While speculation about a right-wing pact to ensure that the Tories or Reform can win power is rampant, there’s little mention of any sort of progressive pact to save us from such a fate.
“If you’re in a coalition and you’re comfortable, you know it’s not a broad enough coalition,” said US civil rights activist, Bernice Johnson Reagon.
And her observation has never felt more relevant in British politics than it does today.
‘Unite the right’ is a catchy slogan and with Tory defections to Reform UK gathering pace, it’s a pact that’s beginning to take shape, at least in the minds of some disillusioned Tories.
To some on the right, a Nigel Farage/Boris Johnson ticket represents an “invincible force”, capable of sending Keir Starmer’s Labour government into the abyss.
The Mail on Sunday’s recent front page urged exactly that: “Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage must unite to crush Labour for the good of the country.”
The quote came from Boris ally and former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, who dramatically defected to Reform just before the party’s annual conference, declaring: “The Tory Party is dead.”
Speaking on the Mail’s Vine & Hitchens podcast, Dorries called on the “biggest egos in modern British politics” to form a pact to topple Labour’s “malfunctioning government.” She warned that division on the right could open the door to an “unholy alliance” of Jeremy Corbyn, Greens, and Angela Rayner.
But Dorries’ dream is likely just that, a dream. While talk of right-wing unity grows louder among Tory circles rattled by Reform’s rise in the polls, Nigel Farage has been crystal clear: there’s no comeback for Boris. And the reason? Immigration, of course.
‘Boriswave’
“I like him personally, I always have done, he’s a very entertaining bloke, but I think that the Boriswave was felt by millions of people,” Farage told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
“Millions of people being allowed into Britain, most of whom by the way don’t even work, and are costing us a fortune. That’s something for which this audience will never, ever forgive him.”
‘Boriswave’ refers to the record net migration figure of 906,000 in 2023, a surge many on the right attribute to Johnson’s points-based immigration system post-Brexit.
Tensions over that record flared up at a state dinner during Donald Trump’s UK visit, where Johnson reportedly clashed with his former boss, broadcaster Andrew Neil, over immigration and welfare reform. According to reports, Johnson defended his record vigorously, arguing Brexit gave the UK the power to reduce immigration and that his government had done so.
His remarks only deepened the divide. “Real anger is obvious,” one witness told the Telegraph.
“The Reform attendees were of the view that this is why the Conservatives don’t function well as a party anymore.”
And Farage’s core supporters certainly remain hostile to Johnson’s legacy. “Boris did more than any prime minister in history to throw open our borders and drive absolutely insane levels of immigration,” one party insider said.
“You can argue that Reform’s rise would have been less were it not for the appalling premiership of Boris Johnson.”
As for the Tories, they too have ruled out any deal with Farage. Kemi Badenoch was clear:
“The biggest problem facing our country is that the economy is in crisis and Nigel Farage will only make it worse”.
However, back in April, Badenoch came under criticism for giving the green light for Tory-Reform coalitions at a local level. Despite having said there would be no merger or deal with Reform, the Tory leaders said that Tory councillors could go ahead and form coalitions with Reform.
“I’ve seen Conservatives go into coalition with Labour, with Liberal Democrats, with Independents,” she told BBC Breakfast. “You don’t get to have a rerun of an election at local level, so what I’m telling local leaders across the country [is] they have to do what is right for the people in their local area.”
But she insisted that such arrangements would need to “stick to Conservative principles” such as “sound money.”
The comments were quickly criticised. Ellie Reeves MP, chair of the Labour Party, said: “Now it’s crystal clear: if you vote Reform or Conservative, you’re opening the door to more of the Tory chaos that held our country back over the past 14 years.
“Kemi Badenoch and her Conservative Party left our NHS at breaking point and Nigel Farage wants to make patients pay for healthcare when they’re sick. Just imagine what they’d do together.”
What about the left?
While speculation about a right-wing pact to ensure that the Tories or Reform can win power is rampant, there’s little mention of any sort of progressive pact to save us from such a fate.
Admittedly, ‘unite the left’ doesn’t have the same punch as ‘unite the right,’ and any effort at unity seems next to non-existent.
Hopes were raised earlier this year when Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana announced the formation of a new party, tentatively place-named Your Party.
The surge of interest in the new left-wing party was remarkable. Over 750,000 people registered their support almost immediately. An Ipsos poll in August found that one in five Britons would consider voting for a new left-wing party, with support particularly strong among younger voters and those who backed Labour or the Greens in the 2024 general election.
And if ‘Your Party’ was to unite with the Green Pary, that figure rose to nearly a third.
