The plates of British politics are drifting like never before, populism on the right and the left creating a chasm at the heart of the centre ground; now is the time to sprint towards it, claim it, and take the once in a generation opportunity to become the radical centre. Being noticed doesn’t need to be the next stunt, great ideas will suffice.
In an era defined by uncertainty, Liberal Democrats face a defining challenge: whether to speak plainly and bravely about the issues that most shape people’s lives and suggest radical reforms, even when those issues are complex, controversial, politically challenging, or indeed, a combination of these. Immigration, the economy, defence, health and yes – the welfare state, are not easy topics. They provoke strong emotions, expose internal disagreements, and invite fierce scrutiny. But they are precisely the areas where clear, liberal values are most needed in today’s Britain, and where populism is currently winning on messaging.
For too long, politics has rewarded evasion in a world dominated by the boiled down semblance of detail. Soundbites replace substance, and difficult trade-offs are glossed over in favour of comforting slogans. Yet voters are not naïve. They understand that governing a modern country involves choices, compromises, and sometimes uncomfortable truths. A party that is honest about this can earn trust—even from those who disagree. However, clarity and decisiveness are imperative in the face of populism, messaging on the country’s biggest issues is where we are often left wanting.
Immigration is a definitive case in point. It is often discussed in extremes, either as an unalloyed good, or an existential threat. The Liberal Democrats now have an opportunity to lead a more mature conversation: one that recognises the economic, cultural, and humanitarian benefits of migration, whilst also acknowledging pressures on housing, public services, and community cohesion that is a genuine concern of millions. Strong borders are a liberal value. Being brave means defending fairness, legality, and compassion together arguing for safe routes, efficient systems, and integration that works for everyone – Liberal values, British values. Our manifesto at the last general election on the topic left us beyond vague and wanting on the topic with the public. We have nothing to fear here.
On the economy, courage means moving beyond promises of growth to the tune of a few hundred pounds, and confronting the realities of productivity, public finances, and inequality. Liberals can make the case for fiscal responsibility alongside social justice, for investing in skills and innovation while reforming systems that hold people back. Championing a history of British innovation, creativity and yes, punching above our means are themes we should once again wholly and truly embrace. Britain needs clarity and strength of purpose; it needs big ideas based in conviction and prosperity. What are our big ideas for business? What is the Liberal economic revolution to shape a generation.
Defence is another area where clarity matters. In a less stable world, voters deserve a serious discussion about security, alliances, and the ethical use of power. A liberal approach can champion international cooperation, the rule of law, and strong democratic oversight, while still recognising the need to deter aggression and protect citizens. Avoiding the topic cedes ground to those who frame it in simplistic or fear-driven terms. Defence will remain a key focus whilst Putin remains on the march and the US administration moves away from its NATO allies; what say we about leading NATO, about building coalition and yes – funding the military we need, most people agree defence is imperative until they see the bill.
Being brave does not mean being reckless with ideas and following the populist fantasy narrative. It means trusting voters with the truth, grounding arguments in evidence, and standing by liberal principles when they are tested, allowing for radical policy. If the Liberal Democrats want to be more than a protest voice embedded in a minutia of detail – if we want to shape the country’s future—we must be willing to step headlong into hard debates and make the case for radical centralist policies – there are millions searching for a centralised home in British politics.
No one else fights for and with the minorities or the disadvantaged, those oft left behind, more so than the Liberal Democrats – and we must always do so – but we must now also speak to the masses that are turning to the far sides of the spectrum to find voice and those in the political wilderness – let that voice be us.
* Edward Marsh is a local council candidate in Merton, member of the Liberal Democrats business club, Head of Government & Defence at S&P Global & Chairman of The Big Paint Charity.
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Some very good points, thanks Ed.
We’ve been repeatedly told about the economic benefits of immigration, and you’d be forgiven for wondering what they are. There has been a record rise in council tax, a record rise in water rates, umpteenth rises in energy bills, bus fares up 50 percent, soaring private rents, and social rents inflation plus 1 percent guaranteed for five years courtesy of Reeves’ budget. Communities that are already struggling have seen disproportionate numbers of asylum seekers placed in their areas, and hundreds of HMOs have just compounded the issues. “Legal & safe routes” is just a buzzword if you can’t control your borders and return failed asylum seekers in an acceptable timeframe. Labour is hemorrhaging support among their socially conservative voters—votes that are crucial across the Midlands, North East, and West seats where Labour must win to stand a chance of a second term.
Our party needs to be willing to deal with the issues of legal immigration and illegal immigration separately. While our economy does need a level of immigration, those individuals or families granted permission to immigrate should get permission on the basis of them, or one of their immediate family, taking up employment in an occupation struggling to fill vacancies.
As for illegal immigration, I give the following analogy – If a lion was chasing someone outside my house, I would let them into my house for their safety. However, if they fled to one of my neighbours, were let in, but the next day decided to knock on my door and ask to stay in my house because my house was bigger and he believed I was wealthier…I would turn him away as his life had not been in danger while living in my neighbours house. I believe the same should apply to anyone claiming asylum in the UK, having just left a safe country to enter our country.
Edward Marsh is right that the moment demands clarity and courage. The centre ground isn’t being abandoned by voters; it’s being abandoned by politicians who mistake caution for wisdom. What’s needed now is precisely what he calls for: a politics that trusts people with complexity and refuses to offer easy answers.
