A quick thread on @HouseOfCommons short money to opposition parties - and the financial disincentive to form electoral pacts in general elections. Based on this https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01663/ from @commonslibrary 1/n

The amount of funding that opposition parties is based on the number of MPs elected, and the number of votes they got in the general election. Note pre-Coalition, the #LibDems got nearly £1.75m. After 2015, that was down to under £500k. 2/n

Remember the #GreenSurge of 2014/2015 by @NatalieBen & @TheGreenparty? She visited @CambridgeGreens on a number of occasions. The impact for them was *huge* - short money rising from £66k to over £200k. But with pacts in 2017, that fell back to £112k. Not easy to absorb. 3/n

After #GE2019 (no pacts bar Brighton), @TheGreenParty were back up to £181k. That's extra full time research staff for @CarolineLucas in Parliament. Note the extra 1m+ votes for @LibDems - FPTP denied them many MPs, but gave an extra £250k funding boost vs 2017/18. 4/n

Opposition parties get extra funding *per 200 votes* once they get an MP into Commons. The more seats they stand in, the more funding they get. That also means parties need to get over 2,800 votes in any seat to break even with any loss of deposits. (£500/35)*200. 5/5