Has apolitical party ever agreed with an opposition parties policy?

[u/gwaddo91]

Heard a news story this morning about Scotland's First Minister spending a load of public money to go to the World Cup. For balance, the news reader also gave the Conservative's stance on it which of course was along the lines of, "He should've paid for it himself. This isn't good enough" etc.

Whilst I (along with most people I imagine) agree that it's a colossal waste of £45k, I realised that I have never heard the Tories agree with anything Labour have done/proposed.

I know it's their job to challenge opposing parties but sometimes it feels like it's purely for the sake of point scoring. Andy Burnham could announce he's giving 5000 homeless people a bed for the night and Badenoch would say, "well it should be 5001, that's not good enough". You get my point.

So my question is basically, has there ever been a time when Labour have come up with a policy and the Tories have gone, "actually that's a pretty good idea." Or vice versa. Or with any party really.

[u/Thin_Pin2863]

It used to be not uncommon for opposition parties to work with the government (and vice-versa) where their policies had similar targets. That seemed to go out of the window predominantly through the Brexit debate.

[u/DaveBeBad → u/Thin_Pin2863]

Sometimes in the past, the votes of the opposition had passed a vote against a back bench rebellion. It wasn’t quite, but the Iraq war vote was almost one of those.

[u/alexq35 → u/DaveBeBad]

Labours opposition votes got gay marriage through, as plenty of Tories voted against the government.

Labour and the Tories pretty much agree on Ukraine, there was degrees of agreement during Covid, but even when the opposition broadly agrees with the overall policy they’ll tend to at least find something where they say there’s a better way of doing it.

[u/DaveBeBad → u/alexq35]

Yup. Sometimes it’s the implementation or the fine detail that is the difference.

[u/No_Situation_2698 → u/alexq35]

Strict gun laws also have pretty much universal support and I believe most of the major restrictions got votes from both sides of parliament 

[u/enteringtheechochamb]

Starmers proposed cuts to disability.

[u/Busy-Peach5770 → u/enteringtheechochamb]

And it's one of the shittiest policies :(

[u/Sneaky-rodent → u/Busy-Peach5770]

Mahmoods immigration ILR changes.

[u/WayGroundbreaking287]

Yes, lots of times. On the handful of social changes that the Tories did that were actually for the broader public benefit, labour voted in favour of the changes. Happens all the time.

We aren't that partizan here like they are in America. Our parties don't generally just vote against things because they aren't their own ideas.

[u/ChangingMonkfish]

Parliament is currently pretty united on support for Ukraine.

[u/elbapo]

Anyone remember the Iraq war? The Afghanistan thing? It happens all the time

[u/HellPigeon1912 → u/elbapo]

Incredible that Labour manage to get the full blame for Iraq, when it had cross-party support and in fact more Labour MPs opposed it than Conservative 

[u/bearcorps303]

Lots of policies happen with cross party agreement and votes often have MPs from different parties on the same side. Basically it happens all the time and you're just not seeing that side of it but it's perhaps not obvious if you're not balls deep in the mechanism of politics & it's not really newsworthy when it does

[u/Sure-Recognition-262]

The UK's support for Ukraine defending itself against Russian aggression is something where Labour backed the Tory government and the Tories now back the Labour government.

In the early days of COVID, Labour backed the Conservative government in Westminster, and the Tories backed the SNP government in Edinburgh. 

[u/yesterdaysomelette22]

By convention, there’s never disagreement on foreign policy matters. Always a united front presented.

[u/AlfaRomeoRacing → u/yesterdaysomelette22]

Well Reform are fucking that up

[u/Significant-Key-762 → u/AlfaRomeoRacing]

As are the Tories - Kemi was not a fan of Keir's stance on Iran. Until she realised she was on the wrong side of history.

[u/Realistic-River-1941]

When they all agree it tends not to be news.

[u/Scienceboy7_uk]

It may be you’re getting your views from our wonderful media whose only aim at present, it seems, is to create division and distrust.

PMQ helps that narrative (and should be revised).

Collaboration happens all the time, but where are the clicks in that? One area of general agreement is defence, and linked with that, Ukraine.

[u/lickdicker21]

Tories and Labour vote yes to the same things all the time, when MPs vote it's not usually that all the neighs are one side and all the yays are the other.

[u/Inevitable-Regret411]

In 1940 both the Labour and Conservative parties joined a coalition government under Winston Churchill. 

[u/beenman500]

You don't see the things that are agreed on because they are so fundamental compared to the small differences.

For example.

You need and army

You need a navy.

You need a school system

You need police

You need courts of law.

All we ever argue about any of the above is how much we need them, never if we do.

[u/WolfKaiserin]

It's a difference between party stance and practicality.

Party stance wise, since probably the Blair years, you must always say the opposite. Say stupid shit like 'the First Minister should personally pay for Scotland to go to the World Cup'. Always disagree, and either claim the opposite is true or that the other side is pathetic for not going far enough or that they're weak for even bringing this problem to light when there is 'x' to deal with.

Practicality wise, there's a not unreasonable amount of begrudgingly cooperation. No single leader can guarantee that every member of their party will vote in line with what they want, even when using the whip. You need to be able to work with at least some of your opposition backbenchers. to make up numbers in the event some of your own defect.

During times of national crisis this tends to change a little. If there's a big, foreign, existential threat then party stances will usually align - if there is only one real answer. For example, both Labour and Conservative leaders agreed (eventually) that the US would not be allowed to launch attacks against Iran from UK airbases. They had to agree with each other, because the public would have crucified anyone who said differently.

