Category Archives: Op-eds

Duncan Brack

Gladstone’s first government

By Duncan Brack | Wed 23rd January 2019 - 11:15 am

Looking for something to take your mind off Brexit? The Liberal Democrat History Group can help! One hundred fifty years and six weeks ago, on 3 December 1868, William Ewart Gladstone took office as Prime Minister at the head of what can reasonably be accounted as both the first identifiably Liberal government and the first modern administration.

Gladstone was eventually to serve as Prime Minister on four separate occasions. The most famous, recognisable and enduring of all the Liberal Party’s leaders, he dominated British politics for more than thirty years. He brought to the leadership of the party and the labours of ministerial office a physical and mental temperament unequalled among former prime ministers. A voracious reader and bibliophile, who found leisure in his closely argued studies of the classical poets Homer and Dante, he also had a passion for physical labour, expressed in walking, estate work at Hawarden (his wife’s family home in north Wales), and tree-felling.

As Chancellor during the 1850s, he established his reputation for prudent financial innovation by replacing taxes on goods and customs duties with a progressive income tax and established parliamentary accountability for government spending. He swept away import duties on hundreds of products and established free trade almost as an article of faith. Although firmly devoted to the Church of England, he won strong support from Nonconformists for his attitude to religious questions, which at that time affected basic liberties as well as such matters as education.

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Mark Argent

Out of Brexit Chaos part 1: People’s Vote

By Mark Argent | Wed 23rd January 2019 - 7:35 am

Introduction

The Brexit process began as an internal Tory party squabble, but its resolution has to move from there to mature thinking about the future.

This means asking the rest of the EU for a significant extension to the Article 50 period. This is not for significant further negotiation — if Brexit has to happen, May’s deal is pretty good — but to enable things to be done with considered thinking about the future.

I suggest that the process needs a People’s Vote, but on a longer timetable than people are proposing to allow adequate preparation. It requires a Government of National Unity to provide stability for this to happen, and for enough time afterward for political parties to draw up manifestos in the light of the result, on which to have a General Election.

I’ll pick up the idea of a Government of National Unity a the second article (published tomorrow).

People’s Vote

Downing St recently drew criticism for suggesting that it could take a year to organise a People’s Vote. In the present state of anxiety, it is tempting to accelerate the process, but my plea is for it to be given more time because it is more than just enabling people to put crosses on ballot papers. Several things lie behind this:

Preserving democracy

Referenda risk undermining representative democracy. Unless the question is very specific, they carry a sense that those elected can’t be trusted. Proceeding too quickly now risks compounding this it can be spun as “MPs couldn’t fix this, so the people had to”, and inviting an “anti-politics vote”.

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Malcolm Wood

Relax! Brexit is going perfectly

By Malcolm Wood | Tue 22nd January 2019 - 11:55 am

If you were hoping to see Britain make an orderly and dignified exit
from the EU on 29th March this year then I imagine you think that the
Brexit process is going very badly indeed. But if, like me, you hope
that Britain doesn’t leave the EU at all, then I think you should be
delighted with how things are progressing.

Some of the problems currently besetting the Brexit process were
predictable from the beginning. It was clear even during the 2016
referendum campaign that people were voting Leave for a wide variety
of reasons, which (being generous) could not all be satisfied at once.
To put it another way: regardless of the eventual terms of exit, when
asked “Do you want to leave on *these* terms”, a majority of British
people would say “No”.

But a lot of the things that are crippling the Brexit process now were
not nearly so predictable. The unexpected result of the 2017
election, which suddenly gave huge influence to the DUP, thwarted the
only obvious way to satisfy the exit conditions laid down by the prime
minister – which required some divergence between Great Britain and
Northern Ireland – and helped to ensure that the resulting withdrawal
agreement was unpalatable to many MPs. The legal ruling secured by
Gina Miller ensured that MPs got a “meaningful” vote on the withdrawal
agreement – and roundly rejected it. And the legal ruling that the UK
can unilaterally revoke article 50 meant that MPs *could* reject the
withdrawal agreement without fear of it automatically resulting in a
“no deal” exit. As a Remainer, you couldn’t ask for a more perfect
combination of events!

