Author Archives: The Voice

Much has been written about Vince’s proposed reforms to our party. However, we thought it might be worth fishing out that bit of his speech where he talked about our values and where he set out what he wants to achieve as leader:

I used the break to give some thought as to the role my party should be playing in the British political system.

The country is bitterly divided over Brexit and the politics of the main parties leaves millions of voters, broadly those in the ‘centre ground’, feeling ignored while they get on with their internal civil wars.

And little attention is being paid to some of the big long-term challenges around climate change, an ageing population, new technologies and stagnant productivity.

To be sure, the sense of political malaise is not unique to the UK.  Ever since the global financial crisis, frustration over the failure of market economies to deliver rising living standards, and a sense of unfair rewards, has fed the politics of extremism.  Parties in the liberal and social democratic traditions have struggled.

Liberal democracy itself is under threat notably in the USA, in Eastern Europe and perhaps here.  Authoritarians and extremists of both right and left are on the march and are coordinating their tactics and propaganda: an Illiberal International.

The problem is obviously not the same everywhere and in some countries – France, Canada, Ireland – there are encouraging counter-currents and we need to learn from them.
But in Britain there is the additional problem of a first-past-the-post voting system which entrenches the position of the two established major parties.

This system has worked after a fashion when politicians aimed for common ground.  But when, as now, the main parties are driven by their party fringes, politics become dangerously polarised.

And when democracy also seems unable to deliver, the frustration opens up a space for various forms of ugly populism.  The summer of 2018 offered us verbal attacks on Muslims and Jews as the staple of political debate.  And, of course, wall to wall Brexit.

It is a worrying picture.  So, as Leader of the Liberal Democrats, I have naturally asked myself how I, and my party, can help protect, and develop liberal democracy in Britain, at a time when it is in grave danger.  Perhaps the gravest since the 1930s.

I see two big steps we need to take: