time for the Greens (and less still for the Nationalists).
What the article didn’t mention is there is a sort of precedent. Our nearest neighbour, Ireland, has similarly been dominated by two parties: Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. Hardly anyone can say what the difference between them is, other than they were on opposing sides in the Irish Civil War. When Sean Lemass, Taioseach for Fianna Fail in the 1960s, was asked by a foreign journalist to explain the difference between his party and Fine Gael, he replied “We’re in government and they’re not”. He wasn’t joking.
As with Labour and the Conservatives, FF and FG used to receive a large majority of the vote. They took it in turns to govern, sometimes with a junior coalition partner. However, in recent years their vote share and number of seats in the Dail has plummeted.
And what did these parties do? A few years ago, when faced with the prospect of losing out on power and money and their cushy little number coming to an end, they decided they were best of friends after all and formed a coalition, with their leaders taking it in turns to be Taoiseach. It kept out an insurgent party (Sinn Fein) and allowed their gravy train to keep on rolling. Trebles all round!
Maybe the mathematics won’t allow it in 2029. But if it does, I won’t be surprised in the slightest to see the same thing happen here.