Liberal Democrats did well in the local elections and talk of our holding the balance in the next parliament is in the air.
In this article I don’t wish to argue for or against becoming a partner in the next government, or supporting it with confidence and supply, or commenting from the side-lines. My purpose is to urge the party to prepare for the possibility and suggest some ground rules which might avoid the disappointments (to put it mildly) which followed from the 2010 arrangement.
They are:
- Whatever is offered, and by whom, we should make it clear that we will take a realistic amount of time (say at least two weeks) before concluding any agreement. In 2010 we were bounced into making an agreement over a weekend, under the mistaken assumption that if we didn’t the financial sky would fall in. (It wouldn’t have, and doesn’t when continental countries spend weeks if not months arranging coalitions) We need to take the time to read the small print and study the implications “between the lines” (such as 2010’s assumption that the Tories would support, or at least remain neutral over a referendum on electoral reform, and House of Lords reform.
- Our commitment should not again be: “We must support everything, we can’t pick and choose,” as was agreed in 2010. Rather we should categorise policies on the following lines:
- Those issues on which we are in full agreement with our prospective partner(s), and will campaign for and vote for in parliament.
- Issues on which we have reservations, but for we will vote in parliament to avoid bringing the government down.
- Issues on which we reserve the right publicly to propose and campaign for alternatives, but on which we will abstain in parliament.
- Issues on which we are fundamentally opposed, will not support in parliament, and if necessary will vote against in parliament, even if this means bringing the government.
- In return for our support as above, we need to be clear on what we will demand. For me it would be proportional representation by single transferable vote in multi-member constancies for elections to the House of Commons, no ifs, no buts, and no nonsense about a referendum. (Referendums are the tools of populists and dictators and alien to the British Constitution. There were no referendums to enfranchise urban working men, (1867), women, (1918 and 28) or 18 year olds (1969). Just do it.) Others might widen our demands to include further constitutional reform (second chamber, further devolution to the nations and regions, entrenched rights for local government, a written constitution.)
- If it is deemed that with the demands as in 3 above we would be over-reaching ourselves, than perhaps a constitutional convention (or several national and regional ones) with the commitment to study a selection of constitutional issues and recommend within two years, could be an alternative approach.
- It would be nice if someone could devise a method of “locking in” constitutional reforms (as Sir Ed Davey did with wind farms). The Tories have repealed the major advance of the Fixed Term Parliament Act without so much as a “with your leave” or a “by your leave.”
-
- Someone in headquarters should be assigned to study coalition building or support arrangements in other countries and report to those likely to be in the team actual negotiating.
- One resource we made little use of in 2010 was the many Liberal Democrat council leaders who already had vast experience in forming and conducting highly successful joint administrations at local government level. Today since 4th May there are many more. This valuable resource should not be ignored again.
Likes Scouts and Guides, I hope our party, when the time comes, will this time “Be Prepared.”
* Peter Wrigley is a member of Spen Valley Liberal Democrats and blogs as keynesianliberal.blogspot.com
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
GUEST POST Why have the Lib Dems given up fighting most parliamentary by-elections?
A medieval street at the heart of Swansea's social life
Nonconformistradical
Jason Connor
expats
69 Comments
Another aspect of being prepared is: access to civil servants.
John Major established a precedence of giving the opposition 16 months of access to Whitehall et al. Boris and co. massively reduced this to months. Given the latest an election can be held is January 2025, we should be calling on the government to permit opposition party(s) access from the beginning of september 2023 at the latest, given it is unlikely the Conservatives will wait until the autumn of 2024 before they call a GE.
Well said. I would only add that we should also demand STV for local elections, as introduced by the Labour-Lib Dem coalition in Scotland and reform the election of regional mayors and the London Assembly. We need to establish preferential voting, the essential characteristic of both STV and AV, as the norm and deprecate the use of Party Lists in all elections including to the Senedd and Scottish Parliament (although it is the responsibility of those bodies to change their own voting systems).
A very sensible approach. I do hope that the appropriate people not only take due note, but actually act on it
All very nice and squishy Lib Dem stuff to be sure. What was not mentioned include the bayings of the mass media and external actors. The 2010 coalition deal making occurred during the visible Greek financial implosion. Neither of which can be ignored.
If the Tories or Labour object to any form of preferential voting, we should point out that they both use it to elect their leaders.
I am sorry Mr Patterson, but you’re wrong.
If the DUP can prevent the formation of an executive and resist the siren calls of the media indefinitely, then surely the Lib Dems can take 1-2 weeks to decide on the terms of any deal with Labour?
As Peter Wrigley rightly points out, deal making elsewhere in Europe can take weeks or even months and there is no apparent damage to the countries concerned.
Quite apart from anything else, our constitution leaves the final decision to the membership in a special conference and it’s my view that without PR (STV for me) in all elections immediately with no referendum, the membership will reject any deal anyway.
Peter, again correctly, points out that there is no guarantee that the electoral arithmetic will throw up circumstances where we can influence the formation of any government. He is simply pointing out that, unlike last time, we need to have a clear shopping list and red lines that we expect from any agreement that might be offered.
Indeed, we might usefully have a bill drawn up for immediate introduction, that introduces STV for all UK elections, to be passed before any agreement is finalised and make it known that this is our minimum price for even talking about a deal.
Finally, there is every likelihood that Labour won’t want a deal anyway and will seek to govern as a minority. We also need to consider our approach if that is the case
No PR, no deal of any kind. No conditionality of any kind. End of.
Indeed Mick, We do need red lines but many of us thought we had them in 2010, only to find that our (or to be more correct Nick’s) negotiators had given them away because he didn’t like them.
Then, after Federal Exec and the parliamentary party had “overwhelmingly approved” the agreement just after midnight on 11th May, and David Cameron had been to Buck Pal on the morning of 12th May and moved into 10 Downing Street, there was Dave and Nick’s infamous “Love in” in the Downing Street Rose Garden.
Four days later, in Birmingham on the 16th, Federal Conference was allowed to ride up after the battle was over and was faced with the fait accompli of “Take it … or go against Nick, his negotiators, Federal Exec, the MPs and the Queen” and duly accepted the party’s fate.
The rest is history.
This is all warm milk & cookies stuff…Having those red lines in place will be a millstone. Most voters don’t give a fig about PR & constitutional change – thier creatures of habit . It’s difficult enough to get them to change their vote at a GE – let alone the system …
The problem with having PR as our red line is that it presents as THE LD priority a policy completely at odds with the priorities of voters.
Look at the number of voters that make bringing in PR a top priority: very few indeed.
This would be a very big potential vote loser. Yes, PR goes down extremely well in the yellow wall constituency of LD Voice and Old Radical.
We have to have red lines that resonate OUTSIDE the party.
Martin Gray and Chris Moore. PR isn’t just the right policy, it’s a question of survival. The Lib Dems cannot take the risk of going into any kind of agreement with Labour unless PR is enacted. If we do, then we will almost certainly face near annihilation at the subsequent general election as we did in 2015, because the junior partner in any coalition usually gets the blame for every decision voters don’t like and under FPTP suffers dire and disproportionate electoral consequences.
Of course we have to have other things we want to get out of any agreement and that’s what Peter Wrigley is arguing. But getting PR (and absolutely not AV) on the statute book as a non negotiable condition of any agreement is a sine qua non.
Hello Mick, I’m certainly aware of the electoral risks of coalition!
However, I think the likelihood of LDs being in coalition with Labour after the elections are very small.
Here are the probabilities:
1: Tory majority: 15%.
2. Labour to not be more than say 25 short of an overall majority: 75%
Chances of Labour overall majority 50%.
Chances of Labour falling short closely 25%.
So 75% Labour majority or minority government.
2.Lib Dems to win enough MPs to make up a Labour shortfall of more than 25MPs:
Maybe 50%.
So 5% (50% of 10%) chance we hold the balance and even then Labour may prefer a deal with PC, Irish parties or even SNP to us.
So overall chances of us being in Coalition with Labour are very slight.
Therefore we should put forward as red lines policies that are actually popular and relevant to voters’ concerns.
Here are my suggestions:
1. Doubling of carers’ allowance. Ed speaks with authority on this issue. It should be one of our red lines. A positive liberty issue.
2. Major expansion of ambulance services. We have campaigned effectively on this. Go the extra step.
3. Government to take large minority stakes in water companies to allow serious levels of new investment. (The currently mooted 10bn is not enough btw.) This would also signal our readiness to deal with failing private utilities.
Excellent … the 6 commandments should we be in a position to negotiate a coalition with Labour.
Peter
Spot on
I agree with @Peter Wrigley and other comments about the primacy of electoral reform for Westminster elections without recourse to a referendum.
Regarding popularity (or not) with the voters, we need to recognise a) this is not a ‘door step issue’ for most punters; yet b) there is widespread dissatisfaction with the condition of our politics; and c) there is growing support for electoral reform (eg the most recent British Social Attitudes Survey).
All of which suggests that while we should not LEAD with electoral reform (sewage, cost of living crisis etc must be prioritised so we first off address upfront voter concerns) we shouldn’t hide it either.
‘Fixing our broken politics for good’ through fair, equal votes (as powerully put in recent speeaches by Ed Davey) can and should be a significant part of our overall narrative as we go into the next General Election. It’s crucial to people feeling included rather than cut out of the political system and to restoring some trust in our threatened democratic processes and institutions.
Dispersing power and enabling individuals and communities is at the heart of liberalism – so let’s weave into our narrative/positioning.
Proportional representation is essential, many of the reasons have already been spelled out above, however in order for it to be put into effect PR has to feature in the manifesto of the coalition partner otherwise it will not have the legitimacy in Parliament and would likely be trashed by powerful self-interested groups in a referendum.
Labour conferences have put PR is on their agenda, but Starmer has pronounced that it is “not a priority”. Irrespective of Starmer’s priorities, what matters is whether it features in Labour’s manifesto.
In the event of a minority government a formal arrangement looks unlikely; my fear is that Labour will be adept at playing us off against the SNP. I do hope the Party has been trying to build up informal relationships with the SNP in order to be prepared for a minority government – it ought to be in the interests of both parties, however rationality does not always prevail.
This is an important article. Please will someone with direct access to Ed D and others in the party hierarchy send it direct to them — and ask if they will be prepared to write a response in LDVoice? Understand if they need to play cards close to their chest, but a signal that they recognise importance of Being Prepared would be good for the party.
PR almost certainly won’t be in the Labour manifesto.
Also, Labour would be at best split on PR in any putative referendum. The leadership and hence bulk of Labour media interventions would be against.
So if PR has to be a red line, it should be PR without a referendum.
If PR is our red line, then we should be clear that we are even more unlikely to go into coalition with Labour than the electoral outcome possibilities suggest. Labour won’t buy PR. They’ll simply go for minority or a second election.
If we were polling at 20%, I might be in favour of having PR as a red line. As on that score our likelihood of being in coalition is significant. And we have more leverage. As we are on 11% average, that likelihood is very small and I think we’d do much better to use our red lines to further our campaigning in the areas we’ve already made headway on.
Interested that there is no mention of either doing more to repair some of the damage caused by Brexit, or of raising the game substantially on tackling climate change and sustainability. Two massive issues both for the country and the party.
What it also highlights is that if you are not very sure what your party really stands for, then you are not very well positioned to go into any kind of negotiations with another party. It risks ending up being very tactical.
Friends,
I have been campaigning consistently for elections by STV since the February 1974 General Election (when I was the first ever Secretary of the Liberal Action Group for Electoral Reform) but I do know that we are never going to get it from the current Labour leadership. A complete revolution within the Labour Party, where the membership is massively in favour of the reform, might achieve this but – contrary to their claims – the Labour Party is not a democracy but an autarcy.
Thus demands should be for items where we know the majority of the electorate shares those priorities – but make clear in the public eye that we are bringing these priorities about, as Labour would not intend to achieve them. And UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should this be a coalition government (Labour wouldn’t countenance one anyway, but simply form a minority government as long as they are the largest party in the Commons); having LibDem Ministers in the Government would not be sensible, as Labour would treat us at the subsequent election in exactly he same way as the Tories did in 2015.
Yes, exactly, Rif.
Also worth mentioning that the “enthusiasm” of many Labour members for PR before the 97 election quickly evaporated afterwards.
The bulk of the comment on here is driven by a wishful belief in the very unlikely magic scenario where we and we alone have the kingmaking power.
Even in that situation, you won’t extract PR from an unwilling Labour.
So red line PR makes it no more likely to happen.
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, largely supportive. The important thing is that the leadership is aware of the proposals, and if they have not already done so, set up a unit to prepare for all the possible options which might ensue after the general election. Perhaps such a unit already exists – preferably containing some council leaders who are experienced in making cross-party arrangements at local level – it’s not the sort of thing we want to shout about. But it is important to be ready, to take our time if the time comes, and have policy in place rather than making it up on the hoof
Speaking as an ordinary member of the public who backs PR and fair, non rigged elections, I would gently urge the Lib Dems to not be so obsessive over the STV form of it.
Yes, you can always say that is the system you prefer but, please, keep an open mind over open party list PR with levelling seats as the Danes have or the Mixed Member PR system the Germans use which we invented for them.
If we are ever going to get PR then it would probably be best to look towards New Zealand as a successful reform process. You can give the country a referendum on PR by REMOVING the possibility of retaining our present system of stand alone FPTP and instituting instead a referendum with a multi option choice of Danish style open party list PR with levelling seats, an improved version of Germany’s MMP using open regional party lists or STV.
Remember, the single member (non proportional) version of STV called AV got shot down in flames in 2011 and STV in New Zealand in their referendum in 1993 only got 17% of the vote compared to MMP’s huge 70% share.
It seems as if electoral systems using ranked ballots are not popular either here or in New Zealand at least where lower house parliaments are concerned.
@Steven. The reason for going for STV is because it puts the power into the hands of voters and not political party bosses. Lists of any kind are ordered by the party, whereas STV gives voters the opportunity to cast their vote in exactly their order of preference. It works well in Union and internal party elections, it works well in Scotland for local elections, in Northern Ireland for all elections except Westminster and for all elections in Eire.
The deal must be to introduce a bill for STV in all UK elections, no referendums, just legislation. The evidence is that once voters get STV they like it and in the case of Eire, refused to change the system when one government asked them to do it. Boris Johnson and co changed the voting system for Mayors and PCCs by legislation, so there’s a precedent.
Quite frankly, without such a bill, no agreement will be possible with any party, because the party won’t wear it. Once bitten, twice shy as the saying goes.
Given that Ed Davey has confirmed that we will not do a deal with the Tories, we have no bargaining power.
Starmer will offer us nothing. As he knows he doesn’t need to.
Slamdac 20th May ’23 – 4:40pm:
Given that Ed Davey has confirmed that we will not do a deal with the Tories, we have no bargaining power.
Exactly so; without a credible alternative course of action there’s no negotiation to be had. Also section 2. of the article (“…we should categorise policies on the following lines:”) seems little different to the normal behaviour of an opposition party that has no agreement with the government.
Labour have said very clearly that they don’t wish to form any kind of coalition, because they believe they will get a majority.
Yet in 2010, they wanted to have discussions with us, in order to stay in power. However, there was no way a LibLab coalition would have added up because it would not have given an overall majority.
My guess is that if they don’t get an overall majority, then they will seek some kind of agreement to allow them to govern, be that a confidence and supply arrangement or a formal coalition
Since Labour believe we are Labour Mark2 and bound to support them (well that was somewhat dented in 2010) they will try and offer nothing. We need to make it clear that as well as seeking to implement as many of our policies as possible, our price is PR. If they want an agreement then that is a sine qua non. Without it they needn’t bother to pick up the phone.
If they want to run government on an issue by issue basis, a path filled with multiple uncertainties, then so be it.
I don’t know enough about Westminster politics to say if one method is better than another. But I think any Libdem response to Labour should be based on principle. Will Labour ask the Libdems to support a policy that runs counter to Libdem policy or manifesto. The stick last time being tuition fees. If Labour will not offer PR or will campaign against it , then equally the Libdens must be qualified in their support.
Naturally Labour will claim its sights are on an overall win, but it is quite hard to see how this would work out (perhaps they are very optimistic about Scotland). It is also quite possible that Labour + us will not be enough.
If Labour do not have a majority, I expect we and the SNP might abstain to let Labour form a government, but the problems for Labour would be in managing parliamentary business. They might go for another election a few months later, but that might be very high risk in circumstances where both Labour and Conservatives are unwilling to acknowledge the economic and social damage from Brexit. Labour’s best hope would be for the Tories to go further to the headbanger right, but even then they would have much of the media supporting them.
Labour are committed to putting an end to the House of Lords. This is an opportunity for us and could mean that PR is on the agenda. As yet, I do not think Labour has a plan for a second chamber, so we should be considering possible democratic models. I was not so keen on Clegg’s proposals, but there could be worse.
The most important thing to remember is that we are a player, not a referee.
We should not go into government with the Tories like we did last time, simply because of the mathematics of getting a majority.
When we were last in Coalition we failed to persuade Lib Dem supporters that we were doing anything useful in government. They could not see what difference their vote made. Our flagship policies were barely noticed and our vote plummeted in the 2015 General Election.
Given how extreme the Tory party is these days, and how the only thing they appear to be interested in is culture wars issues, I cannot possibly see how we can go into government with them.
So how about Labour? Well obviously they have to agree on Proportional Representation. At a previous Labour Party conference the policy was overwhelmingly backed by the membership. Starmer’s opposition to the policy, where he has been very coy until recently, is not supported by most of his colleagues, which gives us leverage to get the policy through. However if Labour still don’t agree, then we should oppose Labour in government.
As others have said STV for Parliament is not likely even if it was one of our red lines. However, PR for all other elections should be possible including STV for councillor elections.
What the comments have shown is that we need to think about what the other four priorities should be for a confidence and supply agreement with the Labour Party. I expect as Chris Moore pointed out one of them will be concerning carers. I don’t think this can be just one policy but it should be a group of policies. These should include increasing Carer’s Allowance by £40 a week, increasing the amount they can earn to at least £176 a week, and introducing paid Carer’s Leave.
One is likely to be to put 1p on income tax and increase the money for the NHS and social care.
Another could be introducing free personal care based on the system introduced under the Labour-Liberal Democrat government in Scotland, while keeping the need to pay the accommodation costs of being in a care home.
As liberals we should be about ensuring no one in the UK lives in poverty, so hopefully another would be to introduce a Basic Minimum Income and increase benefit levels to 50% of median earnings by 2030 for each household type and abolish the sanction regime.
Hopefully, we could also get more of our policies accepted such as increasing Statutory Sick Pay to £242 a week. I expect we all have suggestions.
@Steven: The failure to win AV in the 2011 referendum had nothing to do with the system itself. It was due to the dishonest No campaign masterminded by Dominic Cummings, and can be considered a dress rehearsal for his even more dishonest Vote Leave campaign 5 years later. The precursor to £350,000,000 a week to the EU (let’s fund our NHS) was the one-off exaggerated (and trivial in the grand scheme of public spending) £250,000,000 cost of switching to AV hypothecated multiple times for different heartstring-pulling things like a hospital ward. Referendums are not part of the UK political system and I’d be very happy if we never had any ever again on anything, but if we must have one then that sort of deceitful campaign claim needs to be outlawed. The referendums on electoral reform in New Zealand (both the original one that instituted the MMP system and the one in 2011 on whether to retain or replace it) required campaign claims to be fact-checked so claims about the system requiring e.g. “expensive voting machines” would never have seen the light of day.
Sorry, MichaelBG. We cannot support Labour in government without PR or we risk an election result like 2015 under FPTP or worse. Personally, I would vote against any arrangement that didn’t include STV, but I could reluctantly accept a list system for parliament as long as we got STV for everything else.
The v very clear lesson of the 2010-2015 coalition is that we can never again be a minority partner in government whilst the FPTP system remains or we will get destroyed at the subsequent election.
No PR, no deal.
Mick Taylor,
I have assumed a confidence and supply agreement where we support some of the Labour Party’s programme in exchange for them supporting some of ours, leaving us to oppose the government on some things. Hopefully, we would end the agreement before a general election as happen in 1978 and we would not lose lots of our MPs as happened in 2015.
Implementing STV for the House of Commons without a referendum would be difficult because of the 2011 AV referendum. Also it can be argued that another referendum on changing the voting system should not be held until 2031 (after a generation). If STV was being used for councillor elections then I think it would be possible to bring in STV for the House of Commons without a referendum after the next general election (2029-30) especially if by then it was Labour Party policy.
@Michael BG: If it can be argued that voters aren’t particularly interested in electoral reform as an issue, they are probably even less concerned by such angels-dancing-on-a-pinhead questions as whether it should be implemented with or without a referendum. Even those who voted in the 2011 AV referendum probably mostly do not have any emotional attachment to their decision (unlike with the Brexit vote), or even remember it. As I noted in an earlier comment, there is no legal basis for referendums in the UK constitution; moreover, both the 2011 AV and 2016 Brexit referendums are case studies for how such events should NOT be conducted. So I’m not convinced by any argument based on “precedent”, if all it means is that it was done this way in the past so it’s how it has to be done in the future. In general the only “precedent” that should matter is that established in courts of law. Otherwise all it means is making things up as you go along, which is no basis for constitutional practice.
I’m not sure if those who are making back-of-envelope calculations about what will happen in the next General Election have sufficiently thought through what will likely happen between now and then. The first point to make is that there will, almost certainly, be some recovery in the Tory vote as the decisive day draws near.
The second point, and probably the more important, is that there has been insufficient analysis about the effects of the split in the Labour Party caused by Starmer’s decision to purge the left. A likely scenario is that Jeremy Corbyn will stand as an independent and very likely win. The mainstream analysis can probably be summarised as “So what? He’s going to be just one MP who’ll perhaps be an irritant but nothing more”.
This, however, is assuming that Jeremy Corbyn will be the only “Independent Labour” candidate. He won’t be. There will be at least another 100 targeting the vote share of known right wing candidates who have been carefully selected by Starmer himself in seats that Labour need to take to win an overall majority. Possibly some will win outright in left wing inclined areas like Liverpool, but even if they don’t, they could easily end up taking enough votes away from Labour to put a spanner in the Starmerite works.
The outcome for Labour will be nowhere near what many are confidently predicting after their relative success in the local elections.
A coalition requires an overwhelming majority of Party members in favour at a special conference. Very few would be persuaded by a shopping list of this and that together with assorted niche issues.
We know that the minority party in a coalition gets the blame for the unpopular measures and well intentioned measures that do not work out. The argument will be: if it wasn’t for the Lib Dems, the bill would not have passed.
I anticipate that with an economy hobbled by Brexit, there will be several tough and unpopular decisions to make. Some in Labour optimistically already talk of a second term, but economic constraints are likely to help a Conservative bounce back, which would be all the more easy if our Party were once again subject to electoral annihilation.
@MichaelBG. 1979 was hardly a glowing success for the Liberals either. We lost a lot of our seats then too, blamed by the Tories for keeping Labour in power. I was spat on by Tory voters who had previously been prepared to vote for us in local elections, so I know the hatred that existed in 1979. Voters, I suspect, do not clearly distinguish between coalitions and confidence and supply arrangements.
No Alex MacFie is right. No referendum is required by the British constitution, where parliament is supreme. Without PR, no sane LibDem MP would go into an arrangement with any other party, given the experience of 2015.
@Martin is also correct. There will be no special conference majority for either a confidence and supply arrangement or a coalition without PR for future parliamentary elections.
I am often in disagreement with @PeterMartin. I doubt that Jeremy Corbyn or any other left wing Labour candidate will beat Labour and win seats under FPTP, but they could well sufficiently split the vote to let a Tory or Lib Dem candidate win.
@ Mick,
I wouldn’t be so sure about Jeremy Corbyn. The bookies are offering 5/4 on his re-election in Islington North. This could be a good bet for anyone who likes a flutter. However, this isn’t the most important factor.
The extent of the fury against Starmer on the not just left of Labour Party isn’t being fully reported. He’s gone back on all the socialist pledges he made to get elected Labour leader, including his promise that constituency parties should be allowed to choose their own candidates. In April 2020, Keir Starmer said of Corbyn: “He’s a colleague, he’s a friend and he’s led us through some really difficult times in the Labour party … I respect him …”
Many would like to see the Labour left break away to form a new party before the next election. My guess is that this won’t happen. It is more likely that we will see a more ad hoc organisation emerge to run a collection of “Independent Labour -Pro Corbyn” candidates who will use the publicity generated by Corbyn’s campaign in Islington North to their own advantage. It just takes one person who is prepared to stand in each constituency to inflict real damage on the Labour campaign.
Alex Macfie
It will not be the voters who would be saying a referendum would be needed and one can’t be held until after 2031 it would be the Labour Party leadership.
Martin,
If the leadership of our party has agreed a confidence and supply agreement with the Labour Party I don’t think a special conference would reject it, especially as any member can now attend. The “payroll vote” might be sufficient to get it passed (see https://www.libdemvoice.org/spring-conference-get-your-awkward-questions-in-72633.html).
Mick Taylor,
In 1979 we lost 3 seats and gained one. A net loss of 15% of our seats.
It would be interesting to get the views of our MPs on if PR for the House of Commons without a referendum is non-negotiable for a confidence and supply agreement.
Peter Martin,
Jeremy Corbyn can’t stand as an “Independent Labour”, nor can anyone else. There are not likely to be many people who have the name recognition to make much of an impression on a constituency result.
In 2019 Frank Field received 17.2%, Gavin Shuker 9.2% Roger Godsiff 8.1%, Mike Gapes 7.3% Chris Leslie 3.6%, Iven Lewis 2.7%, and Chris Williamson 1.4%.
They may have influenced the result only in Bury South and Luton South.
@Michael BG: If the Labour leadership used that argument against PR without a referendum all it would demonstrate is their lack of serious intent in negotiation. Thyere is no logical reason why anoutcome of the Clegg~Cameron negotiations needs to be a tempate for the future. The idea that the referendum couldn’t be held until 2031 is presumably based on the 2011 referendum having been said at the time to be a “once in a generation” vote. But why should we be bound now by campaign themes from an old flawed referendum? The Independence referendum was also said to be a “once in a generation” vote. Yet the SNP would certainly demand Indyref 2 as a condition for joining a coalition with Labour after the next election. For Labour the options would be either that or PR without a referendum with us. They could choose to go it alone and foirm a minority government, but that would be their lookout.
Tghe Tories used the rejection of AV in 2011 as a pretext for moving to FPTP for Mayoral and PCC electins. But we all know it is just that, an excuse. The No2AV victory was a mandate for nothing other than not implementing a proposed move to AV by statutory instrument at that time.
@ Michael BG,
“Jeremy Corbyn can’t stand as an “Independent Labour”, nor can anyone else.”
You’re saying this because there used to be an Independent Labour Party, which did often stand against official Labour and sometimes did win, but it was subsumed into it in the 1970s?
Many of us would like to see it revived as a alternative Labour Party but we’d have to see if the Electoral Commission will allow the use of the name.
“The No2AV victory was a mandate for nothing other than not implementing a proposed move to AV by statutory instrument at that time.”
Actually it was largely a vote on how popular the Liberal Democrats were in 2011.
