Joint tickets: how the Cooperative Party has ended up helping Nigel Farage

UKIP’s Nigel Farage is having fun in the media speculating about joint UKIP-Tory or UKIP-Labour candidates at the next general election. I suspect that, as with touted defections, the more publicity there is the less likely it is to happen – as when serious behind the scenes talks are happening, publicity is not wanted. It’s only when a party is trying to wind up another party that such publicity is assiduously courted.

However, we are in unchartered political waters because, as Nigel Farage has pointed out, electoral law was recently changed to help candidates wanting to appear on the ballot paper under the name of more than one political party.

This change originated with the Co-operative Party which fell foul of a ruling by the Electoral Commission in 2010 that candidates standing under the name of two parties could not have a party logo on the ballot paper. This disadvantaged joint Labour/Co-op candidates in a way that no-one had intended when the law about ballot paper logos was originally drafted and so the law was changed first for local elections and now for general elections. The changes mean joint candidates don’t have to appear logo-less on the ballot paper.

(Of course, as previously joint candidates were allowed, just not with a logo, Nigel Farage is rather over-egging the impact of the change in the law, aided by interviewers not being familiar with this piece of the law and so letting his over-egging pass without question.)

PS With Nigel Farage very much in the news at the moment, Nigel Farage’s autobiography is well worth a look.