Category Archives: Op-eds

Sebastian Field

Hard work and optimism will be our party’s salvation

By Sebastian Field | Fri 20th December 2019 - 3:35 pm

So it’s happened again. Despite hoping against hope that the polls were wrong, and that we were having an impact in the target seats way above our polling levels, we’ve been left with a diminished parliamentary party for the third successive general election.

We started with such high hopes, but end with the cause of Remain now surely lost, and a hard-right Tory government with a majority big enough to do more or less what it likes.

Are there any reasons to be cheerful?

The seeds of our possible regrowth are contained in our defeat. We must start by holding this government to account, exposing their lies and broken promises. Boris Johnson will surely get the Withdrawal Agreement through parliament now, but that is the easy part. The protracted negotiations that follow will be a major test for Johnsons’ government, and may well provide opportunities to score hits.

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Jack Davies

No. The Lib Dems should not disband, but we have got to change strategy

By Jack Davies | Fri 20th December 2019 - 1:01 pm

I’ve been involved in politics for five years – although it has felt a lot longer – and experienced three General Election campaigns. Each one has been disappointing for the Liberal Democrats and each has led to a lot of soul-searching after polling day about what went wrong. The answer is almost always the same: the Lib Dems got squeezed out by the playground bullies of the British political system and failed to stand out from the crowd.

That sort of answer then seems to lead directly to the usual articles in tabloid newspapers about the relevance of the Liberal Democrats as a political party. These articles, usually calling for the Liberal Democrats to disband entirely and be absorbed into the author’s preferred choice of either Labour or the Conservatives, rest on the idea that a political party which is not one of the two parties most likely to form a government in its own right is not relevant to political debate. This is nonsense perpetuated by columnists who fail to understand that it is the voting system, not the parties themselves, which dictates the government which is formed after an election.

While I could spend the entirety of this article explaining the reasons behind my support for a proportional voting system which would give political parties a share of the seats in the House of Commons which more closely aligns with their share of the popular vote, I want to focus instead on the Liberal Democrat platform which is so often derided as being centrist.

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Christopher Curtis

What should we do first?

By Christopher Curtis | Fri 20th December 2019 - 10:15 am

I am reeling. It’s not just the catastrophe of this election, but what feels like our country sliding inexorably into darkness, to which we’ve been turning for more than a decade and which, despite our good intentions, could not have happened without LibDems.

One of the few benefits of disaster, is that it forces you to take stock and examine things you might never question otherwise. It drives you to redefine and rediscover what is really important to you: to find a firm foundation on which you can rebuild when everything else has been swept away.

We are in a new world with no way back. I don’t think this is a time to move a bit to the left or right, tweak a few policies, start co-operating with Brexit or Labour or whatever else. It’s certainly not a time to try to “get our old party back” to when things were marginally better than they are now. There’s no possible leader who can magically solve all our problems.

It is a time to revisit our core values and beliefs.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: That time of year

By Tom Arms | Fri 20th December 2019 - 8:56 am

t’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean the season of good will, holly, mistletoe, reindeer, white-bearded elves, and midnight mass. I mean the time to look back and forward at the world political scene. And there is so much to write and so little space.

Britain has just had its Christmas election. America has had its Christmas impeachment. Hong Kong is still in turmoil. Latin America is going through another of its political crises. The Chinese economy is shrinking. America’s Democratic Party cannot decide which way to go. Iran, Iraq and the Lebanon are rioting, so are the French. The Eurozone has had a terrible year. Putin is as belligerent as ever. Turkey is becoming more obstreperous and Israel can’t reach agreement on a coalition government.

Boris Johnson’s landslide victory has for the moment put paid to the Brexit debate. He claims that his historic 80-seat majority on the sound bite slogan “Get Brexit Done” is a massive mandate for leaving the EU. That is an over-simplified misrepresentation. Opinion polls report that the country continues to be split almost 50/50 between remain and leave. The election result was as much—it not more—of a reflection of distrust of an ideologically-driven Labour Party than it was a vote on Brexit.

