Unite to Remain () was a campaign and

electoral pact An electoral alliance (also known as a bipartisan electoral agreement, electoral pact, electoral agreement, electoral coalition or electoral bloc) is an association of political parties or individuals that exists solely to stand in elections. Ea ...

during the

2019 United Kingdom general election The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 12 December 2019. It resulted in the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party receiving a Landslide victory, landslide majority of 80 seats. The Conservatives made a net gain of 4 ...

. It involved three parties that supported remaining in the European Union: the Liberal Democrats, the

Green Party of England and Wales The Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW; cy, Plaid Werdd Cymru a Lloegr, kw, Party Gwer Pow an Sowson ha Kembra, often simply the Green Party or Greens) is a green, left-wing political party in England and Wales. Since October 2021, Carla ...

, and, in Wales,

Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom. Plaid wa ...

. Its stated goal was to avoid the

spoiler effect Vote splitting is an electoral effect in which the distribution of votes among multiple similar candidates reduces the chance of winning for any of the similar candidates, and increases the chance of winning for a dissimilar candidate. Vote spl ...

and maximise the number of MPs elected who would oppose Brexit. In 49 constituencies in England and 11 in Wales, the pact led to only one of these parties standing a candidate. Of the 60 constituencies, 43 had Liberal Democrat candidates only, 10 had Green Party candidates only, and 7 had Plaid Cymru candidates only. The seats covered by the pact included some defended by a Unite to Remain party, as well as target seats held by the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

parties. Nine Unite to Remain candidates were elected (5 Liberal Democrats, 3 Plaid Cymru, 1 Green), which represented one gain and one loss compared to the 2017 general election results.

Details

Though there was no formal pact, the August 2019 Brecon and Radnorshire by-election saw the Greens and Plaid Cymru stand aside for the Liberal Democrat candidate

Jane Dodds Jane Dodds MS (born 13 September 1963) is a Welsh politician who has served as Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats since 2017. She was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brecon and Radnorshire at the seat's 2019 by-election, but ...

, who defeated the Conservative candidate by a small margin. This arrangement was mooted as being the basis for a wider-ranging "Remain Alliance". The Unite to Remain group which brokered the pact was formed by the outgoing MP for

South Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire is a local government district of Cambridgeshire, England, with a population of 162,119 at the 2021 census. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of Chesterton Rural District and South Cambridgeshire Rural District. I ...

Heidi Allen Heidi Suzanne Allen (' Bancroft; born 18 January 1975) is a British former politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Cambridgeshire from 2015 to 2019. Initially elected as a Conservative, she resigned from the party in F ...

and former Liberal Democrat Treasurer

Peter Dunphy Peter Gerard Dunphy (born June 1966) is a City of London Councillor for the ward of Cornhill, film producer and former staffing business CEO. Early life Peter Gerard Dunphy was born in 1966 in Consett, County Durham, England and educated at St B ...

in July 2019. The alliance approached the Labour party at an early stage, but were rebuffed. The Labour peer

Jim Knight James Philip Knight, Baron Knight of Weymouth, (born 6 March 1965) is a British politician who served as Minister for the South West and Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform from 2009 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party and ...

was one of the directors of Unite to Remain. The group was registered as a "non-party campaigner" with the

Electoral Commission An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...

in November 2019. Seats were selected based on a targeted pooling of resources and only with the consent of local parties. All the parties also support

electoral reform Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems which alters how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of: * Voting systems, such as proportional representation, a two-round system (runoff voting), instant-ru ...

. Liberal Democrat activists in constituencies where their party stood aside were encouraged to either campaign for the Unite to Remain candidate there, or to campaign in a nearby seat. On 13 November 2019, Unite to Remain and the

Renew Party The Renew Party was a minor centrist political party in the United Kingdom. It was set up in 2017 to provide an alternative for moderate voters in the wake of the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. The party described i ...

announced that Renew would not contest any of the 60 Unite to Remain target seats.

List of constituencies

Incumbents marked in italics did not stand for re-election in that constituency. Darker rows indicate constituencies where the Unite to Remain party won the previous election (the 2017 general election or the

2019 Brecon and Radnorshire by-election Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music ...

). The pact also covers three seats where, during the 2017–2019 Parliament, incumbent MPs

defected In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...

from other parties to the Liberal Democrats.

Pre-election analysis

Psephologist

John Curtice Sir John Kevin Curtice (born 10 December 1953) is a British political scientist who is currently professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and senior research fellow at the National Centre for Social Research. He is particularly in ...

stated that the pact could be critical in "half a dozen" seats that could have otherwise been won by the Conservatives. An analysis published in the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'' attempted to evaluate the potential impact of the pact. This analysis applied uniform regional swing based on polling (as of early November) to the 2017 result to estimate the parties' standings in the seats before the pact, then assumed that voters for parties standing aside would transfer their support as per the pact. The analysis found that in 18 seats the Unite to Remain party would not need the pact in order to win, in 39 the pact would be insufficient to secure victory, and in two ( Brecon and Radnorshire and

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

) the pact would make the critical difference between winning and losing for the Unite to Remain party.

Other pro-Remain arrangements

In addition to the Unite to Remain pact, the Liberal Democrats did not stand candidates against the following anti-Brexit or "soft Brexit" supporting incumbents: *

Dominic Grieve Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (born 24 May 1956) is a British barrister and former politician who served as Shadow Home Secretary from 2008 to 2009 and Attorney General for England and Wales from 2010 to 2014. He served as the Member of Parl ...

(

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

Beaconsfield Beaconsfield ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, west-northwest of central London and south-southeast of Aylesbury. Three other towns are within : Gerrards Cross, Amersham and High W ...

Gavin Shuker Gavin Shuker (born 10 October 1981) is a British former politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Luton South from 2010 to 2019. Shuker was a Labour Party MP before defecting to form Change UK. He then left Change UK to become ...

(independent),

Luton South Luton South is a constituency in Bedfordshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Rachel Hopkins, a member of the Labour Party. History This seat was created in 1983, primarily from the former seat of Luton ...

Anna Soubry Anna Mary Soubry (; born 7 December 1956) is a British barrister, journalist and former politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Broxtowe from 2010 to 2019. Known for her support of pro-European policies, she was originally elected a ...

(

The Independent Group for Change The Independent Group for Change, also known as Change UK, was a British centrism, centrist, Pro-Europeanism, pro-European Union political party, founded in February 2019 and dissolved ten months later, shortly after all its Member of Parliame ...

), Broxtowe All failed to be elected. In

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

, the original Liberal Democrat candidate (Tim Walker) stood down in aid of the Labour incumbent

Rosie Duffield Rosemary Clare Duffield (born 1 July 1971) is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Canterbury since 2017. Early life Rosemary Clare Duffield was born on 1 July 1971 in Norwich, Norfolk, England and l ...

, but the Lib Dems stood a replacement candidate. Duffield retained her seat. In Northern Ireland,

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...

, the

SDLP The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Irelan ...

and the

Green Party in Northern Ireland The Green Party Northern Ireland (sometimes abbreviated as Green Party NI) is a political party in Northern Ireland. Like many green political parties around the world, its origins lie in the anti-nuclear, labour and peace movements of the 1970 ...

all stood aside in certain constituencies to increase the chances of anti-Brexit candidates.

References

External links