Burning bridges with the Lib Dems will not kill the spectre of a coalition of chaos

‘Never burn your bridges until you come to them.’ I was reminded of the old saying when Kier Starmer ruled out any agreement with the Lib Dems in a new parliament this week. And he was very specific – any agreement – even confidence and supply. This is the very basics of a functioning minority government in which the Prime Minister is secure because the budget is guaranteed, and the threat of regular no confidence motions is lifted. Without confidence and supply, there is only parliamentary chaos.

But it is the very Tory charge of a ‘coalition of chaos’ that Starmer is presumably trying to kill. If there is no agreement of any kind, then there is no coalition and therefore no chaos. But night after night of brinkmanship votes will be the epitome of chaos. And the country will know this and suffer from it. The only answer to the charge of a coalition of chaos is either to establish a big and clear opinion poll lead of 20% that suggests an overall Labour majority – or you make it a coalition of coherence by planning for it.

What is certain is that the Tories will not call off the dogs of chaos – if anything Stammer’s deal denial, to do what they most fear, will embolden them. He will never be able to deny it enough – not least when there clearly is a deal with Ed Davey over by-elections. This was The Sun last week: “Nothing should matter more to Tories than preventing a Labour-led coalition of chaos seizing power and skewing the voting system forever in their favour.”

We are now in some Stranger Things, upside-down world where Labour runs away from what the Tories and the right most fear – a parliament capable and willing of passing proportional representation (PR) legislation. But, despite the overwhelming support for PR in the party and increasingly the unions, this announcement puts Labour squarely behind the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.

Now, just think about Lib Dem supporters in a seat only Labour can win with their votes. The message from Labour is no matter how well your party does, we are not talking to them. What incentive is there to vote Labour – just so your party is ignored? And all the time, Labour frontbenchers claim that we need to restore trust in our democracy – what does it say when the Labour message is in effect ‘if you vote for anyone but us, your choice will be ignored’? Just compare and contrast with how Labour got its landside in 1997: by showing there was an anti-Tory majority in the country and by working together the progressive majority won out.

The easy option would of course be to say ‘we are fighting to win and will decide what’s best for the country when all the votes are counted’. But Labour isn’t just jettisoning sense but presumably preparing for something worse. Because what is being set up here is a hung parliament game of chicken, in which the Lib Dems are dared to vote down a minority Labour government – and therefore the threat of enabling a Tory government. Then, everything can return to the old duopoly politics in which at worse Labour is guaranteed second place in what is for ever a two-horse race marshalled by FPTP. This is horrible brutal politics, which in normal times Labour would routinely practice.

But we don’t live in normal times. We sit and swelter in the heat because of human induced climate change that is only just beginning. The real chaos is climate change. Its resolution, in a way that is socially just, should be the only game in town. To build a consensus for decades long economic and social change isn’t going to be enabled by Labour playing self-serving games in parliament – but by being the biggest tent in a campsite of progressives that can slowly but steadily turn this country round. The Lib Dems aren’t our enemies in this but fellow travellers with the Greens and others on a journey to sanity.

Boxing off options, people and parties makes no sense – unless the game isn’t climate but shoring up Labour’s position in a political system that’s palpably unfit for purpose. If you burn your bridges, they are meant to light your way, not make an already dark world gloomier still.