@MichaelBG. We started the 1979 campaign with few seats and ended up with fewer. It was hardly a ringing endorsement of our confidence and supply agreement with Labour and we did really badly in local elections too.
@Peter Martin. Jeremy Corbyn has never had to campaign to be elected. He will, I expect, rely on his name if he stands as an independent, because he is basically rather idle. He will only be able to stand as ‘independent Labour’ if the electoral commission agree to registering that name and my guess is that they won’t. So, he will just be an independent and the success rate of former Labour MPs standing as independent is rather low. I can only remember one Welsh MP succeeding at a General Election. It really says something of his commitment to the Labour Party if he does decide to go independent, despite being a former leader. Quite apart from anything else, most Labour inclined voters will want to see the Tories out as their overriding priority. Corbyn’s personal vanity will not cut much ice, in my view.
@Peter Martin
Re Independent Labour Party
“Many of us would like to see it revived as a alternative Labour Party but we’d have to see if the Electoral Commission will allow the use of the name.”
Checking parties on the Electoral Commission site – that name doesn’t appear to be registered at present.
@ Mick,
Jeremy Corbyn has stated that he will accept that his time is up as a Labour MP when the members of his local party and the wider electorate in Islington North so decide. A view also shared at one time by Keir Starmer himself.
You may be right in thinking that the Electoral Commission won’t allow the word Labour to be used but that doesn’t change anything. Everyone knows of Corbyn’s lifetime commitment to the Labour movement.
We are all entitled to our opinions and view points but unless we are living in the constituency they don’t count for anything at all. This is still true even for Labour Party members. Keir Starmer has banned discussion of the issue at constituency party meetings.
@ Mick Taylor, you say, “We started the 1979 campaign with few seats and ended up with fewer. It was hardly a ringing endorsement of our confidence and supply agreement with Labour…..”
In 1979 two seats were lost, reducing the parliamentary party from 13 to 11. The two seats were North Devon (Thorpe J.J.) and neighbouring North Cornwall (Pardoe J.). This should be no surprise to people familiar with a more recent TV drama/doc about the then Member for North Devon. The losses were a consequence of extraordinary circumstances – including a high profile Old Baily trial….. rather than widespread disapproval of the Lib-Lab Callaghan-Steel arrangement, indeed David Steel had the good sense to terminate it several months before the election. If Mr Clegg had made a similar decision then who knows….. but he didn’t.
I didn’t think that an ad hoc confidence and supply arrangement/understanding would require a special conference to endorse it. Perhaps it depends on how formal the arrangement is – could others elucidate?
That said, I doubt if a special conference were required that there would be an automatic compliance with the leadership. I do not think it would get through without electoral reform. A key issue could be changes to the House of Lords; possibly some clear cut proposals that included PR might be persuasive.
A Constitutional Convention could be considered jointly by Labour and ourselves, I would suppose, since Keir Starmer wants to abolish the present House of Lords and we demand STV for elections to Parliament as well as in council elections and elections for regional mayors. If the Labour Party doesn’t get Sir Keir’s desired result of a majority at the next General Election, perhaps a Constitutional Convention in a strict time frame with definite proposals would be possible to demand of their minority government.
I like the idea of establishing other red lines, and to me measures to reduce poverty, as set out in the Fairer Society motion at Spring Conference, should be a key demand. (Michael BG, I think you may be meaning our new policy of Guaranteed Basic Income, rather than basic minimum income. ) I would also like us to insist on helping to pay for our progressive demands by taxing capital as well as wealth and Land Tax Reform, policies we hold that the Labour party I believe does not as yet.
Alex Macfie,
The position of our party is that there should be no Indyref 2 for a generation after the first one. Therefore it would be logical to take the same position with regard to the 2011 AV referendum.
If you are correct that the Tories have used the AV result as a pretext for moving to FPTP for Mayoral and PCC elections, then the Labour Party leadership could argue that it rules out changing the electoral system for the House of Commons for a generation.
Martin,
I have suggested that we could get some electoral reform and I suggested PR for all other elections except for the House of Commons. I am not sure the Labour Party could deliver House of Lords reform but it might be in their manifesto.
Katharine Pindar,
The Labour Party might agree to a Constitutional Convention as it pushes the decision down the line. However, it would be possible that after a Constitutional Convention the Labour Party would not implement its conclusions. In the same way as it didn’t implement the recommendations of the Jenkins Commission of 1998.
Guaranteed Basic Income is not a good name, it is too close to Universal Basic Income. I should have used Guaranteed Minimum Income.
I don’t think we would get our Commercial Land Levy under a confidence and supply agreement or we should make it a priority.
All those contributors who seem to think we could make any kind of agreement with Labour or any other party without PR obviously want to commit political harakiri. We have been shafted twice on electoral reform, once by Labour during the Lib/Lab pact and once by the Tories during the 2010-2015 coalition. In both cases we lost seats at the following general election, drastically so in 2015. How many more times do people want that to happen?
In 2024, if Labour don’t win an overall majority, they will be desperate to get into power. If, and it’s a big if, we do have sufficient seats to hold the balance, that will be the time we have the most power in that parliament. We can say to Labour that if they want our support, then there has to be an immediate bill, that they will vote for, establishing STV in all elections. We can still have a constitutional convention on other aspects of constitutional reform, but personally I would want a signed undertaking that its recommendations would be implemented.
Labour can demonstrate their good faith by voting for PR and we can then either agree a confidence and supply arrangement or a coalition secure in the knowledge that the next election will see us get seats according to the votes we receive, rather than facing near annihilation.