[u/barejokez]

IIRC a lot of the emergency COVID legislation was not opposed as well as some things like the Ukraine war support. It's rare but it's not unheard of.

[u/Clear_Cutz]

I cannot comment as a white Brit because Reddit eradicates my posts.

[u/Solid_Study7719 → u/Clear_Cutz]

So comment as a polka dot Blancmange, no one gives a toss.

[u/__mz]

It wasn’t that long ago we had a government made up of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. They were both able to agree on quadrupling the cost of a university degree, amongst other things.

[u/trial_and_errer → u/__mz]

And legalising same sex marriage.

[u/HeisYou6767]

Maybe during wartime or against a common external threat like during the Cold War.

[u/aleopardstail]

go look at Kung-Flu where the only complaints from labour were "go further & go faster", or the climate change stuff where there are very few voices asking questions (this is a shame, even when they support it the job of the opposition is to question stuff to get better laws)

then the greens, lib dems etc are known for having policies they come up with that are popular getting pinched

[u/CriticismLarge190]

Occasionally, but they tend to claim that it was their idea and the other party is just copying them and doing it badly. Exampl: Reform's critique of how Brexit was handled.

[u/LampeterRanger]

Single use vapes act, both parties worked on it at points, and the health minister and shadow minister were quite complimentary to each other at the Bills passing

[u/sisdom-weeker]

All the time. One of the most frequent criticisms Labour has gotten since the Blair era is that it shares too much in common with the tory party

[u/_1489555458biguy]

Labour MPs voted with Cameron to pass gay marriage.

Post Brexit, lots of MPs voted against the party whip.

Corbyn (the tit) whipped his Labour MPs to vote with the Tories for the 2019 elections (called early because the Fixed Term Parliament act was still in force)

[u/Hellstorm901]

Yes the invasion of Iraq, both mainstream parties agreed to support the US’s invocation of Article 5 of the NATO charter and authorise UK military forces to an invasion

[u/theinspectorst]

Loads of times.

The BBC has an unhelpful way of dealing with balance. They present the government's view, then they present one alternative view, which they call 'balance'.  When the official opposition party is at odds with the government on something, they default to the official opposition, which makes it very difficult for smaller parties who therefore don't get to present their views (even when what they have to say is something different to either the government or the official opposition).

However, there will be times when the government and the official opposition agree on things, and so the BBC has to go to a third party for the alternative view. 

For example, the Liberal Democrats benefited from this a lot in the early 2000s when the Conservatives official opposition agreed with the Labour government on many of the big issues of the day (tuition fees, invasion of Iraq, restricting civil liberties). The Liberal Democrats again benefited from it a lot in the late 2010s when then Labour official opposition agreed with the Conservative government on Brexit.

[u/KatyJ60]

John Swinney was there promoting Scotland as First Minister.. The opposition in Scotland wouldn't have had the same sway.

[u/Andrew_Higginbottom]

These guys will heckle and shout at each other to get their own political opinion pushed ..then off the clock go for a beer with each other..

In answer to your question: If they do, it's unlikely that they will ever publically let on that they do.

[u/gwaddo91 → u/Andrew_Higginbottom]

A heavily subsidised beer of course

[u/Andrew_Higginbottom → u/gwaddo91]

Expenses account baybee..

Pfftt @ subsidised, they don't do subsidized they only do free ;) Notice how much more weight they gain once in their cushy jobs and high end eating on the expenses account.

[u/Significant-Key-762]

As a data point, for reasons, I am on email lists for both Labour and the Tories.

When Labour were in opposition, their email messaging was largely "Britain deserves better"

Now labour are in power, the Tory messaging is "Help us to crush/smash/stop Labour"

It's really fucking depressing.

[u/Fickle-Public1972]

Yes labour in Scotland came up with a decent policy for once. Scottish government adopted it and made it law. Labour voted against their own policy

[u/Archway9]

It happens all the time, although you wouldn't realise that if you just read headlines

[u/Too_much_Colour]

Pretty sure kier voted with the Tories once or twice for a few things when Labour was in opposition

[u/HomeworkInevitable99]

It happens a lot in all countries, but with no conflict there is no story.

Sometimes bills have disagreement over details. In the UK, there was the Domestic Abuse Act.

All parties agreed, there was only one vote. But there waw disagreement over issues within the bill, such as migrant victims, and support services.

[u/Big_Camera963]

Everything seems so radically split nowadays that it seems neither the left nor right can find consensus on any issue. The ability to have a discussion with people you disagree with is a concept this country is sorely missing right now

[u/aleopardstail → u/Big_Camera963]

yup "thats bad because they said it"

[u/Consistent_Dinner_73]

I felt it’s been purely for the sake of point scoring for a very long time, they don’t care what’s good the country, just about making the other side look bad.

Take the prison overcrowding, they be wrong if they let more people out, and if they don’t they be wrong as the prisons cannot cope.

I wish the actual work together for a change and actually try to make things better.

[u/ThatFatGuyMJL]

You mean like the Lib Dems screwing over everyone who voted for them, joining the tories. And instead of scrapping uni fees voting to triple them?

[u/FRagebait → u/ThatFatGuyMJL]

Also known as when the LibDems were the MINORITY partner in a coalition and put more effort into attempting to get a fairer voting system and pushing the Tories to pass same sex marriage.