Author Archives: Colin Ferguson

Enough has been written by more experienced observers than me to make it worthwhile to rehash the arguments already made about this year’s local election results.

It is clear that the overall headline is positive, and we should be proud to have made our eighth successive year of local election gains. It is equally clear that in many parts of the country, the hard work of our candidates and campaigners did not pay off. We are right to have a frank internal debate about that.

We are up against powerful populist machines, in Reform UK and the Green Party. The tectonic plates of politics are shifting beneath our feet. Liberalism is under threat now more than ever, and it is incumbent on us to fight for our beliefs. Nowhere is this truer than in the North of England.

In Newcastle, where I am the Group Leader, the result was declared so late on Friday that most people missed it. Despite surges from Reform and the Greens, we made gains to become the largest group, on 25 (out of 78). We topped the poll in the Newcastle upon Tyne North constituency, setting us up as real challengers for the next general election.

This was the hardest campaign I can recall fighting. We lost some good people who did not deserve to lose. In Newcastle, I believe we had the best ground game of anyone: we put out more literature- citywide, local and targeted- than anyone else; we knocked more doors than others; we were ruthlessly pragmatic in targeting. But that is what was required to deliver what we did, in the face of the seemingly organic popularity of other parties.

Being proud, local, community champions is the bedrock of our campaigning success, and a necessary part of winning as a Lib Dem. But in this era of multi-party politics, we must also offer a vision for change: that is what the electorate are crying out for, after years of stagnation. So many people’s concerns were national. We have to capture people’s imaginations for what a proudly liberal future could be.