Elections are won by the party (or coalition of parties) which can attract the most support and agree a common programme. This applies whether you have a two-party state or a multi-party state.
Sinn Fein have faced this in the Dail where they have been the equal-largest party, but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would rather set aside their historic differences and work together than form a coalition with Sinn Fein.
In US politics, where the bell curve of left and right wing is rather more to the right than in the UK, the Presidential election will be decided by a number of swing states. The red and blue states effectively cancel each other out, but in the swing states, it is those at the centre of the political spectrum who will decide between Trump and Biden on behalf of the nation.
It’s the same in the UK. Effectively, Boris Johnson won the 2019 General Election because Jeremy Corbyn could not appeal to centrist voters – Momentum’s search for socialist purity had too narrow an appeal. Labour were locked out in the 1980s for the same reason, and so were the Conservatives in the 2000s. Successful appeals to the centre by other parties have locked the Liberal Democrats out for most of the last 100 years barring the 2010-15 coalition.
The key to this is to remember that every political party is a coalition of smaller groups with enough common ground to work together towards a common goal. No political party is entirely homogenous.
As a result, parties have to hold their members in balance and make compromises to see consensus if they intend to succeed. Sacrificing idealism to obtain the achievable – refusing to let perfect be the enemy of good.
If a party is focussing on part of the coalition which is moving to extremes, they lose touch with the part of the coalition which sits in the centre ground, which is dangerous. Sunak is doing it now with Reform, and is likely to be severely punished by the voters who decide elections for failing the centre ground. Rich pickings for Starmer.
If the Conservatives had chosen to present a more centrist manifesto, instead of trying to pacify the outliers who will vote Reform anyway, they would stand a far better chance. Reform’s priorities, including immigration, are not the country’s priorities – and this is the key thing. Parties and groups outside what had been the mainstream sections of the Labour and Conservative parties by definition occupy a smaller part of the political spectrum than the centre – you can always expand further into the centre, but there are limits on both the left and right.
The same applies in Northern Ireland. Consider what has happened since 1998.
Sinn Féin in NI has changed. It is now a coalition of people who might have still been in the IRA armed struggle had it still been ongoing, people who feel the SDLP isn’t strong enough to represent them, and all points between. Their policies have effectively moved towards the centre (to at least the extent that talk years ago about forcing Westminster to give NI more money has been replaced by living within the block grant until a more friendly Westminster Government comes along – by the way, who on earth really believes DUP or Sinn Féin would lose more than one or two seats if they increased the regional rates?)
When the DUP ousted the UUP as the main force in NI unionism, the UUP looked right for those they had lost. DUP lite went badly for successive leaders of the UUP as they alienated the centre ground. Rich pickings for Alliance, especially since Reg Empey’s dalliance with UCUNF, and most of those votes are lost permanently.
In turn, Alliance’s strength has drawn in votes from an SDLP badly affected by Sinn Féin’s encroachment onto their territory.
And that brings us to the DUP of today. A DUP which has looked right to the TUV and neglected the centre.
The lesson of the UUP was that being DUP-lite didn’t help it, because voters choosing between DUP-lite and the DUP chose the real thing. That lesson should have been learned by the DUP: in choosing TUV-lite, the group of voters who thought the DUP were insufficiently pure [Lundies?-Ed] would still vote TUV, and they would lose the centre. Bluntly, there are fewer votes to be lost from the extreme than there are votes to be won in the centre. There are more votes in making NI work regardless of the NI Protocol than protesting against the will of Parliament.
It also makes the cries for unionist unity ring hollow. Remember the word compromise: if you want unionist unity, you need to produce a manifesto that everyone can agree on. The TUV has red lines which are incompatible with UUP policy. To secure UUP support, the DUP would have to reduce its own demands to an extent that the UUP will accept in return for sacrificing some of its proposals. The DUP may speak for the majority of unionists, but to secure the support of more unionists it can only progress through compromise and consensus. Statements that appear to amount to “The UUP or TUV should stand aside so we can retain this seat for unionism” disrespect the other parties who see the need to offer something distinctive to voters.
How much they will lose the centre remains to be seen. Different polls have suggested different things, and I’m not going to make predictions about Thursday night because I’ll almost certainly look extremely silly if I do, but the most fundamental rule of politics is this.
If you want to win an election, you need to attract the widest spectrum of voters possible.
Looking to the extremes will lose the centre, and if you lose the centre, you will lose the lot.
TL;DR political purity might make you feel good, but it won’t win you an election.
Andy has a very wide range of interests including Christianity, Lego, transport, music, the Alliance Party, chess and computers. Anything can appear in a post.
Andy tweets at @andyboal
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