Labour and Lib Dem leaders deny Tory claims of electoral pact ahead of crunch votes on Thursday

Claim seen as reflection of worries that traditional Conservative voters flirting with switch to Lib Dems

Keir Starmer and Ed Davey have denied Conservative claims that Labour and the Liberal Democrats have formed a secret pact to inflict the hardest possible blow on Tories in Thursday’s local elections.

In a letter to Sir Keir, Tory chairman Oliver Dowden today accused the Labour leader of standing down candidates in “swathes of the country” where Lib Dems were the main challenger to Conservatives, while Sir Ed’s party was returning the favour where Labour was dominant.

For generations, the UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system has favoured Conservatives, who are generally able to stand as the sole major party of the right while the “progressive” side of politics is split between several candidates.

Mr Dowden’s letter appears to reflect concern in Tory high command that traditional Conservative voters may be flirting with a vote for Lib Dems on Thursday, and an attempt to scare them off with a warning that this would benefit Labour.

He said that Labour was standing candidates in just 61 per cent of seats in the Lib Dem heartland of the southwest, compared to 97 per cent in 2018, while Sir Ed’s party had candidates in 56 per cent of northeast wards, down from 78 per cent four years ago.

And he said: “These shifts are far too substantial to be a mere coincidence ... It now appears that your plans to deny the voters a proper democratic choice are coming to fruition.”

But Sir Keir told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “There’s no pact. Everybody knows there’s no pact. We will put a candidate up [in Tiverton and Honiton] when there is a by-election after Neil Parish’s resignation yesterday.

“I think – and I’ll happily have this checked out – that we are standing more Labour candidates in this election than we’ve ever stood.

“We’re very... we’re out there. I’ve got teams working across the country, we’re positive, we’re laser focused on the cost-of-living crisis, and all you get from the government is mudslinging.

“Why aren’t they talking about the issue that matters? People are worried about paying their bills. What’s the government got say about that? Absolutely nothing, except ‘We’re going to tax you in the middle of a cost of living crisis’.”

Sir Ed told the programme: “There’s no pact now. There’s not going to be a pact in the future. Liberal Democrats are actually fighting Labour in many areas – in Hull, in Sunderland, in Sheffield, in Haringey, in Southwark, and many other places where there’s a real fight.

“These council numbers I think are a bit of a distraction and pretty desperate from the Conservatives. They always fluctuate from election to election, and actually Conservatives are fielding over 100 fewer candidates this time.”

Lib Dems have made no secret of the fact that they see their most fertile electoral territory in the so-called blue-wall seats in the leafy suburbs, rural seats and commuter belts where traditional Tory voters are uneasy with the direction of the party under Boris Johnson.

Sir Ed said: “Lifelong Conservative voters feel they are being taken for granted. They’re really worried about the cost of living crisis, alarmed that the Conservative response is to increase taxes on them. And it looks like Boris Johnson doesn’t care and doesn’t have a plan.

“Liberal Democrats are saying there should be a big tax cut for people and that is going down well. How that works out I’m not sure, but I do think we’ll make progress and I do think people are switching to the Liberal Democrats.”

Conservatives fear that, even if there is no formal pact, they will come under pressure in upcoming by-elections in Wakefield - a must-win for Starmer if he is to show he can win back the Red Wall - and Tiverton & Honiton as the opposition party with the least chance of success runs a low-key campaign in order to give the other the best chance of beating the Tories. They claim this approach was evident in recent victories for Davey’s party in North Shropshire and for Labour in Batley & Spen.

Despite Lib Dems coming third in Tiverton & Honiton in 2019, Davey made clear they are hopeful of repeating their North Shropshire upset in the by-election forced by Neil Parish’s resignation after watching pornography in the Commons chamber.

“I believe the Liberal Democrats can be the real challengers, in that we have a real legacy of success across the southwest,” said Sir Ed.

“In the North Shropshire by-election, we were third at the previous general election but we beat the Conservatives. No one gave us a chance but in those rural communities across North Shropshire we found lifelong Conservatives feel that they have been taken for granted.

“In those rural communities, I think Liberal Democrats can make real real inroads and strides so I'm looking forward to that by-election.”

Neal Lawson, director of cross-party “progressive” campaign group Compass, said that Mr Dowden was effectively accusing opposition parties of adopting the same tactic as Conservatives did in the 2019 general election, when Mr Johnson reached a deal for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party to stand aside in favour of Tories in key seats.

The result was to deliver a landslide victory for Tories to “get Brexit done” from an election in which a majority of Britons voted for parties which supported a second referendum on EU withdrawal.

“Oliver Dowden is in danger of hypocrisy, as his party clearly had an election pact with the Brexit Party in 2019,” said Mr Lawson.

“Progressive parties who share values are working together to stop first-past-the-post splitting their vote and letting Tories with fewer votes through.”