For a long time now, I have been writing that Unite the Right is a meaningless slogan when applied to any proposed pact between the Conservatives and Reform because the Conservative Party is not Right.
Some of its members certainly are, but there is also a large group, which is instinctively closer to the Lib Dems than Reform, and the recent formation of Prosper UK proves my point.
Now Lord Ashcroft has produced a set of polls which suggests that any such pact would make it less likely that the Right could find electoral success.
This may look at first sight counter-intuitive, but of course it is not only Tory MPs who are divided between the Right and the Liberals but also the Tory electorate.
Interestingly, while 81 per cent of Reform voters would prefer a Tory/Reform government in the event of a hung parliament, only 53 per cent of Tories agree, and 21 per cent of them would even prefer a Lab/Lib/Green alliance! Only 62 per cent of Tory respondents said they would prefer Farage to Starmer.
On this basis, Ashcroft calculates that the share of the vote for the Right would drop ten points from the position postulated just by adding up current Tory supporters and current Reform supporters, which is the assumption most people make when crying “Unite the Right”.
In short, a pact would damage the Right, not unite it. As Ashcroft succinctly puts it, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
The two major political parties have always been coalitions – Labour of Blairites and Corbynites, and the Tories of Thatcherites and Heseltinies.
Their cabinets have included both sections. Clarke and Heseltine were two of the most effective Secretaries of State in the Thatcher cabinets.
This is the bombshell poll we all feared. Reform is officially fighting Tories to the death - Ann Widdecombe
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Clarke introduced the NHS reforms, the Education reforms, privatised prisons and lower taxes for the lower paid. Under Blair, Clare Short, Frank Dobson and Robin Cook, to say nothing of John Prescott, served in the cabinet. It was sadly a concept that Liz Truss never grasped.
It works only if both sides within a Party accept that the other will sometimes be in control: Heath, then Thatcher, Kinnock, then Blair.
Reform is not a coalition. Whether its members come from the Conservative Party or the Red Wall, they believe in strict immigration controls, maximising Brexit, the elimination of woke, supporting “alarm clock Britain”, patriotism and lower taxes. There will be nuances of disagreement, certainly, but not of core values.
That is probably what is at the centre of the Ashcroft findings: the Tory voters are split because they do not all share Reform’s values any more than do their MPs and would see no prospect of their own mode of thought prevailing.
Therefore, there is little point in hoping for any sort of merger, even a loose one.
These polls are hugely important because they upset the underlying assumption of those clamouring for a pact: that it would enhance the chances of victory for the Right. It would instead demonstrably diminish those chances. My case rests.
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