Waterloo Parliamentary Association

The Waterloo Parliamentary Assocation was a failed plan to merge the Unionist Party and Heron Party, following the two parties successful election campaign during the January 2025 General Election. While the two parties worked together in a formal coalition that saw William Somerset return to Number Ten Downing Street and disrupt "The Red Scare" that had, in theory, the superior electoral numbers in the leadup to the election, the Unionists and Herons had previously fought a bitter election in August 2024.

A plan to merge the two parties was discussed privately between William Somerset (Leader and Founder of the Herons) and Thomas Carew (Founder of the Unionists): this included various plans, one to formally merge the two parties into an unknown new party, or, the preferred option, a shared Parliamentary agreement, akin to the (IRL) Labour Party's agreement with the Co-operative Party. This would be christened as the Waterloo Parliamentary Association, the only name the two agreed on, since they felt it fair to avoid any allusion that one party would be more dominant than the other. This was also a reference to the extensive media coverage of the election, where The Times referred to the Leader of the BWP as a "socialist Napoleon", and numerous publications therefore painted Somerset - and August Carew, Leader of the Unionists at the time - as Blucher and Wellington.

Ultimately, these ideas went no further than the planning phase, and while sometimes the Coalition is referred to in academic circles as the Waterloo Coalition, the coalition did not survive formally beyond the 37th Parliament of Great Britain. The Herons would ultimately dissolve a second time in the Spring of 2025, while the Unionists would suffer a slump during the same period, before recovering and achieving a second sustained period of political dominance.