Britain is on course for a hung parliament with no party securing an overall majority in the next general election, according to a YouGov MRP poll that predicts how constituencies would vote.
Labour would be the biggest party with 241 seats, 85 short of an outright majority; the Conservatives would be on 130, trailed by Reform on 123. With the Liberal Democrats at 71 and the Green Party on nine, it is likely to mean a scramble to form a coalition.
Benjamin Disraeli famously said in 1852, “England does not love coalitions”, but the country may have to put any deep-seated scepticism to one side in the near future. Here are some of the most likely coalitions.
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Labour-Liberal Democrat
According to the YouGov results, a Labour and Lib Dem combination would still not be enough to reach the 326-seat bar for a majority in the House of Commons.
Andy Burnham has not commented directly on the prospect of a future coalition, but Ed Davey, when approached, did not rule it out completely. Asked if he would form a coalition with Labour, the Lib Dem leader said he did not deal in “hypotheticals”. Insiders in the PM's team told The Times that Burnham’s support of electoral reform, a long-held Lib Dem cause, could provide the perfect olive branch to Davey’s party.
A Labour-Lib Dem coalition was widely expected following the 2010 general election, but its prospects were felled by a series of issues, including a lack of faith in the then Labour leader Gordon Brown.
Conservative-Liberal Democrat
Unlike his neutral response to a Lab-Lib coalition, Davey has dismissed suggestions his party could do a deal with the Conservatives. “We’ve got a moral responsibility to stop Nigel Farage – and indeed stop Kemi Badenoch giving the keys to No. 10 to Nigel Farage – I think there could be that sort of coalition on the right and we've got to stop that,” he told the BBC.
“Mention of a coalition often sparks fear into the heart of a Lib Dem because of how the last one ended,” said Politico. In 2010, the parties formed the UK’s first coalition government since 1945. The cabinet was made up of 16 Conservatives and five from Nick Clegg's party. But after five years as junior partner, the Lib Dems crashed from 57 Westminster seats to just eight in the next election.
Reform’s projected total of 123 seats is a dramatic reversal for the party, which was forecast to win 311 last September. At the end of last year, Farage said the Conservatives would be finished. He denied he would form an electoral pact after the Financial Times reported he told donors he thought an agreement was inevitable. “I would never do a deal with a party that I do not trust,” he said. “No deals, just a reverse takeover.”
Kemi Badenoch has rejected calls to “unite the right” and ruled out entering a coalition with Reform. Speaking to GB News, she said “problematic people” have joined Farage’s party, adding: “How can we join with them?”
Even if the two right-wing leaders changed their minds, a Tory-Reform pact would manage only 253 MPs according to the poll – 73 short of the 326 majority line.
“If uniting the right has never been more important since we entered the era of five-party politics, it has also never been more difficult,” said Lord Ashcroft, a right-wing political donor and pollster. An electoral alliance between Reform and the Conservatives “would be doomed to fail, and the Conservatives have much more to lose from trying”.
Progressive alliance (Lab-Lib-Green-SNP)
If Labour were to team up with the Lib Dems and the Greens, which would amount to 321 seats, Burnham would still need backing from others to get over the line.
With the nationalist parties, the SNP or Plaid Cymru, in the mix, then a range of “coalition of the left” options are open to build a majority, Patrick English, YouGov elections chief, said in The Times.
