Do I think the Tories should step aside in Makerfield? Yes. Do I think they should have a formal pact with Reform? No. Do I think Reform should promise them anything at all in return for standing aside other than the thanks they so churlishly denied us in 2019? No.
Let us look at the facts. Two years ago, in the General Election, Reform came second with 12,803 votes while the Tories came third with a mere 4,379.
Labour, then regarded as the country’s salvation and not facing a hefty challenge from the Greens, polled 18,202 votes.
Since then, at a time when the Government and its Prime Minister are suffering record unpopularity, all the official Opposition has done is to lose more councillors.
Therefore, if the Conservative Party is serious about getting Labour out, it will recognise it has no chance in this by-election and stand aside, thus giving its loyal voters in Makerfield the chance to vote for Reform with a clear conscience.
Of course, some of them would vote Lib Dem instead because, as I have pointed out many times, the Tory Party is not the Right, having a large soggy Liberal wing.
Meanwhile, Restore is also to contest the seat. All that can do is damage Reform.
If Lowe was halfway serious about the right-of-centre agenda, he also would stand aside rather than hand the seat to an anti-Brexit, trans zealot, but he won’t either.
The ugliest showdown in Makerfield will not involve Andy Burham | Getty Images
His private war with Nigel Farage will always outweigh bigger considerations.
It is not the purpose of Reform to rescue the Tory Party from oblivion. The argument for a pact is always that neither Reform nor the Tories can win an outright majority, but only two years ago, nobody would have argued that Reform could become the largest party in Parliament, whereas now it is regarded as almost inevitable that it will. It is therefore by no means inconceivable that we can win an outright majority.
My own view (and I mean my personal view, not the official stance of Reform) is that first we should fight the next election without any pact. Our voters want us to replace the Tory Party with something new and different, not become the Conservatives in all but name.
Then, if by chance we have not quite got enough MPs to rule outright, we should align ourselves with the Irish Unionists and cherry-pick sound, right-of-centre Conservatives who will commit to support us in the lobbies. What we should not do is simply align ourselves with the Conservatives en bloc.
We know from various opinion polls that a sizeable proportion of Conservative supporters would prefer a leader from another party to Farage and that around a fifth of them would prefer a Lib-Dem-Green-Labour coalition government to a Reform one.
That alone means we must cherry-pick rather than merely coalesce with the parliamentary Conservatives.
However, back to Makerfield. We must ignore the Tories and throw the kitchen sink, taps and plug at winning because we can, while they absolutely cannot.