The Liberal Democrats are a flexible party on the spectrum. Coming from the traditional centre ground, it has attracted many voters who have come from different perspectives on politics. Recently, we have won a lot of votes from the centre right of the political spectrum with Sir Ed Davey’s focus on ‘Middle England’, taking votes away from Conservative leaning voters who feel that the Tories have gone too far right or neglected the ‘Blue Wall’. There is also the Progressive base who have gone to the Liberal Democrats in the Brexit era, aiming to reverse that referendum result in 2016.
I feel that our party is made up of members who feel disillusioned with the leadership of their political ends. You can put me in that category; a former member of the Labour Party. Due to choices from the Labour Government, I left them for the Liberal Democrats. Whilst I see Liberalism (the belief in freedom for all) as the principle we should live by, I am always left with the question of how?
In some scenarios, freedom is not an abstract concept. If you live in any dictatorship, you are not free. If you live in a democracy, it can get complicated. We can vote in elections, our politicians are held to account, free press, free speech and an independent judicial system. However, there is another freedom that we don’t have… the freedom to live prosperously.
Due to the cost-of-living crisis, people are choosing between heating and food in the winter. Recently with the ill-thought Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments Bill that has just passed the Commons, there will be disabled people who will not have the same rights and freedoms to receive PIP compared to existing claimants with the same conditions.
As someone who has left-leaning politics, there was something in the Liberal Democrat Federal Constitution which led me to join the party. Specifically, it was the quote: “The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity”.
That is a vision I want the Labour Party to strive for. Sadly, they don’t. Other lefties like Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana have decided that a new political party is the answer to fill the left-wing gap… it won’t work. Another party splitting the Labour vote will only help Reform. But there is a movement that has consistently won battles for their aims and have pressured Westminster to make profound changes… the trade unions.
I am a Liberal and a passionate trade unionist. I truly believe that they are a positive force for the worker and society (even though they shouldn’t be exempt from any criticism). Trade unions have been crucial to the Labour Party, giving them significant funds to their campaigns, they are critical to their election machine. Voters from my end of the political spectrum are looking for something different but it’s going to take a lot more than fighting against Labour to win their votes. Whilst we need to work harder to gain support from that voting base, we need to find more money if we are ever going to seriously challenge Labour, Reform or the Conservatives… we need donations from trade unions.
Donations from trade unions would help expand our campaign resources and give us more relevance, that move would certainly turn heads and bring attention to our policies. Liberals and trade unions have lots in common with our shared values of equality. Liberalism is the ideology of freedom and trade unions fight for better pay and rights for workers so their members can have more freedom to live the life they choose to live.
Trade unions, like Liberals, are believers in democracy. They bring it into the workplace; the members have the freedoms to decide who leads them and how they hold their employers to account. To topple Labour, like Reform have done to the Conservatives, it will take more than to just take some of their voting base. We need to rival their campaign funding with similar organisations who share our values.
Would they want to influence our policies? Yes, but there is nothing wrong with that as we have a lot of the same agreements on current issues. If we continue the obsession of winning ‘Middle England’, we’ll only lose seats to Reform. We need to advance to the left to not only topple Labour but to be an alternative to the horror of what Nigel Farage would bring into 10 Downing Street.
* Jim Coupland is a member of the Liberal Democrats who joined us from the Labour Party. He describes himself as a "passionate Liberal".
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28 Comments
It’s so ironic to read your post, Jim; I’ve a piece being published at 1:30 looking at the current situation with Rayner and Unite, and how we should use this to our advantage!
@ Jim,
“Other lefties like Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana have decided that a new political party is the answer to fill the left-wing gap… it won’t work. Another party splitting the Labour vote will only help Reform.”
OK but the logic of your argument would mean that everyone on left should vote Labour to avoid such a split.
It’s better not to – IMO. If the Lib Dems look like they can win against Reform in your constituency then that has to be the better option. In some constituencies it will be the new party of the left which can have a better chance to win. It remains to be seen just how many that will be or how widespread the support they will attract.