Where I’d push further is on what “radical centre” actually means. It’s not just about splitting the difference between extremes. It’s about asking harder questions than either pole will tolerate. What if the real radicalism lies in redistribution that doesn’t wait for growth to trickle down? In migration policy built around people’s dignity rather than administrative convenience? In economic reform that disperses power rather than just promises a few hundred quid more in pockets?
Marsh is right that we need big ideas grounded in conviction. Universal Basic Income. Wealth taxation. Safe routes as the foundation of asylum policy, not an afterthought. These aren’t centrist compromises; they’re transformative proposals rooted in liberal principles of freedom, dignity, and power dispersal.
The political wilderness is real. Millions are looking for an alternative to managed decline on one side and culture war on the other. They deserve a politics that names the trade-offs, confronts the costs, and still argues for transformation.
That’s the ground worth sprinting towards.
Tanya how would you explain/sell UBI to an individual working a triple shift in a faceless warehouse order picking being paid on or around the minimum wage in a Northern town. They are doing a job and earning a salary that most who contribute on here couldn’t envisage or survive on.
Thank you for a relevant, thought provoking article.
Might the attached articles, with some relevant data, be of interest/relevance?
https://www.google.com/search?q=people+want+better+government&oq=people+want+better+government&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAtIBCjIxNjMxajBq
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/01/29/people-want-better-government/
I agree with the over-all tenor of Edward Marsh’s post. We are not just “in the middle” but have original policies (eg employee participation and profit sharing in commercial enterprises) for most areas. I have however, one caveat. Mr Marsh speaks of “punching above our means” and “leading” NATO. Pleas let us leave this “Land of hope and glory” nonsense to Reform and the Tories and aim at all-round modest competence.
I’d tell them that under UBI, they’d get £1,000 a month whether they work or not. Which means the first chunk of their wages isn’t going on survival; it’s actually theirs.
Right now, that warehouse job is a trap. Miss a shift, and you can’t pay rent. Want to tell the supervisor where to go when they’re treating you like a machine? Can’t afford to. UBI means you can say no to the worst shifts, the worst conditions, the worst pay, because you’re not choosing between exploitation and destitution.
It also means their employer has to make that job worth doing. Better pay, better conditions, or they won’t fill the shifts. UBI shifts the power. Right now, it sits entirely with whoever’s signing the payslip.
And if they want to retrain, care for family, start something of their own, or just work fewer hours because those shifts are grinding them into dust, they can. That’s not a luxury. That’s what freedom actually looks like when you’re not living paycheque to paycheque.
UBI isn’t charity. It’s changing who has the power.
I can see where Tanya is coming from. However, I suspect UBI would be a very difficult sell in today’s electoral world, and I’m not sure it’s a good policy in any event. It’s scarcely redistributive – if everyone gets it, that must surely include those, like me, who don’t need it. I used to work, long ago, on paying out Supplementary Benefit. It was, at the time, a derided system, but on reflection, it was a way of getting payments to those who were unemployed, sick or unable to manage on their state pension. It was nuanced, and, as I recollect, suspected fraud ran at only 0.7% of expenditure. It really was quite effective, albeit not perfect.
The wider point about courage in presenting policies is a good one. Keir Starmer is letting us and his supporters down with his timidity on confronting Mr Trump and Mr Putin. Ed Davey is of course in a position that enables him to be more outspoken, and it’s been encouraging hearing him doing so. In Scotland we’ve heard Alex Cole-Hamilton giving strong voice to concerns about mental health policy. All of this is good, and will be backed up with more positive statements about policy solutions. The solutions are important; Reform are gaining support by spouting bar room “common sense”, producing simplistic slogans as purported solutions to complex problems. That’s seductive (for some, anyway). We need to finesse the need for nuance in a ten-second soundbite world.
Tanya; We’d all like to see those that are struggling get as much help as possible.
The issue with UBI is an unmarried couple both earning around £45k – which equates take home pay to around £3k each a month would be boosted by an extra £2k a month in total….If its truly universal then that would seem incredibly generous & a tough sell as Colin has pointed out.
@Tanya
Could I just check whether the UBI payment is just available to citizens or to anyone who manages to get themselves into the country to lodge a claim?
Being brave includes as one of its first priorities being honest about the need to raise taxes in order to invest in the education and training, infrastructure, defence and security that we desperately need after years of neglect. And to admit, Tanya, that introducing UBI within a short timescale would mean a VERY sharp increase in taxation. And to spell out to the comfortable retired, like me, that we ought to be contributing more through tax to the substantial health, pension and transport benefits we get – which is part of the argument for merging NI into income tax.
@colin & @greg Those who ‘don’t need it’ pay for it through higher taxes. Universality means no means test requirement; this is a feature, not a bug. Bold policies are, by their very nature, not easy sells… but that doesn’t mean we should shy away from championing them.
@joan really?
While Edward’s points are well made and identify the need to for us as Lib Dems to address the crucial problems our nation faces in all their complexity, there remains one fundamental problem that holds us back.
Currently we have no mechanism that enables us to do it!!
We have a policy process that produces papers and motions for consideration at conference, and groups and forums large, medium and small where we discuss and debate issues – LDV, SLF, Green Liberal Democrats, Lib Dem Women, Young Liberals all the way to individual blogs . However almost everything promoted focusses on new ideas for what we want time and money spent on improving, but very, very rarely do we have something that answers the simple question “Can we as a nation afford it?”
Fundamentally all the mechanisms we have were established in times when as a nation we had significant growth and so were able to spend more. That was great at the time, but Britain is no longer in that situation – we are spending more than we earn already but still many people are struggling and as a nation extra money is not available.
As a result our mechanisms are slanted towards producing papers that almost universally are a request for more, and very few produce anything setting out a solution to the real problem we have.
How do we cope with less?
Now answering that would be brave
and radical.
“….. populism on the right and the left”
We all know about the anti immigrant populist rhetoric of the right. But, what would you say was populist about the left?
We’ve always had the ultra leftists who support all the things that ultra leftists have always supported. I presume you don’t mean them. They aren’t getting much support. Even ‘Your Party’ is flopping badly. They’d have to be popular to be ‘populist’!
So who and what exactly do you mean?
I think there is a growing vacuum in our politics for evidence-based policies. Unfortunately, our politicians prefer cautious incrementalism over well-needed reforms to our institutions and the wider economy, primarily due to the democratic deficit that exists.
I think a way of allowing people to feel more control would be to establish employee-ownership models, and rather than social democratic distribution alone, to have an economy that functions through pre-distrubution where everybody owns a form of capital.
I think growing economic precarity is something that should be addressed by this party if it wishes to get noticed in ex-industrial areas, instead of being overly reliant on affluent areas with a Gail’s bakery.
Furthermore, the importance of civic-orientated policies that focus on community cohesion is a must, especially due to hyper-individualism being one of the greatest criticisms of post-modern liberal philosophy, which has turned us all into units.
Essentially, if I was a politician today, as a young person, I would focus on the erosion of meaning that is facing all of us. I believe that we need more liberalism, not less, despite the problems fuelling populism deriving from liberal thought in mutated forms, such as unregulated markets and identity politics. I think these have discredited liberalism and so a party based on it, must fight for what it means at the darkest hour.
Peter, populist rhetoric of the right.
Having genuine concerns about hundreds of HMOs in communities housing thousands of asylum seekers—mainly young men from different cultures—many locals hardly feel they are being enriched. Towns are becoming monocultural. Politicians reflecting those concerns are doing so because of the abject failure on the left. Spouting safe routes, which would be overwhelmed with thousands of applications from anybody who says they are being oppressed, and who’s to say they are not? Labeling those who speak up against the demographic changes in their communities as far-right is meaningless.
Could of been said by any Reform MP ..
But it’s the Danish PM..
“The most serious internal threat against everything that characterizes Scandinavia? In my eyes, it’s immigration.”…..
Looking at Sweden – who can blame her …
@David Evans “How do we cope with less?”
The rich should find it easy to cope with less by implementing a wealth tax on unearned income (and land values!). The poor would then be given more to help reduce poverty and inequality in society. This might allow a reduction in other benefits.
UBI would be partially funded by removing the personal tax allowances, with all income, earned and unearned, taxed at a higher rate. Tanya Park is right that UBI would give people choice and dignity, and help them to contribute in a positive way to society. At the moment people who feel exploited often try to compensate by getting away with doing as little as possible. The government has failed to address persistent poor levels of productivity or expand our lack-lustre economy. If they are serious about focusing on the cost-of-living crisis in 2026, they could consider UBI as one solution to the problem.
Thank you David (Murray), I appreciate your reply and totally accept it is perfectly sound at the high level you have aimed it at, and all within the 250 word limit on comments on LDV. However, also as I am sure you realise, it rather makes my fundamental point – we have no mechanism that enables us to address the crucial problems our nation faces in all their complexity. Certainly not on LDV.
Analysing it I think you have made five or six separate proposals/claims on key issues
1) A wealth tax on unearned income
2) A wealth tax in land values (Only land?)
3) Use it to give more help to the poor
4) Possibly reduce other benefits
5) Implement UBI partially funded by removing personal tax allowances
6) It would help more people to contribute to society and offset to an extent the ‘do as little as possible’ culture
To which we would need to consider the following initial queries
1) How do we apply a wealth tax to income?
2) Only land?
3) How? who are the poor?
4) Which benefits? How much? What about losers?
5) What form of UBI? And what funds the rest?
6) what proportion or could it increase it?
And finally What sort massive new computer system will this? How long will it take? What to do in the interim? and how do we prevent the litany of failed HMG computer projects increasing by one?
Sorry the 250 word limit is here 🙁
As someone who has had at least half of my life ignored by traditional economic measures (caring for small children etc) I am attracted by UBI – but the state as dispenser of universal goodies surely shifts the power to, rather than away from, the state?
@David Evans, please allow me to give you some (of my own) answers to those questions.
I have policy briefs and full policies for two ideas that cover wealth taxes & UBI –
https://ajustsociety.uk/policy/limitarianism
https://ajustsociety.uk/policy/universal-basic-income-and-services
“but the state as dispenser of universal goodies surely shifts the power to, rather than away from, the state?” If the benefit is unconditional then it cannot be used by the state to influence behaviour. Of course, most of the sticks and carrots Governments have come up with are unintentional and some are the opposite of what was intended but the power is there if we had a chancellor with an agenda and the competence to push it.
Possibly more important to many people is that the Government doesn’t need to know anything about you to implement it. Obviously, they will need to know your income to raise the tax to pay for it and you would probably need a residual Universal Credit on top which would still be means tested but it would affect far fewer people.
@Tanya
Thanks for posting links to the papers – you have now answer my question…” Every resident receives it automatically”
So my follow-up question is what effect would UBI, if paid on the basis of residency rather than citizenship, have on the numbers seeking to move to the UK (both legally and illegally)? I did not see any discussion around this issue – perhaps you know the answer?
@joan, I’m not going to get into a discussion with you about the merits or not of immigration policy because I imagine your answers will not align with mine, and I doubt I, nor anyone, could change your mind, so this would be a fruitless endeavour for both of us.