So Brexit is likely to remain a big issue with the focus shifting to the prime minister’s renewed No Deal threat if free trade talks are not concluded by this time next year. They are other worrying messages coming out of 10 Downing Street: A review of the relationship between the government and the courts and the role of the media are two indications that Boris Johnson will use his enhanced power to stifle dissent and move Britain to a more presidential style of government.

Unfortunately, Boris won’t be facing much in the way of an official opposition. The Labour Party is set for a bitter civil war between the far-left ideologues of Momentum who blame Labour’s defeat on everyone but themselves, and the more pragmatic wing who want a return to the old New Labour. The current election rules as set down by the party constitution put the Corbynistas and Momentum in pole position. This means a longer and more vicious blood-letting than previous leadership battles and raises the spectre of a Labour split and an open goal for the conservative government.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump has this week become the third president in American history to be impeached. Because voting in both houses of Congress has become totally partisan, it is highly unlikely that Trump will be found guilty by the Republican-controlled Senate. But has his 2020 re-election been hindered or helped by impeachment? That question cannot be accurately answered until all the evidence has been presented in the Senate trial. So far everything that the House of Representatives has heard is second or third hand. This is because the president has refused to allow any White House officials to testify. There will be a battle royal to force into the Senate witness box.

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Chris Longstaff

Back to radical

By Chris Longstaff | Thu 19th December 2019 - 4:28 pm

A Radio 4 pre-election programme featured a ‘focus group’ which described the Lib Dems as “irrelevant” and “wishy-washy”. They were neither ‘left’, nor ‘right’, but somewhere lost in the middle. The Benny Hill tune was suggested as an appropriate Party theme.

This and the election result may be a distortion of the true representation of what the majority of people think, but for too many the Lib Dems are seen as stuck ‘hey-diddle-diddle-in-the-middle’ of nowhere, taking a little from both of the two major parties without constituting anything of great substance or profundity itself.

So, whatever the debate within the party might be about ‘centrist positioning’, for much of the electorate, Lib Dem positioning has little ‘relevance’; at best it insinuates a willingness to join a party coalition, and we know what a disaster that can be.

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Paul Walter

2019 was the party’s least efficient General Election campaign

By Paul Walter | Thu 19th December 2019 - 12:45 pm

If the objective of a general election is to win the most Commons’ seats we can (which I assume it is), then 2019 was the least efficient general election in the party’s history.

That is, if you define efficiency as garnering votes in such a geographical way so that we maximise the number of seats we win. The figures are as follows:

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Web Magpie

Nick Tyrone: At least the general election result has buried the UK’s flirtation with direct democracy

By Web Magpie | Thu 19th December 2019 - 9:45 am


Embed from Getty Images

On his website, writer Nick Tyrone has written a post entitled “Here’s one thing that was definitely positive about the general election result”.

In it, he argues that at least the general election has killed off the UK experiment with direct democracy and led to a resumption of our historical representative democarcy:

One of the things that has infected UK politics since June 2016 has been this clash between direct and representative democracy, with direct democracy often being given the greater nod by both the public and the media. The Leavers began to treat the referendum result as if it was the ultimate democratic event for all time, one that trumps every other election that has ever been and will ever be; Remainers played the same game for the most part, campaigning for a second referendum. It was as if we had changed the entire constitution without anyone being consulted.

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Ruth Bright

“Thank you!” – an open letter to Jo

By Ruth Bright | Wed 18th December 2019 - 6:32 pm

Dear Jo,

As many others have pointed out in the last few days a bit of masochism never comes amiss if one is a Liberal Democrat. Pain and sorrow come with the territory.

When my 70-year old Mum cruelly lost her hard-worked council seat in 2014, courtesy of the Coalition, we got separated slightly from our colleagues after the count. We are not prone to emotion but, two dumpy ladies of 5ft nothing, we clung together as her result was announced and Labour activists surrounded us and screamed their glee. One of them trod on me in the hubbub.

Later, back home, as …

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Stephen Tilson

Reasons To Be Cheerful

By Stephen Tilson | Wed 18th December 2019 - 4:48 pm

I am absolutely not feeling cheerful. I am gutted that my party has once again been drubbed at the ballot box, and the loss of Jo just 5 months into her leadership feels like a kick in the teeth. Watching her in this campaign I always felt that although it wasn’t her moment just yet, her moment would undoubtedly come. Now I just despair at the senselessness of it.

