Fifty years ago, I was starting at City University. It was my second attempt: I had spent an unhappy term at Southampton several years earlier, and as part of my plan to enjoy university more, I decided to join a society at the Freshers’ Fair. I wasn’t a Tory and definitely not a socialist, but I liked the Liberal Party’s views on apartheid and gay rights (not that I had ever consciously met a gay person). I joined the Liberal Society and went along to a meeting, where I remember being very impressed by a postgrad, David Heath, who later became leader of Somerset County Council and an MP. Little did I know this would spark 50 years (so far) of involvement in the Liberal Party and the Lib Dems.
I accepted an invitation to become the Liberal Society Press Officer, which meant writing pieces for the student newspaper and led to my first foray into public speaking at student union meetings. My appetite whetted, I stood in my first election—for the NUS delegation—where to my surprise (and that of the more hardened hacks), I topped the poll. My hustings speech arguing that the NUS should keep out of national politics went down a storm!
In those days, there were separate organisations for students (the Union of Liberal Students) and young people more generally (the Young Liberals). I became Treasurer of ULS and co-founded the Weybridge YL branch alongside future MP Richard Younger-Ross.
I spent an awful lot of time on politics, and it even shaped my career. I joined BT as a graduate trainee after a friend pointed out that they gave staff four weeks’ paid leave to fight a parliamentary election. At BT, I became a trade union member and branch secretary, taking part in a nine-week strike. The high point was persuading the driver of a vehicle who had come to clean the drains at BT HQ to turn away while I was on picket duty. With some Liberal friends, I helped organise a coup in the Association of Liberal Trade Unionists, becoming its Chair, and stood as the PPC for the Liberal/SDP Alliance in Holborn and St Pancras in 1987.
I was not a fan of the merger with the SDP and voted against it. As I got busier at work, married, and had a son, I drifted away from activism, though I stayed in touch with friends, read the gossip in Liberator, and remained a member.
Fast forward to 2009, when I started attending local meetings in Wimbledon. I went to the Special Conference in 2010 to endorse the Coalition (it was striking how many old acquaintances I hadn’t seen in decades were in the hall) and gradually re-immersed myself. Over the years, I’ve served on the Federal Board in various roles—I suspect I may be the last person to have sat on both the old Liberal Party Executive and the Lib Dem Board—as well as the Conference Committee, and since January have been a member of the Federal Policy Committee.
In August 2017, I retired and my retirement project was to win a seat on Merton Council. I was elected in 2018 alongside five colleagues, and re-elected in 2022 and again this May. Wimbledon has been one of the Party’s successes culminating in 2024 with the election of Paul Kohler—the first time I have ever lived in a constituency represented by a Lib Dem MP! I help out in Paul’s office from time to time and it has been eye opening to see the vast range and volume of problems MPs help their constituents with.
The Party has changed enormously since I joined, as has the world. In 1976, no one foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Britain’s chief economic anxieties were double-digit inflation and the balance of payments.
Today, our Party has become far more trusting of the state to solve problems (perhaps lingering effect of the SDP), with vastly more focus on identity politics and the environment and much less on foreign affairs ( apart from the EU of course). We spend much more time calling for increased public spending as a cure-all, and far less time discussing industrial democracy and the management of business, as the bitter union/management battles of the 1960s and 70s have receded. On the other hand at the Margate Assembly in 1979 (a truly awful venue), we passed a motion declaring economic growth neither “achievable nor desirable,” whereas today motions backing growth pass without debate.
Some principles taken for granted back then, like robust support for free speech, feel much more contested today (perhaps we should resurrect the tradition of presenting Party Presidents with a copy of Mill’s On Liberty). On other civil liberties issues though, like defending jury trials, we remain as resolute as ever. But the biggest shift is that 50 years ago we shared an instinctive suspicion of the state—and I am not convinced that remains part of our core DNA.
Have I achieved anything in half a century? I have certainly helped residents. I still treasure a letter from a resident in West Ham who had spent years trying to get a council issue resolved; I managed to sort it out in weeks (in those days, a confident manner and middle-class accent got one further with council officers than they do now). I am also deeply proud of our long campaign to make Merton Council an accredited London Living Wage employer. We were told repeatedly it was impossible, yet today it is reality.
Did I make the right choice at that City University Freshers’ Fair? I believe so—and not just for the lifelong friendships it gave me. While I have often been frustrated by our Leaders and disagreed profoundly with some Conference motions, the Liberal Democrats remain the natural home for someone like me who believes individuals should live free as far as possible from state interference, and that a dynamic market economy is what funds the public goods we care about.
This isn’t a valedictory address. I still have leaflets to bundle, council casework to answer, and a report for the Board of Liberal Britain to draft. The Lib Dems are still the party for me.
* Simon McGrath is a councillor in the London Borough of Merton, a member of the Federal Policy Committee, and serves on the Board of Liberal Britain (formerly Liberal Reform).