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Caron Lindsay

Fee waived for EU nationals – but that doesn’t make the process right

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 22nd January 2019 - 10:25 am

The 3 million EU nationals in this country may no longer have to pay a fee for settled status but that doesn’t mean that we can have any confidence in the process. It doesn’t mean that we should be any less angry that our friends and neighbours and family and partners are being put through this. They were citizens, free to enjoy pretty much the same rights as us. Overnight they become people who are subject to immigration control.

If we could trust the Home Office to make humane, reasonable, rational decisions about people’s lives, it would still be insulting to these people that we are putting them through it, but we could at least have reason to believe that they would be treated fairly.

The thing is, the Home Office often makes heartless, inhumane and unreasonable decisions that defy any sort of fairness.

The most recent example is that of an elderly Iranian couple who have owned a house in Edinburgh for four decades and who are an integral part of the support system for their grandson with autism. There is, by the way, a petition to the Home Office which I would urge you to sign. Adverse publicity can sometimes help, so do what you can to spread the word. 

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Caron Lindsay

Fight like a liberal

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 22nd January 2019 - 8:55 am

I’ve had an individual membership of ALDE, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, for a couple of years now. As our membership of the EU was under threat, it seemed important to be a part of that wider movement of European Liberals.

I renewed my subs recently and paid a little bit more for a “Fight like a Liberal” wristband. It’s the ALDE slogan for the European elections. Yes, that’s right, that monolithic superstate decried by Brexiteers was underpinned by a Parliament. It’s not perfect. It needs more powers, but democracies evolve. And the Brexiteers are howling with outrage as our own Parliament threatens to take back the control it was promised in the referendum. When we have a minority government doing catastrophic things, you rather expect that the more sensible MPs will step up and sort things out.

Anyway, my wristband arrived yesterday and it actually made me feel a bit sad. Because we should be gearing up to fight a European election. We shouldn’t be distracted by all this Brexit nonsense. We should be, as the slogan goes, fighting like liberals against the forces of hard right populism across the continent.

It made me think about all the other European campaigns I’ve fought or been aware of in my life.

1979 was the first proper Euro election. I was 11 and in Inverness. Winnie Ewing was always going to win that one and she did.

By 1984, I was heavily involved in the SDP and got into terrible trouble for propping up a Russell Johnston leaflet in my bedroom window. I remember delivering his leaflets in Wick as my parents were following me with Tory ones. It was a forlorn hope, though, because Winnie won again.

1989 was the disaster year when we were down to an asterisk. I was also living in Ayrshire where Lib Dems weren’t exactly in plentiful supply. I was the only one in our village.

By 1994, I was down in the East Midlands. North Notts and Chesterfield formed a constituency and we had a candidate, Susie Pearce, from Aylesbury. That campaign was hilarious fun. You have to wonder how Paul Holmes ever got selected to be MP for Chesterfield when he worked us so hard. Although I remember being told off as his campaign manager because he was just short of about 90% of the vote in that selection. Never one to underestimate anyone’s capacity for work, not only did he have us weighing out a million election addresses from a young council candidate’s flat, he decided we could stuff 40,000 target letters for a by-election in Bradford too.

We pulled a few all-nighters but we had some great laughs and got a good result locally. And nationally, Graham Watson and Robin Teverson were elected in the South West.

At that time we kept winning no-hope by-elections from Labour and the Euros were another staging post for the Council elections in 1995 (which didn’t go so well for us in the end) and Tony Rogers’ 1997 election bid which got us into position to win the seat in 2001.

By 1999, we had proportional representation and a real hope of winning our first Parliamentarian in the East Midlands since 1931. We’d survived the battles of zipping – making sure that the PR lists were gender balanced. And, do you know what? It worked. 

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Geoffrey Payne

The End of the End of History

By Geoffrey Payne | Mon 21st January 2019 - 3:36 pm

Back in 1992 Francis Fukuyama wrote a highly influential but seriously flawed book; “The End of History and the Last Man”. The general idea was that after the fall of the Berlin Wall the great ideological conflict between liberal democracy and communism had been settled. Liberal democracy had won, was spreading rapidly around the world and in due course every country would become a one. Good would triumph over evil.

The end of history meant the end of ideological conflict. Democracy would continue but the disagreements would be relatively minor. Ironically this view was similar to the Marxist belief in historical …

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Maurice Leeke

Snap Election – Threat or Opportunity

By Maurice Leeke | Mon 21st January 2019 - 1:05 pm

So, according to the press, Local Conservative Associations have been put on alert for a potential General Election on 28th February. This would presumably be intended to solve the Brexit crisis – though for the life of me I cannot see quite how.