And Boris Johnson! There is a woman in an Iranian gaol because of his carelessness! What is it about this man and his continuous affairs and in-numerate children that the British …

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John Marriott

Are we witnessing the Strange Death of Socialist England?

By John Marriott | Wed 18th December 2019 - 2:32 pm

Back in 1935 Anglo-American historian, George Dangerfield, described in his book ‘The Strange Death of Liberal England’ how the Liberal Party of Gladstone, Asquith and Lloyd George, succumbed between 1906 and 1914 to the multiple assaults of Irish Home Rule, the reform of the House of Lords, Women’s Suffrage and the militancy of the Trades Unions. I would, with hindsight, add to that the rise of the Labour Party, which, after being shielded under the liberal wing, eventually took flight and replaced its sponsor as the main rival to the Conservative Party.

Well, I wonder whether, following this latest Labour debacle, …

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Jayne Richmond

Change one thing

By Jayne Richmond | Wed 18th December 2019 - 12:02 pm

The results are in. To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. I am sure many of you are feeling the same way.

To fight off the doldrums of despair, I’ve been looking at positive ways forward. To that end I am championing the ‘change one thing’ ideas campaign.

What is it?

Change one thing is simple. Challenge yourself and other members and supporters to think of one campaign which, if successful, would make a big positive difference to people’s lives.

We’re not just talking big things here either (though there is no harm in aiming high!).

It could be campaigning for more baby changing facilities in spaces accessible by all genders. Let’s not just shove the changing table in the women’s toilets please.

Or preventative, for example Cllr Emma Sandrey has suggested mental health check-up as standard. The mental health equivalent of a dental visit or eye exam. Embedding good mental health in to our medical routines and helping spot problems before they become crises.

Or strategic, Maria Pretzler highlights how giving more control over bus routes to councils can help local communities and reduce our reliance on cars.

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Andrew Davidson

The General Election – it’s time to stop looking for someone to blame and take action

By Andrew Davidson | Wed 18th December 2019 - 10:15 am

In March 2017, I wrote a thought piece for this journal called “Brexit, it’s time to stop looking for someone to blame and take action”. I took my own advice (more on this later on) but it made me think it was important to write a similar article today simply changing a couple of words in the title.

When that exit poll dropped on Thursday night I was distraught.  Unlike in June 2016, I had feared this result would happen  as soon as the Farage/Johnson pact came out and given the way the  campaign had gone, but seeing it actually materialise was a fundamental blow.  Once again that sinking feeling, both for what it meant for the country but also how harsh it was on so many candidates and activists who deserved far better.

Like in June 2016, I fear for what the result will mean for the U.K (and to some extent this party) in the short, medium and long term. And like in June 2016, its easy to spend your time looking for someone to blame:

  • Should it be at all who voted for this General Election to take place?
  • Should it be once again be at Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and their cabal for putting together a campaign full of lies, most notably that ridiculous “GetBrexitDone” which is so far from the truth it is unbelievable.
  • Should it once again be at many sections of the media who failed to properly hold the Tories to account and call out the lies?
  • Should it be at all those that voted Conservative, against their interests, for the first time, for being persuaded by their false arguments?
  • Should it be those within the LibDems for the general strategy in the campaign including sticking with the Revoke Policy (which for balance I voted for at conference having listened carefully to the debate and thought was right when up against no deal) once a Brexit “deal” was agreed?
  • Should it be at Jeremy Corbyn for being so unelectable to so many of the population that those who would be inclined to vote Lib Dem (or Dominic Grieve in my seat) – or even tactically for an anti-brexit Labour MP, decided that they could not take the risk their votes could put him in Downing Street?
  • Should it be at the whole Labour Leadership for being hostile to any sort of anti-tory pact and then actively campaigning in seats they could not win (e.g. Wimbledon & Finchley) costing the Lib Dems the seats?

Like in March 2017, I realise that, although whilst all these points may well be justified, some more than others, just looking to apportion blame is not going to help. Of course you need to reflect and learn from mistakes but simply looking backwards will not help.