@Michael BG: The Labour leadership may try to argue that, but negotiations involve compromise and if Labour aooaratchiks use that sort of fake “constitutional” precedent as a sticking point, knowing full well that our red line is electoral reform and that we got our fingers burnt last time after failing to get it, then it would suggest that Labour isn’t genuinely interested in any coalition or C&S with us and would prefer to go it alone as a minority government. In which case we should say “on your head be it”.
It’s a red herring. I can imagine that Labour leadership might decide that because Clegg & Co allowed the Tories to walk all over us in the 2010 Coalition agreement, it somehow obliges us to do the same when helping Labour into power. Amd our answer should be “That was then. This is now.” Once bitten twice shy and all that. It would help if the Parliamentary arithmetic made us kingmakers on paper and we had already publicly shown the Tories the door (told them to go somewhere else and try to reproduce, safely and cosensually), but as we’ve already ruled out any post-election agreement with the Tories, it might not matter much.
The Fairer Society working group was specifically banned from discussing the taxes needed to pay for it (hence the ridiculous claim that rich people would be better off under UBI). As a result, most of it will not appear in our manifesto which has a requirement to be fully funded. That makes it very difficult for us to make it a red line.
“It would help if the Parliamentary arithmetic made us kingmakers on paper”
So long as we are the fourth largest party in Westminster, we can never be in a position to select the ruling party. On Electoral Reform, Alex is right and I would go further: if there are no specific proposals in the Labour manifesto it would be a clear message that no formal agreement is possible. Labour voting for PR is no good if it has not been in their manifesto, as it would lack electoral legitimacy and would mean that any attempt to implement it would be thwarted.
If Labour can form a government next year, minority or not, they will face economical difficulties that exceed those of 2010; their see no evil, hear no evil. speak no evil approach to Brexit will condemn the country to longer term economic and social hardship. There can be no largesse and it will not be the time to introduce radical welfare reform. In many ways it would be advantageous for us to maintain a respectful distance.
I was very disappointed with Question Time last night – held in Gravesend, Kent (not a place where we do well) but the BBC used it to give the Lib Dems their once in a blue moon, take it or leave it, hospital pass invite to attend.
Murina Wilson bravely took one for the team and turned up only to be deliberately ambushed not by the audience but instead by Fiona Bruce herself with a nasty question on coalition.
Murina did her best, but was surrounded by a shouty and interrupty panel of Janet Street Porter, a very loud Labour MP and the truly knowledgeable but absurd businessman Theo Paphitis who came out with the ridiculous “That’s your only reason for existing … to win votes and get into government. If you don’t believe you can do that you have no reason to exist!!” which got a round of applause. Sadly the party’s stock party answer didn’t cut it and Murina couldn’t hit back with the “So you don’t believe we should exist, nor the Greens, the ScotNats or WelshNats, the Ulster Unionists or Sinn Fein, or even the Alliance Party who are working to offer a real alternative to politics of sectarianism in Northern Ireland. You really don’t understand representative democracy do you.”
We need to be prepared and improve our stock answers, but even more we really need to make a complaint about Bruce’s interrupting, one line put downs and almost ceaseless interrupting.
@ David Evans Sorry, David, but I thought Ms Wilson did reasonably well enough…… and… when the going gets tough, the tough have to get going.
To take your football theme, if Carlisle United, Morecambe or Barrow football clubs ever have ambitions to play in the Premier League they will have to wise up on how to deal with top class opposition (including the sneaky tackles, diving and all) …… as would Mr Pathitis’s own club, the unlovely Millwalll FC.
It’s a rough old world in both politics and football, as no doubt our well known mutual friend would probably agree after his Andrew Neal interview a few years ago.
Peter Davies. I take your point, Peter, about the Manifesto having to produce fully funded proposals. But there are costed proposals in the Fairer Society motion, passed in Spring, and our established decisions from past Conferences including taxing wealth and Land Tax Reform will not have been passed without cost implications being considered. If the Manifesto Group/ Federal Policy Committee have a mind to it, they can surely produce up-to-date costings for our progressive policies and include them.
Michael, as you know I did not like the term Guaranteed Basic Income very much myself, when it was agreed by our Fairer Society working group, and despite being a member of the group I would have liked to change it. However, that term was put in the motion and has been agreed by Spring Conference.
David Evans. Simple answer do not watch it. I stopped 5 years ago, get to bed earlier and have a relaxed nights sleep.
I hear its small audience gets less and less so eventually it may just disappear from our screens.
If there are by elections at Selby and Mid Beds we will win both if the party HQ commits to Yorkshire as well as Mid Bedfordshire, (see Eastfield result yesterday), then they might ask Labour if they will go into coalition as a minor party!
I’d like some conditionality to be built into any electoral agreement. Politicians can promise the earth. It is what happens on the ground that matters. At least a review should be built into the agreement say after each term of parliament so our members can decide whether they wish the relationship to continue.
David Raw,
Thank you for pointing out that we lost North Devon and North Cornwall in 1979 more because of Jeremy Thorpe than our role in the Lib-Lab pact. However, it seems others have commented without noting what you wrote.
Peter Davies.
The original remit of the Fairer Society Working Group did include tax changes and funding benefit changes. The Working Group did discuss such issues, but you are correct they were later told not to discuss tax changes. I assume FPC were thinking about setting up a Working Group to consider tax changes and funding our programmes.
Martin,
You make a very good point, that unless the Labour manifesto includes PR for the House of Commons they will argue that implementing “it would lack electoral legitimacy”.
