Author Archives: Tony Paterson

`Love is Enough’ is a wonderful song. Well done to Ed Davey and the Bath Philharmonia Young Carers Choir on having targeted the target Christmas  Number 1 spot. As a sentiment, though, it only reflects one side of the essential components that make us who we are as a political movement and segment of British society.  

At Party Conference in Bournemouth in 2023, I helped found a new Affiliated Organisation called Liberal Democrat Friends of Ukraine, focusing primarily on the bellicose military objective of helping Ukraine to defend itself against Putin’s aggression. Humanitarian support and reconstruction aid are our other priorities. It was the right thing to do – for Ukraine but also for Britain.

That Conference in September 2023 passed a belligerent motion urging the Government, `in defence of liberal values’, to:-

Do all it realistically can, in view of Putin’s brazen actions, to help arm Ukraine, including with longer-range precision weapons,…. to defeat Russia. Continue to strengthen the supply of British arms and ammunition to Ukraine… 

Fantastic. Lib Dem Friends of Uraine works closely with sister AOs like the Armed Forces and Hong Kong. We are about values. Membership of Lib Dem Friends of Ukraine alone has surged to about 350, much of it since Brighton 2024. So many Party members care about this.

Standing back from the `Peace Dividend’ mindset that has catastrophically got us, since 1989, to where, militarily, we are now, we can see how Utopian the daydream was.

Liberal, advanced democracies, including ours, have slid into a vicious circle of 1939 ostrich groupthink.

All parties seem to think that voters would question whoever was honest enough to spell out the substantially higher share of GDP that would be needed to re-arm, and adequately defend Ukraine and ourselves.

Responding to this, they collectively encouraged voters to believe that there was no danger – leaving the UK insufficiently capable, apart from our excellent at sea nuclear deterrent.