Well a few months after March 2017 I took my own advice, I rose up and took action.  Two years ago this weekend (15th December 2017) I started a new non-partisan twitter account building a community of regretful leavers called @RemainerNow!  It soon became a national campaign using various channels and I would like to think it became a key part in the anti-brexit movement (more on @RemainerNow).  We may have failed in our quest to get a Final Say and stop Brexit but I at least know that I (and the others that contributed) tried our hearts out.  But we have only lost the battle, we must win the war for our country’s soul.

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Paul Reynolds

UK complicit in biggest US cover-up since Vietnam

By Paul Reynolds | Wed 18th December 2019 - 7:58 am

It took a three-year legal battle for the Washington Post to force the US government to release the ‘Afghanistan papers’, a set of lessons-learned reports on the war so far.

The Afghanistan Papers not only reveal systematic lying by the US and UK governments to the general public about the aims and progress of the war, they reveal gratuitous mass killing of civilians in the policy fog.

As if that wasn’t enough to cast opprobrium on the military effort and the capability of the forces involved, the Afghanistan Papers reveal extraordinary confusion amongst senior military personnel, and a war without …

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Chris Bowers

Guidance for selecting the next Lib Dem leader – keep it simple and human!

By Chris Bowers | Tue 17th December 2019 - 2:56 pm

It was just gone 7am, and Boris Johnson couldn’t resist it. ‘Let’s get breakfast done!’ he said, to great laughs. And therein lies part of the secret to why he won a general election with an 80-seat majority – it was a corny line, but people could relate to the awful humour.

There’s a massive lesson for us in that as we choose our new leader. Being embedded in the world of politics, we so easily overlook just how little politics resonates with most people in this country, in fact one polling analyst said the public engages so little with politics that he had even heard some people asking whether Nigel Farage was the leader of the Liberal Democrats. And we forget that some people vote simply on whether they see a politician as a normal human being or not.

This is where Johnson scores. A normal human being he is most assuredly not, but he makes the same kind of bumbling mistakes we all make in our daily lives, and that makes him relatable. His slogan ‘Get Brexit done’ was so effective as to drown out the inherent mendacity of it. The lesson for us is that the next Lib Dem leader needs to be relatable on a human level and to keep it simple.

To those of us who are Lib Dem members, we may wish more for a social liberal or an economic liberal, we may want someone who reaches across the divide to other parties or is more tribal, who respects the liberal tradition more than the social democratic tradition, or vice versa, who is uncontaminated by the coalition or not. All this is fine in terms of satisfying ourselves, but if we want to cut through with the voters, we need a leader the public can see in a largely positive light, who says things in simple terms that we can all understand.

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Michael Kitching

More out of Hope than Love

By Michael Kitching | Tue 17th December 2019 - 12:53 pm

I rejoined the Liberal Democrats this weekend.

I left some 18 months ago, agreeing with many that the party had lost its way over Europe. Our MPs voted for a referendum and then we denied its legitimacy.  It was a fair call to demand any deal be put back to the British people – but it was not fair to block and obfuscate at any attempt to ensure that deal kept us close to our European friends. I felt really angry that values we all shared had been eroded for short term political convenience.

In the end the party became a single issue Revoke campaign that appealed to absolutely nobody. We have ultimately failed to stop or lessen what amounts to a Hard Brexit. Combined, this is a crushing defeat.

So why rejoin?

This time for me, it’s more out of hope than love. I had a go at being part of something new, but as the last few years have shown, all these movements have been beset by the problems of ego and insular thinking. I came to the conclusion that the most likely way to create the country I’d like to see is by being part of changing our party from the inside. I don’t think it will be easy. Nor do I think there will be much point hanging around if, after a terrible election campaign, the party fails to listen and adapt.

Having had the chance to look from the outside and analyse our rivals, it’s quite clear the Lib Dems have lost their way as a campaigning force. As a former organiser I know how heretical it is to question our field campaigns – where simply slogging it out and dumping tonnes of paper through doors, regardless of what it says, will lead to ultimate victory. It hasn’t and it won’t.