I could imagine a result where Labour have 300 MPs, we have 31, the Greens have one, the SNP 48, Plaid Cymru 3, others 20, and Tories 247. This would mean that Labour with us would have a majority of 12. If we abstained they would not have a majority if all others voted against (319). Under such a result we could get some of our policies implemented in return for a confidence and supply agreement. If no such agreement was made then the Labour Government might buy support from us or the Scottish Nats with implementing some of our or their policies.
@ Michael B-G. Thank you for your comment, Michael, but you speculate that the SNP will have 48 seats in the next UK Parliament. However, the latest Yougov poll published in the Independent yesterday suggests,
“Labour could gain almost two dozen seats from the SNP in Scotland in the next Westminster election, research which could give Humza Yousaf’s party “serious cause for concern” has suggested.
Analysis by pollsters at YouGov projected Mr Yousaf’s party could capture the seat currently held by Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Tories – but also indicated 23 seats currently held by the SNP could fall to Labour, including that of deputy Westminster leader Mhairi Black. While the SNP won 48 seats in Scotland at the last general election in 2019, YouGov’s research showed that could fall to 27, with the party losing 23 seats to Labour, mainly across central Scotland”.
David Raw may be right about the Devon and Cornwall situation, but please don’t forget that prior to the LibLab pact we had started, for the first time in a very long time, to make progress against Labour in local government and had hopes of gaining parliamentary seats from them. All that was lost once we went into the pact. Steel refused quite reasonable requests to tour the country explaining why we had made the pact and what the country would gain from it. [“That’s not the way we do things”]. It would take many years to get back to winning from Labour again. And even if David thinks that the pact didn’t do for us, we were shafted on PR for Europe, when Callaghan ordered his MPs to vote against it or at least didn’t whip them to do so, despite promises.
So, for me, no STV, no deal of any kind.
Broadly I agree with Mick Taylor, but just modify the conclusion to no formal deal and as I indicated earlier, I do not think a formal agreement is realistic while we are the fourth largest party.
Could we overtake SNP? Thank you, David Raw, for drawing attention to Yougov’s surprising analysis of Scottish voting intentions, seen here: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2023/05/24/scotland-mrp-snp-could-fall-just-27-seats-if-elect
It makes dismal reading for Liberal Democrats, predicting that we make no gains whatsoever in Scotland. Yougov give little on projected results elsewhere, but with their last estimate for Lib Dems at 12%, I very much doubt we would exceed 27 seats.
My recollection of the Lib-Lab pact is that the Liberal input was very limited, certainly not obvious, but did attract the inevitable flak, even after the agreement ended, as the Callaghan government struggled with a difficult economy and impatient trade unions, features that are again likely to be prominent.
There are real questions whether a Starmer Labour administration is prepared to face up to post-Brexit realities; I am not even so sure our own leadership has the stomach. While we can safely assume that Conservatives, mired in delusional fantasies for the foreseeable future, will have little realistic to contribute, I do think it important that our Party does have the freedom to provide a robust Liberal commentary and critical analysis.
Sorry, Mick, there was more benefit to the Callaghan-Steel agreement than you allow credit for …. e.g. the passing of Stephen Ross’s (Lib MP, Isle of Wight) 1977 Homeless Act – still regarded today as a major successful piece of legislation.
We also had two extra non Thatcher years and it built up relationships that enabled the Alliance to emerge boosting the 1983 election results.
David Raw. I believe you are right, David, to point out that the pollsters predict the Scottish National Party’s Westminster MPs may number 27 after the next General Election.
It follows in my mind that our own party, hopefully achieving between 20 and 40 MPs at the Election though possibly being slightly more numerous than the Scots Nats (eg 31 seats?), will be wise to consult with them during the next year on policy priorities that we may agree on. Shared priorities from the (presumed) two largest parties after Labour should carry more weight in negotiations with a minority government requiring backing to carry its programme through.
I agree, Katharine, though I would warn about being seen as a regional Home Counties party rather than a national UK party.
David Raw,
I had not seen the Yougov poll However, in the article they state, “With any projection of Scotland must come a large slice of caveat cake: Scotland has one of the highest concentrations of marginal seats in the UK. This is an extremely difficult political environment in which to forecast, and indeed no fewer than 22 of the 59 projected seats are ‘called’ in this model with winning margins of less than 5%.” And some “are currently being settled by margins of less than 1% of the overall vote”. I think my 48 seat figure reflects the thoughts of experts after the May local elections who were talking about the result of the next general election being better for the SNP that what was currently being forecast. My imagined result was not a prediction, it was only setting out some numbers to demonstrate the issues a minority Labour Government would face.
If the Yougov prediction is correct and Labour win 21 more seats than in my imagined result then if we abstain and all others voted against the government, Labour would have a majority of 23.
With regard to the 1979 general election we gained one seat (a technical gain from October 1974 – Liverpool Edge Hill [won in the 1979 by-election] and lost three. The third one was Montgomeryshire which Alex Carlile retook in 1983.
Mick Taylor,
Liverpool Edge Hill was a gain from Labour and we held it 1979 and after boundary changes until 1997 when the Mossley Hill seat was abolished and split between three Labour seats.
Liverpool Mossley Hill was created for the 1983 GE. I believe it was a notional Liberal gain from the Tories in that election. This means that the Liberals took the last Tory seat in Liverpool.
David (Raw) – I wasn’t commenting on Murina’s performance, but on the poorness of the script she had been given. The comments provided like “lazer like focus” “won’t take a single seat or a single vote for granted” and “It’s not my decision to make …” were nothing like adequate. Not even a murmer of approval from the audience.
Quite simply we were not adequately prepared at all, and as Peter Wigley says We need to be prepared.