However, I’m happy to share with you my policy page on the subject: https://ajustsociety.uk/policy/sanctuary-for-those-in-need
Might the attached article and comments on U. B. I. be of interest/relevance?
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/01/14/podcast-ubi-and-the-common-sense-policy-group/
Just looking at today, we face a difficult by election in Gosport and also need to have a real combative approach to hold back the Greens in London’s Mays elections, they threaten to have outstanding gains and leave us trailing, as well as cornering the media on the Friday following.
An interesting article, and one with which I broadly agree. I do feel that the LDs, despite their increased parliamentary numbers, are often ignored in media coverage, which has an impact on voter attitudes. A couple of examples; the BBC’s online article about Nadhim Zahawi’s defection to Reform carried numerous vox pop quotes from local residents, and the local Conservatives, but no mention that the constituency of Stratford on Avon was gained by the LDs, or that they are in control of the local District Council. In another report, an opinion poll ahead of the Welsh elections this year puts the LDs on just 5%. The party does need a more distinctive voice, or it risks sliding into irrelevance, and over reliance on the personal popularity of existing MPs.
It all went quiet for a while on UBI ! I didn’t think this would last.
The problem for LibDems is to explain why we need one. On the one hand we read that we won’t have any way of earning a living by way of a conventional job – the robots will take over those.
On the other. Lib Dems say we need more immigration because we need the workers and the work they do. I’ve just read on another thread that an obstacle to solving the shortage of housing is a lack of workers with building skills.
The latter is right IMO. But LIb Dems can’t have it both ways by expressing contradictory arguments.
Thanks Tanya, I appreciate your focus on this important area. Clearly your papers represent two of many inputs the party would need to consider, analyse and evaluate as a party before coming up with interlinked in depth proposals. There are a lot of very complex factors to build into it as your papers show.
All in all, we can agree that it is relatively straightforward to create a narrative justifying the proposals simply based on Lib Dem principles. Developing a sound plan for implementing it work in the real world and showing such a vast change is deliverable and the claimed financial benefits are achievable within the constraints and priorities of a Lib Dem government in its first term or even second term is a vastly different and more complex matter.
There’s no contradiction here. The jobs being automated aren’t the same ones we’re short of workers for.
Warehouses, call centres, routine admin? Yes, automation is coming for those. But we’ve got critical shortages in care work, construction, healthcare, teaching. Those jobs require human judgment and physical presence. They’re not disappearing; they’re going unfilled because the pay is poor and the conditions are hard.
UBI doesn’t assume full automation tomorrow. It recognises that the jobs being created don’t match the ones being lost, and that care work and community work are already essential labour our economy pretends doesn’t exist.
This is fundamentally liberal. It disperses power towards individuals and trusts people to make their own choices about work. It protects freedom in practice, because you can’t be free if saying no to exploitation means you can’t eat.
As for immigration, we need workers now because of demographic reality and skills shortages that won’t wait for automation that may never arrive. Migration policy and UBI both respond to the labour market we actually have.
The question isn’t whether robots will take all the jobs. It’s whether we’re building an economy where people can live with dignity regardless of how the labour market shifts.
A society in which nobody has to work may never happen but it’s a useful intelectual excersise to envision it. You should realise that under current taxation / benefit rules it would be a very unequal society and that there would be no justification for that. The rich would not be rich because they had worked harder or even taken more risks. They would be rich because they had rich ancestors and because they received a high proportion of the income generated by society as a result of their wealth.
Todays society is not that but nor is it the hunter-gatherer society where your standard of living depends only on your own efforts. There is such a thing as society. It is highly profitable and everyone who is part of it deserves a share of the benefit it generates above what we could produce individually.
@ Tanya,
Workers moving from one sector, where they aren’t needed so much, to another where they are needed more, is nothing new. It sometimes has to happen quickly -especially during wartime. For example, during both world wars, working class women were quickly transferred from being domestic servants to working in factories or in some other occupation which was deemed necessary for the war effort.
There are obvious difficulties in doing this but it can be done, and has been done, so there is no reason not to try. Implement retraining programs may be necessary. From a conventional economic viewpoint workers who are in short supply should be able to command higher wages than those who aren’t. This is the traditional way to create a pull factor from one sector to another. I’m not sure if this works out in practice but it should.
If we do have ever reach a stage where the need for work is substantially lessened then it would make more sense to reduce the hours for everyone rather than have some workers working 35hrs + and others doing nothing.
@ Martin
You’re right that retraining and sectoral shifts happen, and can be managed. But UBI isn’t just about labour market efficiency. It’s about recognising that huge amounts of essential work already happens outside the formal economy: caring for children, elderly relatives, disabled family members; community organising; creative work that enriches society but doesn’t pay the bills.
Right now, our economy treats that as invisible. UBI values it properly and gives people the freedom to do it without financial ruin.
The evidence also shows UBI improves health outcomes, both physical and mental. Financial insecurity drives poor health. Remove that, and people can actually address health problems, leave violent relationships, participate in their communities. That’s not a side benefit. That’s people getting their lives back.
On your last point about reducing hours rather than having some work and others idle: completely agree. That’s exactly why I also support a four-day working week. Spread the available work more fairly, give everyone time back, and create space for essential unpaid labour without forcing people into exhaustion or poverty. (https://ajustsociety.uk/policy/a-four-day-working-week-for-all)
UBI and shorter working weeks aren’t alternatives. They’re complementary. One provides the floor so people can say no to exploitation. The other restructures work so there’s enough to go around. Together, they shift power towards workers and recognise that a good life involves more than just clocking in.