I does look at the moment that Reform won’t get a majority support and that they can be defeated if there is sensible tactical voting and electoral pacts by opposing parties.
The Labour right used to think that there was nowhere else for disillusioned members to go and that they could seal up any dissent in a “tomb”. It’s bit rich for the Starmerites to claim that the left vote is being split when they are the ones who’ve created the split. Starmer himself invited anyone who was unhappy with his right wing policies to leave.
Given the historic failure of the left to attract enough votes to win over very many years I think cosying up to the “left” would be a strategic mistake for a liberal party.
On the whole liberals think properly regulated free markets and free trade are a good think,. We also tend to think that we should be wary of interests based on class, profession etc etc.
The Lib Dems should not be seen as home for socialists disillusioned with the Labour party: other options are available for them.
“If we continue the obsession of winning ‘Middle England’, we’ll only lose seats to Reform”
This is contradicted by local council by-elections at the moment: the Lib Dems are holding our own against Reform since May 2024 (having lost 1 seat and gained 1) while both Labour and Tories are going backwards at speed. And we all know about the Lib Dem gains on May 1st which were on the whole concentrated in areas of traditional Lib Dem strength and where our party has MPs.
In response to Tristan Ward:
The only thing I want to say is that, on the whole, the Lib Dems tend to be more socially liberal than economically liberal. While we support regulated free markets, we are also supporters of a strong welfare state and government intervention as and when necessary. Perhaps tapping into the social democratic aspect of our party, combined with the regulated free market support we see in the Lib Dems, might be a good way forward?
I disagree.
I would prefer all political donations by trade unions and by companies to be banned. Only UK citizens should be allowed to make political donations, and only as individuals. Furthermore I support an annual monetary cap per person on political donations.
On the wider issue, as somone who grew up with illiterate and very poor parents, I fully support a measure of economic redistribution, with the wealthier paying taxes that provide resources for the poor. The question is of course how much redistribution.
Most importantly, this redistribution should not be confused with state ownership of industry. Free market capitalism is the greatest poverty reducer in history. That is why countries like the Scandinavian ones combine strong welfare states with dynamic capitalist economies.
@Jack Meredith
“The only thing I want to say is that, on the whole, the Lib Dems tend to be more socially liberal than economically liberal.”
SOME Liberal Democrats certainly; others tend the other way. One of the challenges for the party is to ensure we draw on the traditions of both economic liberals and social liberals at a time when liberal democracy is under existential threat. Social Democracy is not making much headway electorally at the moment. And I absolutely agree with Mohammed Amin when he points out that free markets are an extraordinary poverty reducer.
I would add human rights, the rule of law , free enquiry/freedom of speech and representative democracy as crucial liberal parts of the mix.
@ Tristan Ward, “free markets are an extraordinary poverty reducer”.
Not necessarily. I’m curious to see any evidence that that is always the case. Surely it depends on who is pulling the control levers in those circumstances.
What distinguishes us from the ideological Left is that we lack its ideological baggage, so we don’t frighten the horses even when we take positions that are to the left of Labour. So it is wrong to suppose that there is an inherent conflict between appealing to ‘Middle England’ and appealing to progressive ex-Labour voters.
So we should avoid any association with the putative new left-wing breakaway from Labour. Jeremy Corbyn remains a bandwagon-hopping socialism-in-one-country Lexiter with questionable associates. And the various pro-Gaza independents are also problematic. For one thing, they are not necessarily (small-L) liberal. And some of them are advised by James Giles, who masterminded George Galloway’s recent election campaigns and who in his role as a Kingston upon Thames Councillor is a populist rabble-rouser with an anti-Lib Dem agenda.
PS Although James Giles has jumped on the pro-Gaza bandwagon, he is not above Islamophobic campaigning, as in a Council by-election in Kingston a few years ago.
Anyway the new breakaway group is likely to fall apart under its own contradictions.
@Mohammed Amin
By Scandinavian countries, I’m sure you include Finland. I like its style of ‘a dynamic capitalist economy’ with a large number of state owned companies in important parts of the economy.
