Tory MPs will plot their party’s response to the election result and any likely coalition partnerships in a meeting next Friday, 8 May at 4pm, Coffee House has learned.
The powerful executive of the 1922 Committee will meet that afternoon in order to prepare their demands for the Prime Minister and discuss any initial outlines of a coalition agreement between the Tories and the Lib Dems that have already been passed on to them. They will be preparing for a meeting of the full party on Monday, where they will set out their demands in full.
We have known for some time what the demands of the Committee will be if the Tories are in a position to form a government. But what has changed in this campaign is Labour hardening its stance towards coalition and suggesting that minority government is what it will seek after the election, rather than a formal partnership with any party. Last night Ed Miliband said this during his Question Time session:
‘I think we are in a sort of new world in Britain. It was the first coalition, this coalition for a long time. But if we don’t have a majority government it is not about saying `Go into a darkened room with somebody and then start lopping off bits of your manifesto’. That isn’t what you’re voting for, that isn’t what Labour voters are voting for. It’s not going to happen if I’m Prime Minister.’
This may mean that the pressure on Cameron to go for minority – pressure which ebbs and flows – may increase at just the wrong time for the Prime Minister, who seems instinctively to prefer a formal deal with the Lib Dems.
The Committee will also need to decide at some point how it will approve a new coalition. Cameron loyalists are still hoping it could be by a show of hands, thus forcing more to support whatever plans are brought before them. But the official Committee line has been that there should be a proper secret vote.
There is, of course, the possibility they could be discussing something quite different: a leadership contest. But the chances are that even if the Tories cannot form a government, things might not yet be clear enough for that to be certain.
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