Daniel Hannan: Forget for a moment the many hurdles around a deal with Reform and focus on the logic and the maths

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere was a Conservative MEP from 1999 to 2020 and is now President of the Institute for Free Trade.

Rome’s entire future, so the story goes, was inscribed in nine prophetic books.

The Cumaean Sibyl offered to sell them to the young city, but Tarquin, last of Rome’s seven kings, thought her price exorbitant, and refused. She went away, burned three of them, and came back offering the remaining six at the same price. The king refused again, so she burned three more and offered the last three, still at the original price.

Tarquin, now desperate, paid up.

Will the same dynamic govern relations between the Conservative Party and Reform UK?

Last year, when the Tories were ahead of Reform in the polls, I suggested on this site that the two parties should do a deal. At that time, both sides rejected the idea, the Tories with particular vehemence. Why, I was asked, should a party with 121 MPs treat on equal terms with a party with just five?

Now, in the aftermath of the local elections, Reform is the more emphatic in its rejection of any talks. Its supporters are convinced that they can win a majority on their own.

Well, I suppose anything is possible.

But I have been in politics long enough to know that the wheel always turns. No one is ever on top, or underneath, forever. The trouble is that, at any given time, one of the two Rightist parties will always be doing better than the other, and therefore disinclined to talk terms.

The problem is exacerbated by what psychologists call optimism bias, a tendency that is as strong in politicians as in anyone else. In my 21 years as an MEP, watching elections around the world, I don’t remember a single candidate ever saying, “Actually, the polls are being too generous to my party, and I expect to underperform them on the day.”

Still, the numbers remain. If the three biggest parties were all to score 25 per cent, Labour would form the next government despite getting half the combined vote of the two Rightist parties. Such is the logic of first-past-the-post.

It is not realistic for one party to swallow the other, at least not any time soon. Both have a floor below which they won’t sink. Plenty of Reform voters – as the comments on even this Tory site will doubtless confirm – are not going anywhere. The Conservatives, meanwhile, have an embedded infrastructure across rural England and the suburban south. Our supporters are less likely to post comments online; but they are not going anywhere either.

So we come back to the question of a deal.

I am not suggesting a full merger: that would be too much for both sides. Nor am I suggesting an Australian-style permanent coalition – though such a thing might eventually develop down the line.

No, all I propose is a grown-up agreement to stand aside in seats which only one of the two parties can realistically win.

The geography works beautifully. Reform is weak across the southern shires, but strong in northern towns and in parts of Wales. The only part of the country where the two parties are in direct competition is a band of Eastern England stretching from Lincolnshire to Kent – and, even there, it is often clear which should stand aside.

What are the objections to a limited entente?

Might it offend some of the parties’ core supporters? It is certainly true that no party owns its electorate. Not every Conservative voter will back Reform if there is no Tory candidate, and vice versa. But the idea that either party would suffer wider reputational damage strikes me as misplaced.

Farage stood down in favour of some Conservative candidates in 2019. The failure of the victorious Tories to thank him in any meaningful way struck me as a mistake, but that’s water under the bridge. The point is that it did not dent his support.

Nor, conversely, is there reason to fear a mass Tory defection to the Lib Dems. Some movement occurred following Brexit, and there may be more if – as they surely will if they want to remain electorally viable – the Tories come out against net zero and the ECHR. But the numbers are small. The LibDem vote barely moved between 2019 and 2024. The reason the party nearly quintupled its MPs is that lots of Conservatives voted Reform.

No, the real problem has to do with egos. There is bad blood between the two leaders, and both can be stubborn. From Farage’s point of view, it might be worth waiting another electoral cycle and then, as he would hope, going into talks as the stronger party.

But at what cost to the rest of us? To homeowners, taxpayers, parents, drivers, business-owners, crime victims?

You might say that none of this needs to be decided now. But, once candidate selection gets underway, deals become harder. In any case, might we not do what the Greens and the SNP used to do in Scotland – that is, increase our combined number of MSPs by each standing only in the constituency or the top-up elections, not both? Wouldn’t that be a worthwhile dry run for the general election?

It seems to me that our priority should be to ensure a majority in the House of Commons, whatever the shade of its rosettes, that believes in sound money, secure borders, patriotism, strong defence, low taxes and efficient public administration.

If that means activists, donors and the rest of us banging heads together, so be it.