@ David Raw
The evidence is laid out comprehensively in Enlightenment Now by Stephen Pinker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Now
I know of no example in the modern era where free markets/free trade have not increased wealth – which not to say the wealth is automatically distributed fairly across all participants (whatever “fair” means). I’d be interested to see your counter-examples of states where free markets have not reduced poverty overall. and of course i is entirely possible that unregulated capitalism will destroy our current civilisation which certainly counts as increasing poverty. But to me avoiding capitalism on these grounds is to try to solve the environmental problem without using an incredible effective tool. I would go so far as to say that there is no hope of getting to net zero without exploiting the profit motive.
As you hint at, and as made clear in my previous post there are other parts of the mix, and I suggest the following are all necessary to produce a liberal society, as well as one where wealth is fairly distributed.
1 representative democracy
2 free markets and free trade subject to such regulation as are necessary to make them work properly.
3 freedom of speech/free empirical enquiry
4 government (and everyone else) subject to the rule of law
5 human rights
1
@Mohammed Amin
“I would prefer all political donations by trade unions and by companies to be banned”
And who would that benefit most? Parties who are supported by wealthy people..
It is possible for members of a trade union to opt out of contributing to political donations.
“Only UK citizens should be allowed to make political donations, and only as individuals.”
So not e.g. Commonwealth citizens who may have lived in this country for very many years?
https://fullfact.org/law/most-non-uk-citizens-cant-donate-uk-political-parties/
Would trade unions even be willing to donate to us? To the extent they were able to tolerate Blair, Brown and Starmer it’s largely been because of the Labours history, and their status as one of the two main parties.
Without this it would take allot more to make them commit their resources to a political party, most likely we’d need to be completely locked step with them ideologically and give them a major constitutional role in running the party.
Additionally many who staunchly identify as leftists simply don’t trust us or outright hate us regardless of whether we agree with them. The coalition played a role but largely in that it confirmed their preconceptions in thein this worst possible way. Even during the period before when we were less ashamed of being to Labour’s left (1997 to 2007) they showed little interest in us.
Allot of them seem to have a made up definition of what a liberal is and therefore dislike all liberals regardless of what we actually believe.
Though admittedly I do sometimes notice comments on this site that do the same thing in reverse.
No problem with individual trades unionists donating to us but unions donating to us would be pounced on by the Tory press. We must not forget the voters who supported us last year and where they came from.
If there’s a gap in the market at the minute it’s centre right. That’s where the libdems should move to. Not only out of respect to all the new MPs constituents but there’s nowhere now for the tory wets.
We have Labour, Tories and Reform all fighting for the various shades of right wingery. I can see no “centre-right” gap in the political market.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Do we meet people basic needs? housing ? unaffordable. Food ? massive number of foodbanks. Water ? water companies not an inspiring success. Can’t swim in rivers or on beaches, ocean full of plastic, toxic waste and declining fish stocks. Air? bit polluted, not least by carbon emissions. Personal safety ? courts and prisons in crisis. Financial security ? not for large number so people. Health, and well-being ? NHS and mental health services overwhelmed.
If the answer was giving more money to the ultra rich, then we would be sorted because the number of billionaires is amazing. The trouble is most people do not have capital. Give an typical person £20,000, they might start a business, get a car, take driving lessons. whatever, they can transform an aspect of their lives. Give a billionaire another billion and they buy assets, suck growth out of the economy and do nothing productive for society as a whole. Thatcher gave away (virtually) council houses, gave away privatised utilities, she gave some ordinary people capital, that is what unleashed growth for a few years, not her other dreadful economic polices.
We also have Labour Reform Green and potentially Corbyns new party fighting for the left vote That’s not counting SNP PC and MK here in Cornwall. We need to be able to offer a home for ex Cons like Dominic Grieve Rory Stewart etc
The head of this website reads: “Not paid for by trade unions or millionaires.”
I could cope with “paid for by trade unionists AND millionaires”, but I doubt that would reflect the reality for long given the perceived conflict of interest between the two groups. The same probably applies to the party generally.