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David Warren

Time for an electoral pact with Labour

By David Warren | Tue 17th December 2019 - 10:12 am

So the Tories have won again, no surprise there then, they usually do under our grossly unfair electoral system. The question is what do we do about it if we don’t want to see the Conservatives win power more often than not in the future.

Having a split opposition composed of centre left parties standing in every constituency against a right wing one is a recipe for further disasters. If we look at history we will see that on the majority of occasions when the Tories have been kept out of power have either been when there has been one dominant centre left party or when there has been some kind of electoral arrangement.

It was the Liberal Party back in the early part of the last century that recognised that the emerging Labour Party was going to damage its electoral prospects if something wasn’t done. What followed was a deal where in certain constituencies there was only a Labour or Liberal candidate facing the Tory not both.

Of course over time Labour supplanted us as the main opposition and the first Labour government only happened due to Liberal support in the commons. During that brief administration serious discussions were held regarding a change to a proportional voting system for Westminster elections. It is a tragedy that they failed.

It is no coincidence that the period of Labour’s high tide also coincided with the nadir of British Liberalism. Since 1974 Liberals have once again been a significant force in our nations politics and the Tories have benefited.

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John Grout

A practical, radical response to the election result

By John Grout | Mon 16th December 2019 - 2:30 pm

We see you. You, who would return our party to the comfortable, squishy, managerial centrism of the past. You, who would lay the blame for our defeats solely at the feet of a leader who had the temerity to be a young, outspoken woman. You, who are desperate to hark back to the 1990s when the 2020s are upon us in days. We see you and we will resist you, as we have at every previous election review.

It would be wrong to apportion any election result to a single cause. But let us not forget that Bollocks to Brexit was …

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Paul Hodgkinson

All I want for Christmas is my Party back

By Paul Hodgkinson | Mon 16th December 2019 - 12:16 pm

I’ve now had a chance to catch up on sleep and am able to think rationally about the election and what has happened to us as a party.

Go back to election day itself and, having spent 8 hours knocking on doors in Cheltenham in the cold and rain, I got home, had a hot bath and sat down to watch the BBC exit poll before going to my local count in Cirencester.

I can honestly say I loathe exit polls – I’ve only ever been pleased with two in my whole life (1997 and 2005) but the rest have …

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Luke Binney

Decisions, decisions…

By Luke Binney | Mon 16th December 2019 - 10:35 am

It has been four days since the General Election, one which, I`m sure, will be considered one of the nation’s most historically significant, as well as one that will have longer lasting implications. This is true not only for the country, but for the Liberal Democrats as a party.

From my perspective there are two, major, ways in which this may impact this party, with decisions needing to be made regarding them.

The first is the one which, irrespective of the outcome of Brexit, will be something the party can, and already is, talking about. This being whether the party should see …

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Mark Valladares

Brexit – it’s time to accept that we’ve lost. There’s a new battle to fight…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 16th December 2019 - 7:55 am

I’m a pro-European. I’ve been involved in European politics as an active ALDE Party member for some years now. And it grieves me to say this but… we’ve lost. Complain about the voting system, about the lies, the sheer injustice of the thing, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Conservatives got their majority and will end the debate about our membership of the European Union in seven weeks. They’ve got a mandate, like the one we would have claimed had we won.

I’ve received a number of invitations to join a group seeking to campaign to rejoin the European Union, and there may be a case to be made for that in the years ahead. But looking backwards gives you neckache, and liberals have a new task ahead, to make the case for liberal values and persuade the British public that our outward looking, inclusive stance isn’t just good in itself, but can actually being benefits to those who have felt failed by the political system.

And yes, that means making the case for a stronger, more secure relationship with our neighbours, holding the Conservatives to account when their choices are bad for our country, its people and the economy. It means having a vision for how that relationship will look, and a willingness to argue for it. What are the benefits to voters in Sunderland, or Lowestoft, or Truro, of a closer trading relationship with Europe? And what are the concessions we might have to make?

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Caron Lindsay

Sal Brinton on the next steps for the Liberal Democrats

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 15th December 2019 - 9:53 pm

Party president Sal Brinton has emailed party members tonight to let them know what is happening with the general election review and leadership election.