I have no idea what the chances are of an election happening on that date, but it might be worthwhile for Liberal Democrats to think about how we might respond practically if it were to happen.

Let us assume a) that the Tory position in such an election would be to back the May/EU Deal, and b) the Labour …

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Tony Harms

Towards a Referendum Programme for Remain

By Tony Harms | Mon 21st January 2019 - 11:00 am

The original remain campaign was negative and defensive. Nigel Farage, in his debate with Nick Clegg, has been described as “pushing on an open door”. Is all we can offer negatives – there is no European Army – there is no federal state – Turkey is not going to become a member – when all of these things are partly untrue?

Our opponents will say that “remain in the EU as we were before” would be to ignore the previous result; to betray the people’s vote, to disillusion the country and cast doubt on democracy itself.

The Remain …

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David Chadwick

Leaving London

By David Chadwick | Mon 21st January 2019 - 9:12 am

Britain is one of the most overcentralized countries in the Western world. Our political and financial institutions are concentrated in London, perpetuating regional inequality and overburdening the capital’s underfunded public services.

London might be open but it’s also full: strangers share bedrooms; commuters collapse on crowded trains, gentrification ravages local communities, savings accounts stay empty and the Westminster bubble remains as tight and cosy as ever.

There seems to be no end in sight to London-centrism. Jobs flow to London without serious consideration being paid to whether or not they might be better off elsewhere. For example, in 2015 George Osborne decided …

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Lib Dem Immigrants

Lib Dem Immigrants: Lib Dems lead the fight for a more inclusive People’s Vote

By Lib Dem Immigrants | Sun 20th January 2019 - 7:25 pm

“Ministers agree to consider Lib Dem plans for new referendum”  say the headlines.

This is a victory not only for the party and our chances of stopping Brexit, but also for the millions of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens around the world who were excluded from voting in 2016.

At Conference in Brighton in September, Lib Dem members condemned this injustice, and passed policy that EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens abroad must be included in all future referendums.

Lib Dem Immigrants are proud that our party refuses to treat immigrants and emigrants as afterthoughts, and recognizes that wherever a person comes from, they are equally deserving of respect and representation.

We are glad that our MPs are vigorously arguing this case in their discussions with Ministers.

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Caron Lindsay

Be prepared: We could well be heading for a General Election

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 20th January 2019 - 3:44 pm

I am starting to think that the likelihood of a General Election is rising.

Theresa May’s options are limited.

She could probably get a majority of MPs to back a Norway style Brexit if she put some effort into it. She could have done that two years ago. But that would split her party. So she won’t.

She could, as Vince suggested to her, put her own deal to the British people. But every poll that has been done on that possibility suggests that it would lose against a Remain option. However right that would be, it would split her party and leave her with a huge amount of egg on her face.

Or she could go for an election by the same mechanism she used in 2017 – a motion in the House of Commons backed by 2/3. Corbyn could hardly vote against it given that he has been calling for an election for months. We should vote against it, by the way, on the grounds that it won’t solve Brexit and we don’t trust the Government to behave itself with the powers that the EU Withdrawal Act gives it while Parliament is dissolved.

Now, I get that it is unlikely that she could find a manifesto promise on Brexit that her entire party would unite behind. She might consider that it doesn’t matter, though. Because she’ll make the election about going after Corbyn. We saw from Michael Gove’s closing speech in the No Confidence debate the other night a glimmer of what they would unleash in his direction. Every picture of him with dodgy people will be coming to a billboard near you – and he really hasn’t helped himself this week by refusing to talk to May when he’s talked to all sorts of nefarious characters with the stated intention of sorting out the Middle East or Northern Ireland.

I know that May has promised not to lead the Conservatives into another election but her argument would be that Parliament was frustrating the will of the people. This vote, though, would be a chance, however unlikely,  to get her the parliamentary majority which she came within a few thousand votes of getting in 2017. Then she could govern relatively untroubled until 2023. Although she shouldn’t take too much comfort from that prospect given how Major’s last five years as PM went.

