Author Archives: Joyce Onstad

This Op-Ed is inspired by an article in the latest Economist, A Manifesto for Renewing Liberalism, which caught my eye because the author and I are in agreement that Liberals must be bold and impatient for reform! The only way they will prevail in society, the writer says, is “if their ideas are unmatched for their ability to spread freedom and prosperity”.  I could not agree more, my thoughts exactly.  Not freedom for some or prosperity for some, but freedom and prosperity for all of society in its diversity.

We as a party, and Liberals at large, have spent a huge amount of our energy in recent years on Identity politics and that was the right thing to do.  As a result, we have seen significant gains in reduction of discrimination on the bases of Gender, Sexuality, and to a lesser extent, Race, Religious identity and Disability.

Without completely abandoning identity politics, in order to regain our rightful place in the centre of politics, we must re-focus and now move with renewed vigour to fight for Universal Freedoms and Rights, including Economic Rights, first at home, but also abroad as we are by our nature internationalist.  It is good that we have been spearheading the fight to remain close to our neighbours with Brexit and must claim the lead as the party for a People’s Vote, a position that Labour and other pretenders are keen to claim.  We must use this to re-launch our universalist agenda on Freedom and Prosperity.

In recent years here at home, Freedom of Speech has increasingly been under threat, and people’s prosperity has been dependent on geography and class.  As the writer in the Economist suggests and I concur: “In all sorts of ways, the liberal meritocracy is closed and self-sustaining”.  This is true in society as well as in our party.  Success at one point brought complacency.