The Federal Board discussed both yesterday.

We decided that everyone was knackered over the election and needed a rest over Christmas. The Federal Board meeting in January will look again at when to hold the leadership election but the feeling was that we aren’t in a massive hurry. The process takes around 9 weeks once it is kicked off.

I think this is a good idea. The 2015 leadership election was conducted when we were all still grieving after the result and was a pretty gruesome affair as a result.

We need to rest and recharge before we do anything.

Here is Sal’s email.

I want to thank you for all your hard work over the last six weeks. Everyone did everything they could in this campaign but the result has been deeply disappointing.

Despite Liberal Democrats gaining 1.2m votes and our share of the vote increasing in every region of the UK, we are now one seat down compared to 2017. Under a proportional system, we would now have 84 MPs.

In many contests, we achieved some of the biggest ever swings in election history. But in six tight races, we lost by just a few hundred votes.

For me, Jo missing out by just 149 votes was heartbreaking. In her time as Leader, she gave us hope about a new progressive politics. If you missed her moving speech you can see it here.

We also lost too many other exceptional MPs: Jane Dodds, Tom Brake, Stephen Lloyd, Luciana Berger, Chuka Umunna, Sarah Wollaston, Sam Gyimah, Philip Lee, Angela Smith and Antoinette Sandbach. Each had made their mark as outstanding MPs standing up for liberal principles. We will miss them all.

And of course, to see the Conservatives win a majority after their disgraceful campaign is appalling. As was Nicola Sturgeon’s awful reaction to Jo’s news.

Our task now is to learn and look ahead.

Under the Party Constitution, if the Leader loses their seat, the Deputy Leader in the Commons and the President jointly take on the role of co-interim Leader. Ed Davey and I are already working closely together.

I am delighted to say that Mark Pack has been elected as Party President from 1 January, and I will hand my share of that role to him then.

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Caron Lindsay

How are you bearing up?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 15th December 2019 - 5:04 pm

Two days on from the sheer awfulness of Friday morning, how are you bearing up?

I have not yet finished with the crying. I spent much of Friday in tears. I’d got home from the count at about 7:30 after nipping in to Scottish HQ at Clifton Terrace to await the results from Orkney and Shetland.

I then went home and wrote this, almost falling asleep many times as I did so. Then, after three hours’ sleep, spent the afternoon crying and talking to various people. Then Jo spoke and I cried some more. How on earth she managed to come up with something so well thought through after what she had been through is incredible.

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Caron Lindsay

The best way to work out the way forward

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 15th December 2019 - 3:11 pm

Over the next wee while, we’ll have to reflect on what went wrong in the election and how we can avoid some of the mistakes in the future.

We know that our vote share went up more than any other party’s. Our bonkers electoral system ended up giving us one fewer seat. The Tories gained a quarter of what we did and were rewarded with tens of seats. But we thought we were going to end up with many more MPs. We should have ended up with more MPs. The narrow losses in places like Carshalton where we lost Tom Brake by 400, Sheffield Hallam, where the brilliant Laura Gordon didn’t win the seat by 700, Wimbledon where we lost by 600 and, of course, Jo’s seat where fell short by just 149 should have been avoided.

The reasons why it all went wrong are varied and we shouldn’t rush to blame it all on the Revoke policy. Remember that 6 million people signed a petition calling for exactly that just 6 months ago and even in the latter stages of the election, it was still the most popular policy amongst remainers.

We need to look at our targeting strategy, the way in which we asked activists to move around the country and the seats we asked them to move to.  We need to look at our messaging and how we appealed to Labour remainers.  I think we needed to emphasise that our manifesto was the most redistributive of the three main parties. It did more to help the poorest. I think we should have been shouting that much louder. And we had a brilliant policy to provide free childcare that was not mentioned nearly enough.

We need to look at that decision to push for an election in the first place. I was not convinced that the timing was right. I understand that the EU was less than convinced about granting another extension and that the support for the election  provided them with motivation to do so. I understand that the prospect of a People’s Vote was waning with Labour’s refusal to actually vote for it in Parliament. I understand that it looked like the Withdrawal Agreement could go through with Labour votes. But, if we had left it, would we have been any worse off than we are now? 