And, with Parliament dissolved, heaven knows what the Government would do in terms of illiberal and unscrutinised instrument and order throughout the election campaign. The EU Withdrawal Act does give it a lot of untrammelled power, after all.

An election wouldn’t solve Brexit, of course. She couldn’t get a third of her own MPs to vote for her deal and that is unlikely to change. But that is not what it is about. 

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Caron Lindsay

Ten years on, we need to rekindle the hope and optimism of Obama’s inauguration

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 20th January 2019 - 10:20 am

Ten years ago, I watched, full of hope and optimism, as Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th US President.

I didn’t get to concentrate on his speech as our hamster, Powder Puff, became ill and passed away at the critical moment. For that she will never be forgotten.

The speech itself was a turning away from the divisive politics of the Bush years.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation. But in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

There were two parts that have stayed with me. The first was a very clear message to the world:

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

And that restatement of the values that would underpin his presidency:

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.

I loved the inclusion of curiosity in that list – an open-minded quest to learn more, to explore.

We need to get back to this way of doing things. And we need to learn about how we can do it better.

When you look at the steps forward Obama made on climate change, how he managed to avoid a depression at a time of global financial crisis, how he persevered with health care where others had failed, how he made progress in relation with Iran and Cuba, how he stood up for equal marriage and inclusion, how he struggled for years with a Republican Congress determined to block the progress to which he was committed, he is easily the best President of my lifetime. What he achieved was remarkable by any standards. He was maybe too hesitant in foreign policy at times but understandably so given the failed Bush intervention in Iraq. He maybe wasn’t able to do enough to help those people who had been hit hardest by the financial crash. However, it is worth noting that at the end of his Presidency, 3 million more people voted for the Democrat who tried to succeed him than for his successor.

Looking back, we were incredibly lucky to have him. He governed with calmness, wisdom and principle. How did we go from this to a successor who throws a strop on Twitter every time something happens that he doesn’t like.

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Michael Taylor

The past can be useful

By Michael Taylor | Fri 18th January 2019 - 11:55 am

My wife, Ruth, has had a collection of boxes, originally some 30 strong, in which she stored both personal and political stuff, waiting for the opportune moment to open them and sort out the treasure trove within.

That job is now underway and there are minutes of both NLYL and ULS as well as a huge collection of newsletters produced by all manner of Liberal activists in the late sixties and seventies. Radical Bulletin, Gunfire, New Outlook, Liberator and a whole raft of local stuff from Young Liberal and Liberal Student groups from Scotland to Cornwall. It even included some copies of Clockwork Orange, a Manchester ULS publication that I started in 1971/2 and that was then carried on by Pat Coleman.

Political discourse in the 60s and 70s was carried out by meeting and pamphlet.

Ruth reminded me that Young Liberal branches often met weekly to discuss politics and campaigns, actually campaigned most weekends and met up socially as well.

There were frequent conferences on political issues and both the Young Liberals and the Liberal Party had council meetings on a regular basis (the ‘Council’ was the policymaking body between Conferences), primarily on political issues.

Liberal Party Constituency and branch meetings were at least monthly. In short, our politics centred on meeting together, talking about ideas and putting them down on paper for discussion in order to get out and campaign together.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Dead, not buried

By Tom Arms | Fri 18th January 2019 - 8:55 am

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal is dead. It is just not buried.

The Prime Minister hopes to raise it Lazarus-like and present herself as a political Messiah. But her deal has been shot, knifed, strangled, knocked over the head with the candlestick and thrown into a ditch.

To put the chances of a political miracle into perspective, let us look at the next worse defeat in modern British political history.  The current British government lost by 230 votes. The next nearest defeat was in 1924. Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour government  had dropped a prosecution against John Ross Campbell, editor of the communist newspaper “The Workers’ Weekly” after he published an article calling on the British armed forces to mutiny in support of a socialist revolution. In that case the majority against the government was a mere 160.

Theresa May likes to portray herself as strong and stable leader with a Churchillian touch of the British bulldog.  A better description would be bull headed.

Parliament has given the Prime Minister until Monday to perform her miracle and come up with a Plan B. She has responded by calling a meeting of all party leaders that will dispense with red lines and reach a compromise, breathe new life into the EU Withdrawal Bill and win over 230 dissenting members of parliament.  If this miracle were to happen the result would be a horribly stitched Frankenstein monster .

