The DUP and Rainbow Coalitions

There's a lot of talk about whether Labour could form a Rainbow coalition in the event the Conservative-DUP confidence and supply system breaks down.

My answer is no.

There's also speculation about a future general election coming soon and questions as to how Labour might get into government.

In the short term that also looks unlikely.

Let's review why.

The cost of Coalition/Supply & Demand

Put simply, there comes a point where the political cost of a coalition or supply & demand relationship outweighs the number of MPs in the junior partner.

To understand this, it's vital to remember that the Conservatives aren't one unified party. In practice you have lots of sub-groups like the 1922 Committee, you have ardently anti-Brexit MPs like Anna Soubry and Nicky Morgan. Then you have pro-Brexit MPs like Michael Gove. You have traditionalists like Jacob Rees-Mogg. In short the Conservative party is, like every party, a group of people with different ideas who share just enough to form a working party.

The junior party inevitably has different views to one of those factions within the main party. Now if the junior party is much larger than those factions then it's not that important. On a decision the faction will abstain or vote against, but the junior party will vote for it and the bill will pass.

But if the junior party is smaller or equal to the factions then the closer this gets and the less likely a bill is to pass.

After the 2010 election the Liberal Democrats had 57 seats. That's well worth them being in a coalition. Comparatively the DUP only have 10. Heck even the Scottish Tories (up until recently a subject of jokes as to their non-existence) number 13. So if the Scottish Tories decided to vote as a unit then Ruth Davidson would be more powerful than the DUP leader.

This is the struggle the Conservatives find themselves in. They do not have enough numbers to govern on their own. But the DUP are barely worth having because the cost of having them might be too high to keep their own party on board.

It is also why a Rainbow coalition is inherently hard to build. A single junior party is hard enough. Add in more parties and the whole thing becomes more and more unstable. More and more factions from each party in the mix are likely to rebel. Compromises take longer and longer to determine.

The future of Labour

Labour have been celebrating recently because they recovered vote share and some seats under Corbyn. But should they.

In order to become a party of government Labour need to find 326 seats or so. Ideally more. As the Conservatives under May between 2015-2017 found, a small majority is perilous.

Currently they are a long way off that 326 figure. So going back to the coalition argument, we should first look at who could be a junior partner.

The only viable party is the SNP. The Liberal Democrats (12) are now in the same boat as the DUP - their 12 seats buy you little practical benefit. On a bill by bill basis you might try and seek their support but there's as much to be lost as won by negotiating. Even on 35 the now diminished SNP are less useful than they might have been.

So in order to build a coalition with the SNP you need to pick up seats from other parties. Ideally Conservative seats obviously, but Lib Dem and other minor party seats are also useful.

Looking at a map of the last time Labour got a majority it is fairly clear that the north of England no longer provides the votes it once did. Without a major resurgence here it is difficult to see a path to office.