Ed Miliband and wife Justine leave the polling station after voting at Sutton Village Hall, Doncaster. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Ed Miliband will fight any attempt by David Cameron to claim a victory tomorrow should the Tories not gain enough seats to form a majority, senior party sources have said.
Labour fear that Mr Cameron will try and declare victory should he win the most seats, despite the fact he may be unable to secure the support of the Lib Dems, UKIP and the DUP to create a stable government.
The fear follows claims in the run up to the election that any Labour-led government that was not the biggest party would be an “illegitimate” government.
The consensus has been that even if Labour finishes in second place on Friday they would have more allies to perhaps form majority.
Failing that, with possible support of the Scottish National Party, Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid Cymru it is felt that they could at least win a vote of confidence on a Queen’s speech.
Mr Miliband has spent most of the week refusing to contemplate a hung parliament and instead chosen to focus on his party winning an overall majority.
“I’m going to leave the commentary to others. My focus is not on the politicians but on the British people,” he said at a meeting of supporters in Pudsey, West Yorkshire.
However with opinion polls and betting markets suggesting this is an unlikely result, it appears that he has considered the potential permutations at party level, if not publicly.
Former Labour cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell, answered the questions regarding legitimacy by saying: “the rules are the rules.”
It seems that whilst the Conservatives may have the first opportunity to get a Queen’s speech through the Commons, Labour will not be deterred.
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