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Paul Fisher

Democracy in the Liberal Democrat family

By Paul Fisher | Sun 15th December 2019 - 1:11 pm

Liberal Democrats are agreed on equality and democracy, right? We all assume that this so. I am reminded of the old adage that to ‘assume’ can sometimes ‘make an ass of you and me’ (ass-u-me)!

In the run up to the European Parliamentary Elections in April 2019, we went through the procedure for the selection of our candidates for each European Parliamentary Constituency and, as expected, Party HQ sent out emails informing all the Membership of the process for these elections. Good so far? Many LibDem members living outside the UK were registered and eligible to vote in these European Parliamentary …

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 4 Comments
Leon Duveen

My first thoughts on the way forward

By Leon Duveen | Sun 15th December 2019 - 10:55 am

As I start writing this post, it is less than 24 hours since the polls closed and that dreadful Exit Poll was published so this is to some extent a first draft of what where I think we got it wrong and why we must not assume that we have 4 years to prepare for the next General Election. I am writing and publishing it to start a discussion rather than be dogmatic about what needs to be done, so please join in and give our new President and new Leader a start in working out how to move forward.  Also I haven’t focused on policy issues, more on processes as that is where I think we need to learn the lessons.

This was the third General Election since I joined the Lib Dems and I could not be as engaged this time as I had been in 2015 & 2017 for work and  personal reasons. This gave me a better opportunity to observe what was going on this time with the knowledge of having been a candidate myself before.

Firstly, I don’t think we should attach any blame to the incredibly hard-working teams up and down the county both in target seats and in “no hope” ones. From what I saw, many people went above and beyond what could be expected of volunteers. Yes, I am sure mistakes were made and I hope every seat holds a post-mortem in the new year to look at what they could do better. That said I am not sure, even if they did everything they could do and did it exceptionally well, it would have made a substantial difference.

This brings me to my second and main point. General Elections are decided by  what voters see on television, look at on social media, read in the newspaper and hear in the radio, probably in that order. Sadly for us, much of the access to these outlets, especially television & newspapers, is controlled by a media that since 2010 has been hostile to us and done its best to misrepresent us and exclude us. I don’t think this will change in the next few years. We can’t simply moan about it. We need to factor it into our plans for the next General Election. And, as we cannot be sure the next Election will not be until May 2nd 2014, we must start getting those plans ready in January.

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Dominic Buxton

Jo, you smashed that glass ceiling! Thank you!

By Dominic Buxton | Sun 15th December 2019 - 8:55 am

It’s fair to say that these have been a disappointing set of election results. I don’t want to get into the election campaign itself, but instead I want to thank Jo Swinson.

I am beyond proud of the leadership Jo has provided in these volatile political times. Her dedication to upholding and defending liberal values in the face of extremist politics has not gone unnoticed and has set an example for all of us. Although her leadership of the Liberal Democrats was short-lived, she has been an extraordinary leader, and I truly mean that. She has provided a home for millions of Remainers and given a voice to all of those who want to fight for liberal values and build a fairer and more equal society.

I first met Jo properly at a climate strike in London in February this year and was then privileged to be part of her leadership campaign team. In the short time I’ve known Jo, her dedication to the Liberal Democrat cause has shone through. She is one of the most honourable and decent politicians of our time. I know Jo as someone who, regardless of popularity, always stays true to her values, questions the way things are and doesn’t just settle for the status quo. She never compromises on what she believes in and consistently has the best interests of others at heart. I am proud of the campaign she ran – it was bold, energetic and inspiring. She never avoided scrutiny, faced tough audiences and questions and was at the receiving end of a lot of abuse, often underlined by a repulsive tone of misogyny. That ‘girly swot’ stood her ground and definitely didn’t let anything stop her.