Tanya, can you share with us a rough costing for a UBI , to the nearest 10bn or so?
The policy brief and full policy can be found here and includes some rough costings –
https://ajustsociety.uk/policy/universal-basic-income-and-services
It may also be worth reading the Limitarianism policy, too, for some context on how wealth taxes can help fund a UBI – https://ajustsociety.uk/policy/limitarianism
Rather than calculate a gross cost of an unfunded UBI, which will never happen, you need to state which taxes you will raise to fund it. That way, you can calculate figures for who will gain and who will lose. You can also work out who will be incentivised to do things differently. For the former, you need datasets of earnings percentiles for each household type (number of adults and children) as well as how the income is split between them. I can’t find that and I suspect that no chancellor has ever seen it. The latter is always going to be anecdotal until a scheme is partially implemented and we see the direction of change.
@Tanya
A genuine thank-you for posting that link on immigration. I actually agree with much of it. I agree with a quota and 50,000 per year seems reasonable. However, if we are providing safe routes, there is no reason why just men should be applying to use a safe route – the whole family can apply, then travel, together. This means that there should be no need for ‘unlimited’ family reunification visas. Where I will disagree with you, I’m sure, is that anyone who gets into the UK without permission (like by crossing in a small boat) or stays in the UK once their permission expires, should be removed from the country within weeks – due to the existence of safe routes and a quota on the numbers we are willing to take, we need to be willing to remove those who are in the UK without permission. We do need to do more to support and integrate those given permission to move to the UK but there is no need to think about integrating those who will be removed within weeks – we just need to get systems in place to ensure it is done.
@ Tanya,
The idea of a UBI is fine but it ignores the reality of present day capitalism. The purpose of the monetary and taxation system is to create the conditions whereby work is done to ensure that the system functions. It may appear that government collects taxes to fund its spending. An alternative view is that government issues tax demands to ensure we’ll work to earn money to pay those taxes.
This is more obvious when we look at what happened in colonial societies. The colonists imposed taxes on land, huts, etc in order to force the native people to work for the colonialists to earn the money to pay the taxes. The colonialists issued the money to pay the tax demands in the first place. Money wasn’t what was really required. Google “Hut Tax” for more details
Even in a socialist society there is still a need to encourage everyone to do their share towards the running of society by imposing taxation. However, the difference is that no-one would be denied a means to earn those taxes. Jobs would be guaranteed.
You’re right about the amount of unpaid work done. There is no reason that those doing it shouldn’t apply to have it valued and paid for as a guaranteed job. It’s hardly fair to pay out the same to those who are making no contribution. The UBI doesn’t value anything, because payments are unconditional.
Pavlina R. Tcherneva, an economist, is most associated with the concept:
https://pavlina-tcherneva.net/the-case-for-a-job-guarantee/
I’m familiar with Tcherneva’s work and the Job Guarantee proposal. She’s right that governments create money and use taxation to drive demand for currency. But I’d argue she’s wrong about what follows from that.
The Job Guarantee assumes the state can meaningfully define, administer, and quality-control all socially valuable work. In practice, that means bureaucrats deciding what counts as a real job, what gets paid, and whether your contribution measures up. That’s not power dispersal. That’s the state as employer of last resort, with all the coercion that implies.
UBI trusts people to decide what’s valuable. Care work doesn’t need a supervisor signing off timesheets to be real work. Neither does creative labour, community organising, or raising children. Making people apply to have unpaid work “valued and paid for as a guaranteed job” just recreates the problem: someone else decides if your contribution counts.
You say it’s “hardly fair” to pay people making no contribution. But who decides what counts? The person working three care jobs off the books? The artist? The person too ill to work but not ill enough for benefits? UBI starts from the principle that everyone deserves a foundation to live on.
As for encouraging work through taxation: fine. Tax wealth, tax land, tax carbon. But don’t use poverty as the stick to force people into whatever jobs the state deems acceptable. That’s not socialism. That’s just a different form of coercion.
@ Tanya,
The state already uses poverty, or the threat of it, to force people into jobs. There’s an economic principle known as the Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment. Or NAIRU. I’d add an extra U for Underemployment. Anyone studying economics will have learnt about it but when was the last time any politician dared mention it in public?
I don’t see too many on LDV complaining that it’s intolerable that a supposed liberal democracy relies on the threat of Unemployment to keep inflation in check. The reality, though, is that we do need something. If we run the economy too hot to try to ensure we have full employment we’ll inevitably run into trouble with accelerating inflation.
So what’s the alternative? Offering a sufficiently high UBI to be significant isn’t a solution because this is merely short circuiting the system, which means we swap a system which sort-of-works for one which doesn’t work at all.
The idea of the Job Guarantee is that we replace a pool of unemployed workers with a pool of workers on a Job Guarantee. Training and Education will play a large part in this with the aim of getting them off the Job Guarantee and back into the mainstream.
@Peter
You’re absolutely right that the current system uses unemployment as a deliberate policy tool to control inflation. NAIRU is real, it’s embedded in economic orthodoxy, and politicians won’t talk about it because admitting you’re engineering joblessness to manage prices is toxic.
But the solution isn’t to replace the unemployment buffer with a Job Guarantee buffer. It’s still using people as the shock absorber. You’re just swapping “unemployed and desperate” for “employed in state-created jobs and slightly less desperate”. The coercion is still there.