“We have Labour, Tories and Reform all fighting for the various shades of right wingery. I can see no “centre-right” gap in the political market.”
The real gap in the market is for a genuine liberal democrat party. Up to now both Labour and the Tories have been willing to operate in a broadly liberal and democratic system notwithstanding their own different ideologies. The advent of anti-liberal Reform (in the UK) and their allies elsewhere has blown that apart.
That challenge is far more acute for the Tories since their electoral alliance has been made up since (say) 1922 of liberals and nationalists. Farage is splintering that coalition, and Conservative members have to decide whether they are liberal (in the broadest sense) or authoritarian.
Labour’s problem, as a democratic socialist/social democrat party is perhaps more long term but just as existential since history seems to be showing the the socialist project is doomed to failure.
“Labour’s problem, as a {Tory-lite} party is perhaps existential since history seems to be showing the the {neo-liberal}project is doomed to failure.”
Fixed that for you.
@ Jenny Barnes
““Labour’s problem, as a {Tory-lite} party is perhaps existential since history seems to be showing the the {neo-liberal}project is doomed to failure.”
Fixed that for you.”
All good knock about stuff, but we all know that Labour is not part of any neoliberal project. If they were, their membership and MPs would be cheering the government on as it (rightly) tries to make their budget add up without breaking its promises.
Instead they inflict considerable damage to their own government’s authority by forcing it to back track.
In response to Tristan Ward:
Regarding your point: “Labour’s problem, as a democratic socialist/social democrat party, is perhaps more long-term but just as existential since history seems to be showing the socialist project is doomed to failure”, I agree to an extent.
Social democracy CAN succeed if coupled with liberal capitalism.
Now, how would that social democracy compare to its predecessors of the 1940s, 1960s, 1970s and 1990s? I would assume very different, and rightfully so, as the challenges facing us change, too.
But the fact remains that social democracy, in some form, can prosper if handled correctly alongside liberal capitalist conditions.
I don’t see Labour’s problem as being tory lite but that they’ve unnecessarily backed themselves in to a corner on tax and wrecked the economy in their convoluted way they’ve tried to stick to their manifesto and yet clearly failed.
We should certainly look at building stronger relations with some trade unions. The NEU, NASUWT, and Prospect appear to be the most viable candidates, as outlined in my Substack.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-147587796?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I have come round to the view expressed in the OP that the Trade Union movement is a democratic one. These days, with so many threats to democracy from left, right and elsewhere, that is not just a big deal, it is IMO the main point.
That’s not to say individual trade unions cant be elitist and exclusive – the FDA and UCU come to mind – and any union, like any other institution can be wrong, and any group of workers might at any time have interests aligned or misaligned with the rest of society. But let’s not get too upset about any of this. The idea that all working people’s interests should naturally align around some (socialist) programme, is obviously for the birds.
And this is where IMO it goes wrong. Unions should focus on representing their members interests, but should recognise that their members will vote for all parties and none, as is their right, and not presume to dabble in politics on the presumption that their members all had really ought to be voting Labour. It’s an affront to the freedom of the individual to vote according their own reasons.
Jim Copeland is right there is nothing wrong with being a progressive indeed our own constitution encourages , social liberalism ,social justice and being non-conformist . But as we get closer to 2029 General Election we need to develop a stronger vision of what we see a refreshed or renewable liberalism to be. How it is better than the populist alternative embodied in both Reform and the rump Conservative Party . William Wallace is right to ask “Where the leadership ” We now have a very impressive fresh group of MPs and i hope they not the old guard who have been about a little too long in my opinion will promote a dynamic and fresh form of liberalism .
What I think the electorate is looking for is a political party that combines sound values with the flexibility to direct policy to meet specific objectives. This can make the Party look weak so this must be combined with excellent communication skills to the media and directly to the public. If we can explain our objectives clearly so we at least get a fair hearing for specific policies and act compassionately and consistently within the context, a volatile electorate could easily turn to us.