As Jo said in her speech to party members the day after the election, “One of the realities of smashing glass ceilings is that a lot of broken glass comes down on your head” – boy did she smash that glass ceiling. She became the first woman to lead the Liberal Democrats, brought in MPs who had been abandoned by their old parties, gave a home to those who wanted to stop Brexit and fearlessly led the Liberal Democrats into the election campaign – for that, we owe Jo an enormous debt of gratitude. I can say proudly with great conviction that my faith in Jo has certainly not been misplaced.

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Mark Pack

Mark Pack writes…The challenges ahead for the party

By Mark Pack | Sat 14th December 2019 - 4:00 pm

I am honoured and delighted to have been elected as President of the Liberal Democrats.

The news is overshadowed by the results of the general election where, in amongst the individual brilliant results, there were so many disappointments and tragedies. After such a promising start as our party leader only a few months ago, Jo’s own defeat is particularly saddening.

Our increased share of the vote, more second places and enlarged party membership, added to the fantastic growth in our local government base earlier in the year, does, however, provide us with the foundations to recover from. As does the welcome progress in making our Parliamentary Party more diverse.

It will be a big and challenging agenda for the party’s new leader, supported by us across the party and one I will now have the responsibility of helping shape and deliver as your President.

Thank you especially to everyone who helped get me elected, to my campaign manager and agent, Janet Grauberg and Pete Dollimore, and to the party staff for running the contest at such a busy time. Thank you also to Christine Jardine for a campaign carried out in such good humour.

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Paul Pettinger

Prioritising soft Conservative voters will always lead to failure

By Paul Pettinger | Sat 14th December 2019 - 12:30 pm

I strongly agree with Nick Barlow’s call yesterday for the Party to do some serious introspection. We failed to properly do so after 2014 and 2015 and we won’t proceed on firm foundations until we do.

One reason the 2019 General Election campaign was so disastrous for us was because Labour leaning remainers went back to supporting Labour in droves. Other parties attempt to squeeze us at every Election, so this shouldn’t be a surprise. But what should deeply concern us is the degree to which Labour’s squeeze took effect and what we did to help make this happen.

The …

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Brian Robinson

A Progressive Alliance for 2024

By Brian Robinson | Sat 14th December 2019 - 10:12 am

My conclusion from the election is simple. Progressive parties cannot fight each other next time. Instead, we must unite against the populist right. With our current electoral system it may be the only way to win.

So I have a proposal. But I warn you, many of you will not like it.

First, we must elect a new leader and so, according to their own timetable, will Labour. For a while we continue to develop our own individual policy platforms. Then, in about two years’ time, the four progressive parties of England and Wales come together and agree a common manifesto for …

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Dealing with lies

By Tom Arms | Sat 14th December 2019 - 8:20 am

All politicians lie. That is what we are told anyway. If they told the truth, it is argued,  they would never be elected.

The problem with that belief is that it undermines the very foundations of democracy. If you cannot believe your elected representatives than what is the point in elections? They become no more than expensive political theatre.

It certainly seems that the 21st century political arena is filled with more mendacity than previous years, and the instances of misinformation and disinformation appear to be multiplying. The question is: How to deal with the increasing number of lies before they damage our political institutions beyond repair.

Adam Price, leader of the Welsh Nationalist Party Plaid Cymru thinks he has the answer: Make intentional political lying a criminal offence. That is an interesting idea, but not the right answer.  Hit them where it really hurts–in their bank accounts– by extending the laws of libel to social media.

Winston Churchill is alleged to have said that “a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” In today’s social media world of the internet, trolls, hacks, cyber attacks and 24/7 news, a lie can be orbiting the North Star before truth even thinks of climbing out from under the duvet.

The Internet is the greatest boon to freedom of speech since the Gutenberg press. Billions of people now have access to the greatest body of information at any time in history. But every action has a reaction and they are not always good. Even the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has recognised that his digital offspring is a mixed blessing.

There has been talk of regulating social media. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has been hauled before parliamentary committees on both sides of the Atlantic and told that he has to find a way of preventing his cash cow digital platform from becoming a vehicle for fake news. He has been told that he should employ tens of thousands of editors to plough through every posting – which run to the 1.62 billion accesses daily–and remove anything that smacks of lies and hate speech. On Twitter there are 500 million daily tweets. Their impact is multiplied by retweets and republication on traditional mainstream media.

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