Author Archives: Edwin Moriarty

As much as it saddens us we need to be realistic about our electoral chances over the next few years. We have the opportunity, especially with the ongoing collapse of the Labour Party, to do quite well, but we have a very tall mountain to climb – to come back from just 8 seats to a position of potential government is a tall order.

That doesn’t mean that we should give up, of course, but it does mean that we should look at alternative ways of having influence over the politics and governance of the country. If our prospects of getting into government soon are minimal, then we should consider how we can get other parties to implement our policies.

Policy is perhaps our greatest strength; because of the unusually broad selection of views inside the party, particularly in the sense of the left to right spectrum, our policy is more robustly examined before adoption than policy in many other parties. When Labour or the Conservatives release policy, it speaks of a specific author and outlook, and it is only at first exposure to the public and discerning voices that compromise is forced upon it. For the Lib Dems, compromise is something we do before we let other people see our policies.

This means that our policies are remarkably acceptable to a broad sweep of people, and how much the Lib Dems managed to achieve as the junior partner in the coalition government is not just testimony to the hard work of our MPs and party members working to support them, but also to the consistency and practicality of our policy positions.

If our goal is to make the UK a more liberal place, then we should focus on achieving that goal regardless of if we are in power or not. That means not just campaigning, but drafting policy with the intention of it being used by other parties, and even encouraging other parties to adopt it.