The recent political upheaval necessitates an assessment of our position as a party. How do we respond when Labour now has a large poll lead and the Tories have tanked but have a new leader? Our lack of visibility, reflected by a slight drop in our poll figures, is in part a consequence of the recent drama but is it also that we haven’t yet got enough to say?
The exposure of Tory Brexiteers as both morally and economically bankrupt leaves a large political space to be filled – what is the way forward for the UK? Policy positions and messages have a balance to strike between bold and safe – too bold and we are thought of as scary (for example, revoke), but if we are only ‘safe’ (i.e., the same as other anti-Tory parties) one could ask what is the point of the Lib Dems.
We need a combination of the safe/consensus and the bold that is unique to Lib Dems. These positions also have to combine as a story of what is wrong and how it can be fixed, and also define our role in the post-election parliament. In addition to representing our voters and values, a key role in parliament is not to present ourselves a government or opposition in waiting (as in 2019) but to influence government policy. We can argue that we have already done this re the energy cap and windfall tax but we should go further.
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