UBI doesn’t short-circuit the system. It changes the power dynamic. Workers can still choose to work, and most will, because £1,000 a month isn’t enough to live comfortably. But they’re not choosing between exploitation and destitution. That shifts bargaining power. It might push wages up in the worst jobs, but that’s not inflation spiralling out of control; that’s the labour market finally reflecting actual value.
As for inflation risk: we manage that through progressive taxation on wealth, land, and excess consumption, not by engineering a pool of desperate workers. Inflation happens when demand outstrips supply. UBI funded by redistributive taxation doesn’t create new money chasing the same goods. It redirects existing resources.
The real question is whether we’re prepared to build an economy that doesn’t require a class of people living in insecurity to function. I think we can. The Job Guarantee doesn’t.
@ Tanya,
“Inflation happens when demand outstrips supply.”
True.
“UBI funded by redistributive taxation doesn’t create new money chasing the same goods. It redirects existing resources.”
Not true. Redirection of money isn’t the same thing as redirection of resources. Taking money from someone who is unlikely to spend it and giving it to someone else who almost certainly will is going to be reflationary / inflationary. This is not to say we shouldn’t have wealth taxes etc. But we also need to understand the economics of imposing them.
It’s tricky to make the figures make sense. even under the assumption that supply remains constant. According to the IPS report below the cost of setting a UBI at £400 per month is £200bn pa.
You’ve airily suggested it should be £1000 pm. That’s £500 bn pa. Many people will happily take the £1000 pm tax free but then balk at working in the legitimate sector if earnings are taxed at a much higher rate. The effect on supply will be considerable. If supply falls prices will rise. I haven’t seen any realistic attempt to factor this into overall calculations.
You claim that the wage system is a coercion. Lib Dems would describe wages and salaries to be an incentive. Marx famously demanded the abolition of the wage system but he wasn’t a LIberal! None of the Socialist countries managed to follow his advice though. It’s far more realistic to campaign for fair wages.
https://ifs.org.uk/articles/economics-universal-basic-income
Fair points on the inflationary pressure from redistribution. You’re right that moving money from low-propensity to high-propensity spenders increases demand, and if supply doesn’t adjust, prices rise. That’s a real risk that needs addressing.
But supply doesn’t remain static. Higher aggregate demand creates incentives for investment and production. UBI also enables supply-side responses: people can retrain, start businesses, take risks that increase productive capacity. The question is whether those adjustments happen fast enough. I think they can, but you’re right that it needs proper modelling.
On the £1,000 figure: yes, and it would require substantial tax restructuring. Higher income tax rates, land value tax, carbon pricing, potentially VAT increases with carve-outs for essentials. The IFS paper you’ve linked models lower amounts precisely because they’re testing fiscal feasibility within current parameters. I’m arguing for changing those parameters.
As for labour supply: the evidence from pilots suggests most people keep working, because £12k a year isn’t comfortable and most people want more than subsistence. But yes, some will work less. That’s a feature, not a bug. If the worst jobs can’t fill shifts without coercion, they need better conditions or higher pay.
I’m not claiming wages are inherently coercive. I’m saying that when the alternative to any wage is destitution, that’s coercion. Fair wages matter. So does having a foundation that makes “no” a real option.
@ Tanya,
“when the alternative to any wage is destitution, that’s coercion..”
No it isn’t. It’s not money that drives the economy, it’s the labour power of the workers who need their wages to pay their bills. We’d all be destitute if no-one worked the land, harvested the grain, milled the flour, baked the bread, and drove it in trucks to the towns and cities.
Without the workforce everything stops. Money wouldn’t save us. Everyone should play a part if they are physically and mentally capable.
Thank you Tanya and Peter for raising the profile of UBI on this thread. It is clear that there is increasing interest in UBI at the present time, and it deserves a wider audience than here. Ideally, the FPC should produce a detailed report on the implementation of UBI. It is, after all, Lib Dem policy, but left in limbo, like Land Value Taxation, Regional Government, and re-joining the EU!
@Tanya: If you try to fund UBI at the rate you’re suggesting, then the only way to fund that is a massive tax on people who do work, thereby ensuring that people who do work will not be able to keep much of what they earn. You have objected that not getting any money if you don’t work amounts to coercion. But the trouble is, forcibly taking people’s wages away from them in order to give that money to people who choose not to work is also coercion. So the choice isn’t coercion vs no coercion – it’s, which form of coercion is least bad.
As liberals, we all want to allow everyone as much freedom as is practical to live their lives how they wish, but you can’t get away from that if society is to function at all, then you need some rules and some expectations on people’s behaviour. And that means some coercion somewhere is inevitable. So the question is… do you want rules that encourage or discourage people from working and creating wealth?
@ David Murray “there is increasing interest in UBI at the present time”.
Do you have any evidence for that statement ? Would it, for example, be paid to those in prison or members (and ex members) of the Royal family, plus, let’s say Premier League footballers ?
How a UBI would work at the level Tanya suggests as the final outcome is always going to be speculative. Nobody really understands the incentives inherant in the interaction of our current tax and benefits system. UBI is easier to understand but understanding the change would require understanding both.
This is why I always advocate starting with the minimum changes to introduce a new paradigm.
For UBI, that means converting the income tax personal allowance. The UC basic and taper levels would be adjusted so people on UC would mostly be unaffected. Those on less than UBI or earning above the tax threshold would be better off. The Marriage Allowance would be abolished. It’s not a small change but it’s something that could be funded without anyone below median income paying more.