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14 Comments
How lovely Simon. Congratulations. Here’s to the next 50!
Interesting to hear of Simon being Treasurer of the Union of Liberal Students. I was the North Regional Treasurer of ULS in 1967. After my appointment the bank account was frozen, which has been my excuse for never being treasurer of anything else since! The reason for the freezing of the account? We had produced a report on extreme right wing parties who had a habit of splitting and re-appearing under difference names….
Congrats Simon. I can only claim 45 years activism, having joined the SDP at its launch. Including the pleasure of being a Councillor for 26 years – 1986-96 and then 2007-23 – the Liberal Democrats are still the Party for me.
I joined ULS 50 years ago this month, at Reading University, but didn’t join the Liberal Party until a year or so later. The things that attracted me? Industrial democracy, now largely forgotten, but I welcome an attempt to revive it. The environment, then a fringe issue now centre stage, but not centre stage enough, and Community politics, then a radical idea of empowerment, now too often devalued to a political tactic of delivering lots of leaflets.
I take a less negative view of the state. It needs constraint to prevent over reach, but it is essential to protect and empower the individual against private corporate power. Fifty years ago we had no concept of Elon Musk, AI, cyber warfare and the things that now dominate daily politics. The state and international co-operation is the best and probably only defence against oligarchy.
Well done Simon. I only have 5 years as an active activist and a few more years of membership, but I must have been “turned on” to the Liberal message at about the same time. At University, I first joined the National Union of Labour students after wrestling with the questions of signing up to Clause IV for at least 2 pints – membership was never renewed. I was then a Conservative Party entryist – as part of a successful campaign to get Decent David elected President rather then Decadent Dennis. It was more expensive to join but there was a lot of free sherry at meetings and many women. And then I attended an excellent talk by a prominent Liberal politician (the name eludes me). This was already my natural home politically, but I was emboldened to ask about the cost of joining the Liberal Student Society. I was horrified…and no free sherry! So 50 years wasted… I did a little leafletting for Labour in my early 20s – to help a friend – but decided it was a complete waste of time. What did I know?
Well said, Simon. I too remember you from 50 years ago, and discussions and campaigning we shared at that time, including not only the Party but including NLYL, ULS and ALTU. Liberalism remains the only set of beliefs that will save the human race (and, incidentally, the planet) although I’m not sure than any one organisation will carry it through. Perhaps as internationalists we should bear that in mind.
A pleasant read. Well done Simon and thank you for all that you’re doing to support members as well as residents.
A great article Simon. And you are one of my dearest friends. We’ve been through those decades of activism.
What would be your greatest argument for me even to bother now? Sorry but what is the LibDem argument? Why do we matter? It feels worse than ever – side-lined by the press. I have no idea what the LibDems stand for
Nationally – what is our platform?
Btw – first ever MP in Maidenhead! Sadly I live in Windsor
I joined ULS at UCL in 1975 and the party at the same time. I am still a member 50 years on. My activism is circumscribed by the drugs I take to fight prostate cancer but one of the highlights of my time as a Lib/LD is helping to get the formidable Manuela Perteghella elected here in Stratford Upon Avon. I live in a rural ward and nearly every farmhouse and cottage got 6 leaflets.
The other highlight was being elected to serve on Camden Council in 1986 with the equally formidable Flick Rea.
I first met Simon circa 1978 when we were both on the Home Counties Regional Executive, he as the ULS rep and me as his YL counterpart. We share many of the same memories from those halcyon Liberal Party days. The 1979 Margate Assembly followed a disappointing election where we fell back from 14 to 11 MPs, but our spirits were decidedly upbeat, with a brilliant two-hour debate on Liberal Philosophy and the historic economics debate. measured. I also remember helping Simon in a council by-election in Newham in 1984, knocking up with Liz Barker and Simon Titley.
Such a newbie
Thanks for all ther comments including from some very old friends !
Congratulations! I’ve chalked up a mere 10 years, but what a 10 years it’s been (in a good way).
Great recollections. I joined a few years before Simon but we overlapped and worked together in ULS when we both shared a commitment to the distinctiveness and independence of the Liberal Students as opposed to others who wanted a “Left Alliance” in which we sunk our differences with everyone from Communist to Labour and ran slates to win NUS elections. I was later a strong advocate for the “Alliance” and I considered the alternative “strategy” of standing against the new SDP to be one that would restrict us to being a debating society, not a political party seeking to win elections to change things in a Liberal direction. When it came to the “merger” I was on the opposite side to Simon. David Owen had made the Alliance unworkable and the only way in which decent people in the Liberal Party and the SDP could seize back control from Owen, who was behaving as a right-wing dictator, was for the parties to merge with proper checks and balances on the powers of the leadership. The success of the merger was eventually proven by the 1997 general election breakthrough. But the checks and balances from the merger agreement in 1988 have now largely disappeared.