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Author Archives: Ioan Phillips

Why I’m wary of an early contest

By Ioan Phillips | Mon 1st August 2016 - 8:58 am

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“A week is a long time in politics”, so quipped Harold Wilson – although in the aftermath of Brexit, perhaps ‘week’ should be replaced by ‘hour’. The glut of political developments since June 23rd have evidently led Tim to forget the nadir of 2015. “There must be an election”, he demanded upon the accession of Theresa May to the premiership. Right now, we will gain little if Britain were to go to the polls early. We need more time to rebuild our grassroots organisations and to formulate a liberalism that acknowledges the circumstantial changes catalysed by Brexit.

We should take our press office’s releases lauding the surge in membership that has taken place following the referendum with a pinch of salt. The 15,000+ increase in members is impressive, but we need to find ways to secure our new members within a grassroots framework which contracted massively during our time in coalition. Maybe the way forward is to follow the example of left-wing parties in continental Europe, and start community organising.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged brexit, gener and tim farron | 16 Comments

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Recent Comments

Jana
Hi Tom, Do you think Burnham is preparing the ground for a snap election? Lots of little goodies delivered each day for a couple of weeks then claim he needs a...
Hywel
Increasing the basic threshold by £1000 will make someone on £40,000pa £200 a year better off whilst doing nothing for someone on £12000 a year though. "...
Tony Vickers
Not higher taxes but different taxes. We said in our 2015 manifesto we'd look at how (not whether) to introduce a Land Value Tax within a single Parliament. Co...
Peter Martin
@ Daniel, You could have a point. Do you mean the government of the Federal Republic Of Germany? They certainly adopted the position of speaking for the ...
Steve Comer
I agree with your sentiments Jack, but does the Party in Wales and it's MS? What little coverage of the Lib Dem campaign in Wales that I heard on news media ...