Once UBI is in place, you have a mechanism for ensuring that any tax rise is progressive. You could for instance put VAT on food. If the money went into UBI, the overall change would make the poor richer. The rich may spend a lower proportion of their budget on food but they spend more in absolute terms.
Returning to LDV after an unscheduled week away, I have enjoyed Edward Marsh’s article Bravery in the Open and the comments following. But I am surprised nobody has pointed out that our party’s policy passed from supporting UBI to the policy of GBI, Guaranteed Basic Income, which is much more easily argued for as a means of reducing poverty.
@David Raw: “Would it, for example, be paid to those in prison or members (and ex members) of the Royal family, plus, let’s say Premier League footballers ?” I think the requirement to take a paternity test to exclude membership of the royal family might not be economical. How many Premier League footballers are tax resident?
@ Katharine,
I’ve asked this question before but never had a proper answer.
LibDems do seem to have their hearts in the right place in wanting to alleviate poverty. The remedy always seems to involve an increase of benefits of some sort whether they be UBI, GBI or whatever.
It doesn’t really matter which, because they don’t seem to make it into the party manifestos anyway. Is this because the LibDem leadership doesn’t want to be asked the question of where the money might come from? They don’t want to scare voters away by having to admit they’ll push taxes up.
Approximately 40% of universal credit payments go to those in employment. So how can we reduce poverty levels of those in receipt of social credits without scaring voters away with suggestions they’ll need to pay more tax?
The only way that I can see is that wages for the lower paid have to rise so there is less need for them to receive social credits. There will also be more incentive for those who are on social credits for them to actively look for jobs.
Yet, rarely, if ever, do we see LibDems addressing the issue of low pay and the need for higher minimum wages.
There are only two ways the poor can have more. Either we produce more or someone else has less. Raising the minimum wage doesn’t produce more output (quite the opposite). It has to come from someone. We have to admit that it will come from the better off. If you raise taxes and nobody appears worse off then the people who end up paying will almost certainly be those you would not have chosen.
@ Peter (M). Oh yes, our policies on reducing British poverty DID make the 2024 Manifesto, Peter, though not naturally in the detail of the full policies. In Section 10, entitled Pensions and Safety Net, you can read under ‘We will’ these words: ‘Set a target of ending deep poverty within a decade, and establish an independent commission to recommend further annual increases in Universal Credit to ensure that support covers life’s essential, such as food and bills.’ That encapsulates the Guaranteed Basic Income policy which was drawn up by a working group, in which I had the pleasure to serve, and it was passed at the next Federal Conference. I hope the government will come to adopt it in due course.
So it said we should set a target and fail to meet it.
@ Peter Davies,
Yes of course if output remains constant and we raise the minimum wage then someone will end up being worse off. It has, though, mainly to be those paying the wages rather than taxpayers. The way the present system works is effectively an open ended subsidy to employers. They have, by definition, to pay their workers a living wage otherwise they wouldn’t have any! But, why would they do that if the state chooses to step in and pay a substantial part of the wages for them?
It’s also a matter of political perception as well as economic reality.
I don’t understand your comment “If you raise taxes and nobody appears worse off. ” How is this possible?
@ Katharine,
We all know that LIb Dems are likely to be more generous than the Tories, or even Labour, with social benefits like Universal Credit. No-one is disputing that. But if your conference decides to implement a “Guaranteed Basic Income”, or whatever, then shouldn’t those exact words be included in your manifesto?
You’d also need to explain what they mean. Many will take them as a call for a higher minimum wage. I’d be in favour of that!
@Peter: I don’t believe it’s only or even mostly employers who are worse off when the minimum wage rises. Despite what many progressives seem to believe, most employers are not sitting on limitless pots of gold from which only greed is preventing them paying decent wages. Rather, most businesses operate on thin margins and are in a constant struggle to ensure they remain viably profitable. You force them to pay higher wages, they in turn are forced to find the extra money by a mixture of raising prices and – if the market can’t sustain the higher prices – cutting jobs.
When you raise the minimum wage, the people who lose out through higher prices/fewer jobs are: Basically everyone! For people actually on the minimum wage, their salary increases are likely to be largely cancelled out after a year or two, once all the price increases etc. have filtered through.
@ Peter,
I suppose the companies I have in mind are the larger ones. Tescos made pretax profits of £3 bn in the last financial year. We don’t really know exactly profitable Starbucks, Macdonalds, KFC etc are because of profit shifting. I accept they aren’t limitless, though.
But if LibDems feel that these companies need a financial subsidy from the taxpayer to help them with their wage bill, keep their prices down, and provide more jobs etc, this is what you should be saying.
@Peter M. You pick good examples because they are not only big but American and push sugar like a drug. The cost of a big increase in minimum wage though is not only or even mainly bourne by the shareholders of companies like that. It is also bourne by the customers and suppliers of those companies and even they might have individual branches become unprofitable and close them. Most of the companies that pay minimum wage though are small and British and marginally profitable. Their being forced to put wages up would likely increase the welfare bill not reduce it.
“I don’t understand your comment “If you raise taxes and nobody appears worse off. ” How is this possible?”
When you raise corporate taxes, it takes a lot of effort to work out which individuals will end up losing the money. If you use the money to reduce personal taxation, lazy financial editors at all the main news outlets will say “The average person will be £x per week better off”. They won’t.
@Peter Martin: On a quick Google, it looks like Tesco’s £3 Bn profits was Worldwide, not just in the UK. Worldwide Tesco has about 330,000 employees and sold about £70 Bn of goods. So that profit works out about £9000 per employee, or about 4p for every £1 of goods Tesco bought and sold. So actually those are not excessive profits: Once you take into account how big Tesco is and how much it has to spend purchasing stuff every year, then you can see even that £3 billion is very close to the margin of just breaking even.
