Editor’s Note: The party is currently running an essay competition for members of the Liberal Democrats, to submit 1000 words on the theme “What it means to be a Liberal Democrat today.” The deadline for contributions was yesterday. If you would like us to publish your submission, send it to [email protected].

I’m not going to tell you what it means to be a Liberal Democrat. I’m going to tell you what it means to be a Liberal.

Party fortunes come and go, but the Liberal Project is proud list of social achievements which have improved the lives of of millions of people across the world since the time of the Enlightenment. It’s a tradition of thought that aspires to create a world that is always better than the one in which we live, and for that reason it is fundamentally optimistic and looks to empower the best of human nature. Our capacity for compassion and empathy, generosity, rationality, forgiveness and the knowledge that while any person is still oppressed by injustice of any kind, I myself cannot be truly free.

‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’, the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, may not be a statement of fact, but it is a promise and a goal which calls us to create a world in which it becomes true. Liberalism is this struggle which is never complete because powerful and reactionary interests are always attempting to entrench their own authority, to impose their conservative status quo as the norm, to ensure their children and successors remain the executors of the state’s agency.

And here we come to the fundamental question of Liberalism; one which has no absolute answers because we are not a group of people defined by our class or wealth or region or religion. We are nonconformists and free-thinkers of all backgrounds, who will never agree on everything, which is at once our major strength and weakness. The question is this: how do you create a state which balances the power of the government and the liberty of the individual? When governments become too powerful, they are prone to tyranny, and when individuals do, they are prone to corruption and exploitation in their own turn.

For the past four decades, the power of the state has been eroded in a relentless drive to raise the aspirations and wealth of individuals. This is a fundamental problem for Liberals now. We have always sought to augment the power of the individual, but we now find ourselves in a situation where individuals and the corporate entities they control have become bloated, exploitative and illiberal. They cheat the state out of taxes, they poison the environment, they enrich a small cabal of privileged individuals at the expense of the many.

If we do not oppose these things, we become collaborators with illiberalism. In the 19th Century, Liberal politicians like my great grandfather Sir John Lubbock legislated to make sure that the benefits of industrialisation were extended to everybody. He created the Bank Holidays Act so that workers could take the train to the seaside and enjoy their leisure time to the fullest. If the benefits of economic success are hoarded by the few at the expense of the many, we create conditions ripe for unrest and division.

We differ from Socialists because we do not believe that the means of production should be owned entirely by the state; we also differ from Neoliberals who have distorted economic liberalism to the point where they seem to only believe that the state should be responsible for running the army, police and civil service.

Enough talk of Left and Right. Liberalism is about balancing competing interests. It is about using empirical, rational data to decide if a service is more efficiently run by a company or a public body. Having a mixed economy means public and private sectors which can be measured and compared to each other to see what works best. Ours is not dogma, but rationality inspired by the lessons of past reforms.

The thought behind the welfare state is a fundamentally Liberal one: the People’s Budget of 1909, the National Insurance Act 1911, the Beveridge Report that led to the creation of the NHS. These are the most important Liberal reforms this country ever enacted  and are so deeply ingrained in our political consciousness that we forget how fundamentally liberal they are. When Lloyd George imposed much higher land taxes in his 1909 budget, landowners were aghast, but the social reforms achieved were massive. If we expect those less well-off to be the backbone of the workforce which builds the wealth on which our state relies, we should expect those with the largest share of that wealth to contribute their fair share to building the social structures which make us a peaceful and prosperous nation.

We must get back to these first principles, remember the successes of the past, and be confident in the emancipatory and optimistic vision which they have empowered us with. We must remember that Liberalism is radical; we must pin our colours to the mast, we must express the potential of Liberalism strongly and concisely. In this we are helped by the current restructuring of the British political landscape.

Just as Labour is having a debate about its principles that has animated thousands of people, we can do the same. We must win back the millions of liberal people who deserted the party because we compromised our principles and equivocated on our beliefs. It is for these reasons that I believe we should have a debate about renaming our party the Liberal Party, which would be emblematic of this return to our principles.

By returning to core values, we can once again be a true force for liberal reform in Britain. As JFK said, ‘If by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people – their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties… if that is what they mean by a ‘liberal’ then I am proud to be a liberal.’

Let’s be proud to be Liberals again.

* John is a freelance journalist and filmmaker covering international human rights issues. He has recently completed a film on the anniversary of the 1915 massacres of Armenians and other minorities in the Ottoman Empire.