We’ve just launched a new coalition tool for our Scottish & Welsh projections. These let you see some of the options that could exist for forming a majority based on your projections.
Scotland
As it stands, our Nowcast has the SNP just 6 seats short of a majority all on their own. The obvious option for the centre-left, pro-Indy SNP would be to team up with the left-wing, pro-indy Green Party. But, that went down in flames last year so may not be an option.
SNP-Green Coalition
On those figures the SNP could continue to govern as a coalition with occasional help from the Greens or Labour because no one can realistically stop them. It would require a super-alliance of Green, Reform, Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative to have a majority and there’s no chance of that happening.
The only potential anti-SNP coalition
Wales
In Wales it's more complicated. Reform and Plaid Cymru are close together with a solid gap back to Labour. It would be very difficult to run a government with 29-30 seats when the majority line is at 49, so they will need to find allies. For Reform, the obvious option is the Conservative party, but there would be reluctance amongst the Tory party to agree to a deal where they are second-fiddle to Reform.
Tory-Reform minority coalition
They’d also be 10 seats short.
Plaid Cymru - Labour would get to the majority line without the need for any one else. The two have been in coalition together so it's tried and tested, albeit always with labour as the bigger partner. On current numbers, this is the most likely outcome.
Plaid Cymru and Labour majority
What makes a good coalition?
We will be adding a score for coalition compatibility to give an idea of which parties share similar values and would make sense as a team. There’s no point in trying to squish Reform and the SNP together just because the maths works out, they would never make it work and the supporters of both parties would be furious that they tried.There can also be personality issues and other concerns which block coalitions which should work. The Conservatives and Labour will have one eye on the next Westminster election, so preventing Reform from governing is important to both. In Scotland, the SNP and Greens have their differences, while the SNP and Alba have a lot of bad blood. Those pairings could be made to work, but only if the maths dictated it.
There’s also a goldilocks zone in terms of size. A majority of 1 is rocky, someone gets sick or embroiled in a scandal and you’ve lost your majority.
On the other hand, making a deal with a party that gives you a majority of 20 is unnecessary. A small party knows it's small and can only ask for so much in return for a seat at the table, a large party will want a lot of concessions and a bunch of high ranking jobs.
A majority of 5-10 is perfect.
An oversized SNP-Green-Labour coalition
In neither case is a majority necessary, but governing as a minority is a tough task. You are reliant on other parties helping you out to get a budget through or to pass a new law that you think is important. Currently, both the SNP and Labour lead minority governments so it has been done.