Author Archives: Buddy Anderson

If we want to “finish the job” on the Tories, we shouldn’t move to the left

By Buddy Anderson | Thu 26th September 2024 - 10:25 am

“If the Liberal Democrats want to replace the Conservatives, they must move further right on the economy”.

This was instantly backed unsurprisingly by the Liberal Reform group, the last of the so-called Orange Bookers, a dominant force during the Clegg years. Every time these guys support or share anything, it usually causes outrage from the grassroots, who have historically been more progressive than the politicians. As someone from the right of the party, I’m always perplexed at how much anger Liberal Reform generate. I very happily accept most Lib Dems’ identity as centre-left, but parties that reach the greatest heights of politics are broad churches. Those, like myself, who often dare support these ideals are often scoffed at for having short memories, and forgetting what happened in 2015. But have we?

Under Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems secured over 6.8m votes in 2010, the highest number of votes the party has ever received to this day. Most political commentators blame what happened in 2015 on broken promises, notably tuition fees, rather than ideology (which hadn’t really changed that much in those 5 years). In fact the majority of the Lib Dem seats were lost to the then centre-right Conservative party. The Lib Dems did adopt a more centre-left stance at the next GE in 2017 and the number of votes they received went down further. I don’t think anybody wants me to attempt to unpack 2019. Now with this in mind, I am fairly sure that I am not suffering acute memory loss at the sprightly age of 35. However, my interpretation of events is clearly at odds with the ever-progressive grassroots of the party.