According to a post over at Longrider’s place there’s to be an electoral pact between the Reform Party and the Social Democratic Party at the next General Election. The parties will not run against one another in selected seats in order to not split the anti-Tory and anti-socialist vote.

Whilst I share Longrider’s concern about electoral pacts reducing the choice facing the voter I can also readily see how it is counterproductive for parties that share some common ground and which do not have the resources available to the Big Three Parliamentary parties, to fight one another like cats in a sack. This is I concur a sensible move by the SDP and Reform and it is something that I believe should be tested and refined in the local elections that are due to take place on the 4^th May 2023.

There will of course be much to sort out about this pact such as which party will stand in which constituency and also the allocation and maybe the pooling of resources to fight the General Election. It’s quite possible that these two parties could use the local elections to iron out any issues that they will need to have sorted out prior to the 2024/2025 General Election.