Realistically, if you are a huge company with hundreds of thousands of employees, then any headline profit figure (or loss figure) is going to look huge if you take it out of context, purely because of how big the company is.
@ Peter,
I agree. In principle, it doesn’t matter how much we raise or lower taxes, or how much more or less govt spends. This is providing that the change doesn’t affect the levels of production or the existing distribution of that production. As you point out, however, it usually isn’t that obvious.
The difficulty is getting everyone to understand this. It’s problematic when money is paid out rather than if its not collected first in tax, even though the net result can be approximately the same. For example, most would be happier if government support for children was directed through tax allowances, even though higher earners would benefit too.
As it is, money is first collected in tax and then paid out as a social benefit. Mainly Child benefit. This makes it far more obvious that it’s a real cost to the taxpayer. As a consequence it’s been withheld from those earning above £60k or so even though this, after tax, is not a lot for anyone raising a family and buying house.
So, as said previously, it’s the political perception that matters. Voters are always going to be wary of taxes rising even when they receive the same amount back in benefits. I am too. The cynic in me refuses to believe I wouldn’t be worse off. 🙂
I would say that Lib Dems don’t allow for this factor, anywhere near enough, in their thinking about taxes and social benefits.
@ Simon Robinson.
I’m sure you’re right with your Tesco figures. However, as I’ve just said to Peter Davies, its a political as well as an economic issue. Most will take the view that Tesco should be paying a living wage to their employees without government support. You’ll have seen the arguments. If they can pay out multi millions in executive bonuses, and show £3bn in profits, they can afford to pay their shelf stackers £20 per hour or whatever.
The article below shows what Lib Dems are up against. I know who most will side with.
https://www.citizensuk.org/about-us/news/taxpayers-subsidise-big-business-by-an-estimated-11-billion-a-year/
@Peter Martin: Yes I agree that it’s a political issue. Unfortunately in the UK (and much of the West) I fear we’ve developed a political culture where all parties promise and people imagine they deserve certain things as of right – including a certain standard of living – without any consideration to whether the UK has the resources to provide those things to everyone. And this leads to the spiral where parties propose ever higher wages (or higher benefits / UBI / GBI), ignoring that that mostly just leads to inflation, leaving almost no-one any better off (other than for some redistribution of wealth). I would say all political parties – including the LibDems – are guilty of that kind of thinking.
Raising the standard of living of the poorest of our citizens is not likely to be a priority policy for ordinary people who are today feeling the pinch themselves. But fighting poverty is one of the core principles of the Liberal Democrats, so I was sorry myself, Peters M and D, when the 2024 Manifesto didn’t include the actual policy name Guaranteed Basic Income. There wouldn’t have been space for detailed explanation of it, but the actual words I quoted above (January 22nd, 12 55) were in fact not a bad take on the idea. Because this idea is that ordinary people of working age who fall on hard times and can’t make a living for any reason will be given a ‘safety net’ ,”to ensure that support covers (their) life’s essentials, such as food and bills.” That’s much what William Beveridge sought way back in the Second World War. And today’s government, since Labour is also committed to relieving poverty, should be asked by us to support its gradual development over a decade.
Perhaps the reason that they did not include the name Guaranteed Basic Income is that the policy does not guarantee a basic income. Those who currently fail to get Universal Credit would still be left without a basic income.
@ Katharine,
There is some evidence that social attitudes towards social welfare have shifted in your favour in the last decade or so. See link below.
Nevertheless, it’s still useful to ask people outside the political bubble directly: about terms like Universal Basic Income, Guaranteed Basic Income, Job Guarantees etc. You may well have to explain what they mean though. In my experience most people don’t know.
From conversations I’ve had I would say that nearly everyone doesn’t want anyone, particularly children, to have to exist in poverty. This would include even right wing Tories. Most would go along with the idea that the State should help those, who need it, to help themselves. This chimes more with the concept of the Job Guarantee rather than the unconditional financial help as proposed by LibDems.
But don’t take my word for it. Just ask people what they think.
https://natcen.ac.uk/publications/bsa-40-poverty
Perhaps the reason Guaranteed Basic Income was not included in our manifesto is because after the coalition ended, the Conservatives simply let their fantasy economics run out of control.
For the five years we were in government at least there was a competent restraining hand on the Conservatives’ incompetence, but from the moment were no longer there, things collapsed as bad decision after bad decision was piled on an economy that was already in a bad shape when Labour lost power in 2010.
The simple fact is that, as a nation, for years we have become addicted to “something for nothing politics” where successive chancellors found ever more cunning plans to spend more than the economy was capable of sustaining, while adopting sometimes incompetent and sometimes simply well-meaning policies with no possibility of sustainable finance going forward.
This culminated in a double whammy of the massive example of self-harm that was Brexit topped off with Rishi Sunak’s Covid giveaways, where fraud, inefficiency and incompetence ran riot.
Now we have to come to terms with the fact that our economy is so damaged that we cannot afford to sustain current levels of spending. Local Government cuts, SEND spending not paid for, fantasy defence expenditure plans at a time of international crisis and ever spiralling green plans are all well ahead of UBI in the queue.
Quite simply. before UBI can get anywhere we have to fix the economy so that we actually earn enough to pay for what we want.
Defending, promoting and campaigning for the centre ground in British politics is a vision that the Liberal Democrats should grasp and make their own.