Can a Remain alliance rally anti-Brexit voters during the general election?

Liberal Democrats, Green Party and Plaid Cymru candidates are expected to step aside in each other's favour in key constituencies, writes Andrew Woodcock

There is no guarantee that voters whose preferred party decides not to stand will obediently follow its advice on who to back (PA)

An announcement is expected within days over a so-called Remain alliance for the 12 December election between parties committed to keeping the UK in the European Union.

With 48 per cent of voters backing Remain in the 2016 referendum, and opinion polls over the past two years consistently finding that more than 50 per cent now want to stay in the EU, it might be thought that an alliance of this kind would wield near-unstoppable power in a general election.

But the complex web of party allegiances and rivalries, coupled with the UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system, means it is not so simple.