But then things took a turn for the worse. A bitter and very public falling out between Corbyn and Sultana, including accusations of sexism and threats of legal action, left many on the left disappointed.
But even before the fallout, the Greens had begun distancing themselves from any formal alliance with Corbyn. Green Party leader Zack Polanski said he would need to see “very strong arguments” before entering an electoral pact with a party led by the former Labour leader, arguing that there’s ample room on the British left for multiple voices to thrive. This, notably, contradicts his more conciliatory remarks during his leadership campaign, when he expressed openness to potential cooperation with Corbyn.
Polanski, who won a resounding mandate to take the party in a more explicitly left-wing direction, has made it clear he intends to adopt media-savvy tactics similar to Nigel Farage’s, not just to challenge Reform UK, but Labour too.
“My message to Labour is very clear: we are not here to be disappointed by you. We are not here to be concerned by you. We are here to replace you,” he declared.
Speaking to the Guardian, he said: “I’m sick of being in media studios where I or the other Green is the only person who’s making the humanitarian argument. But if there are more personalities in our political spaces making those arguments, yes, at election time, there’s going to have to be conversations about how do we cooperate and make sure we’re getting out of each other’s way. But more widely in politics, I think more voices on the left is actually just a really good thing.”
And in the wake of the Corbyn-Sultana fallout, it appears Polanski and the Greens may be the biggest winners. Within 24 hours of the row, nearly 1,400 people signed up as new Green Party members.
According to the party, that surge has pushed Green membership in England and Wales past 75,000, more than a 10 percent increase since Polanski took over as leader just weeks ago.
And the Lib Dems?
That leaves the Liberal Democrats. With Labour unpopular and a Green/Your Party alliance not looking hopeful, the Lib Dems may emerge as the progressive firewall. Some polling even suggests that if Farage surges, Ed Davey could end up as leader of the opposition.
Would Davey partner with Labour to stop Farage? He’s staying characteristically non-committal. But the public may not be so hesitant. A May 2025 poll found that 83 percent of Labour voters would support a Labour/Lib Dem coalition.
And Davey is clearly targeting core Labour values, from drawing strong moral lines on Gaza, confronting right-wing populism, to recent attempts to reclaim patriotism, perhaps positioning himself for some kind of partnership.
A broken system that distorts democracy?
Of course, all this political jockeying is taking place under the UK’s deeply flawed first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system. With 650 winner-takes-all contests for seats in the House of Commons, there are no prizes for coming in second or third.
It’s how Keir Starmer’s Labour secured a landslide 412 MPs in 2024 with just 33.7% of the national vote, the lowest vote share ever to deliver a post-war majority government.
To put that in perspective: Starmer won 9.7 million votes in 2024. Compare that to Jeremy Corbyn’s 12.9 million votes and 40% share in 2017, or even the 10.3 million he secured in 2019, despite relentless media attacks.
In 2024, the Tories were reduced to just 121 MPs on 23.7 percent of the vote, while Farage’s Reform UK bagged just five seats, despite getting 14.3 percent of the vote.
The Electoral Reform Society, which has spent 141 years advocating for proportional representation (PR), called it “the most disproportionate election in British history.”
But you don’t need to be an electoral analyst to see that something is seriously off in the way our democracy translates votes into power.
Under FPTP, even a party supported by just a quarter of the public, like Reform, could theoretically win a majority, if the rest of the vote is split.
So worryingly, our distorted system, makes Reform’s path to power seem plausible, hence making a left-wing pact more urgent than ever.
Meanwhile on the right, the dream of a Johnson-Farage pact may fire up headlines, but it’s riddled with contradictions. Immigration, egos, and legacy politics are tearing the right apart even as they threaten to rebuild.
On the left, the story is not without its own chaos. Despite widespread public support for progressive ideas and clear polling appetite for electoral cooperation, no serious effort to unite has yet succeeded. Part of the problem of course, is deciding what level of cooperation is required. Minimally it might just mean the kind of electoral pact UKIP gave to the Tories in 2015 when they didn’t contest a number of Tory seats. This can be risky though given an unpredictable electorate. Coalition whether in government or opposition can be initially attractive but can lead to a real loss of identity – just ask the Nick Clegg era Lib Dems. Full blooded unification inevitably means one party being subsumed by another which is why even right-wing Tories are wary of fully embracing Reform.
Bernice Johnson Reagon was right, real coalitions aren’t easy. They’re messy, difficult, but sometimes absolutely essential. If Britain wants to push back against a rising right-wing populist tide, it means facing up to the need for electoral reform, honest dialogue, and the tough, often uncomfortable work of building alliances.
Because if the left can’t find a way to work together, a massive right-wing majority isn’t just possible, it’s likely.
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch
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