Reports of secret Lib Dem-Labour talks over electoral reform

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, is in secret talks with Jeremy Corbyn about voting reform…

However, for the talks to progress, the Lib Dems want a respected senior figure in the Labour Party to take on a formal role as a go-between. “It should be a former Cabinet minister, or someone of that rank,” said a Lib Dem source.

The Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and the Greens could also be involved in the talks, the source said. If the negotiations are successful, up to five left-of-centre parties could stand on an agreed platform of voting reform at the 2020 election – giving them a mandate to scrap Westminster’s first-past- the-post system without a referendum…

The Electoral Reform Society, which campaigns for an end to first past the post, also welcomed the move. A spokesman said: “After the most disproportionate election result in history last year, it’s good to hear leading politicians responding to widespread calls for a fairer voting system. [Independent on Sunday]

This is a wise move by Tim Farron as electoral reform is most likely to be secured by getting multi-party support for it, as has happened in the past (such as STV for Scottish local elections).

Moreover, with just 8 MPs, the Liberal Democrats need to punch above our weight. Putting the party at the centre of political movement like this is one way to do just that.

This all comes against a background of other moves for cross-party cooperation, including the forthcoming book featuring Norman Lamb I covered in Liberal Democrat Newswire #75.

The past history of similar Labour-Liberal Democrat is rather mixed. In the run-up to the 1997 general election, what was known as the Cook-Maclennan talks were successful at carving out a large area of agreement on constitutional reform measures which were then delivered. The sequel to that success was the continuing Blair-Ashdown talks, with then Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown even toying with thoughts of a future in which Labour and the Liberal Democrats merged. But Blair kept on putting off supporting electoral reform, with the Jenkins Commission killed by Labour figures almost as soon as it was published and Blair never making it an issue to lead on.

Then as now for success such talks cannot only be about party leaders. They also need to secure wider support within parties, especially from those Labour MPs with a track record of opposing electoral reform for the Commons, the Lords or both.

UPDATE:

@HulbertMathew Cheers. This looks to me to be one of those cases where there's a lot of ambiguity over the word "talks" – formal process…

— Mark Pack (@markpack) January 24, 2016

@markpack Indeed and, actually, Tim didn't deny all contact…but said there'd been no formal 'talks.' Tbh, I think there needs to be!

— Mathew Hulbert (@HulbertMathew) January 24, 2016

Or in other words, the Independent has gone for an attention-grabbing way of writing up the story rather than making up a story out of nothing. Which also means it’s a good debate in the party to have about whether trying to work with Labour on electoral reform, in whatever form, is desirable.