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Edwin Black

Liberal Anti-Fascism

By Edwin Black | Thu 17th January 2019 - 3:30 pm

The death of Pawel Adamowicz marks a turning point.

With the rise of the right there has been a spike in political violence in Europe and in the US. Bombs are being thrown, people threatened, and people killed in the name of so-called “populism”. The moment Adamowicz’s killer linked his actions with allegations levelled at the Civic Platform group of politicians is the moment when it became a political act.

The same goes for the murder of the MP Jo Cox. These are symptoms of the augmentation of what we deem as populism to a far more reactionary line of thinking, which will end, organically, in all out fascism. These exact paths have been trodden before.

What can liberals do about it? Adamowicz’s life was one of political action. As a student he organised protests and strikes across Poland during the time of Soviet occupation. He was a champion of minority rights and those of the LGBT community. He was, for all the things he did and said, a good man. I say that we ought to follow his example.

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Chris Nelson

The path to victory lies through Brexit Britain. As Remainers, we need to show them we’re on their side

By Chris Nelson | Thu 17th January 2019 - 12:30 pm

This week in Parliament we might just have scored the first victory in our long march to a People’s Vote. Now, if a referendum is truly close at hand, the hard work must now start: we need to convince Brexit Britain that it ought to change its mind.

Sure, Remain’s supposedly got an eight-point lead in the opinion polls. But that was true in 2016… plus ça change?

To win, we must convince Leave voters in places like the East Midlands town of Wellingborough, where I live and had the pleasure to be Lib Dem candidate at the last General Election. In many ways this ought to be natural Remain territory: it’s a diverse town, with both a mosque and an ornate Hindu temple. Local voters elected New Labour in 1997, electing a MP who called for the legislation of cannabis, and we even host an annual Pride event in a town centre park. Yet we voted Leave by 63% and are represented by arch-Brexiteer and Sven-Goran Eriksson lookalike Peter Bone.

How did this happen? When you speak to ordinary voters, the mystery becomes clear. Yes, it is true that some voters talk of immigration, a lost identity or misplaced notions of ‘lost sovereignty’. For most Brexit voters, however, the root causes of Brexit are emphatically human: they feel let down and left behind by politicians in Westminster and (yes) Brussels, and they feel buffeted from the consequences of a fragile global economy. Above all they feel they’ve lost control.

These are people who see ever more fragile employment, with an explosion in zero-hour contracts and ten years of pay restraint, coupled with impossible house prices. They see an education system failing to deliver practical skills, with FE colleges where funding has been cut to the bone and where those without a degree are ever more marginalised. In town centres they seem the places they are proud of become ever more empty, bereft of the brands with which they are familiar. And, as they struggle to take control over their lives, is it any wonder that the pledges and half-truths of the Leave campaign were so attractive?

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Bernard Aris

Dutch Parliamentary Brexit-watchers roundly condemn flippancy towards British people

By Bernard Aris | Thu 17th January 2019 - 10:00 am

As everybody reading the excellent study of history since Caesar’s times of the North Sea trade by Oxford historian and former BBC journalist Michael Pye, “The Edge of the World: How the North Sea made us what we are” can attest, the trade relations between the British/English and the Dutch (Frisians) Celtic tribes was the beginning of 20 centuries of close economic and ethnic ties. The DNA of inhabitants of areas from Kent to York is indistinguishable from that of people living in Friesland and Holland in the Netherlands; and Frisian is halfway the English and Dutch language. Migration and trade in wool, cloth, grain, herring, etc., been going on, even when Napoleon didn’t want it to (1803-1813); John Locke wrote important (Liberal) books seeking shelter here.

Ever since the 4th Anglo-Dutch war (1780-’84), the Dutch have recognised the British as their senior and vital partner in those economic and cultural relations; and the Dutch pressed general De Gaulle to admit England in the EEC for those same reasons.

But one aspect of how the Dutch see the British people and British politics has been fundamentally changed by the way the UK has been handling the Brexit problem, from the Referendum campaign in spring 2016 to the present day. That can be concluded by what 3 of the 4 official “Brexit Watching delegates” of the Dutch parliament said on Dutch public radio on Wednesday, 14th of January 2019; coincidentally those 3 were from parties of the present Dutch government coalition, so important advisors of both parliament and government.

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Kirsten Johnson

Parliament debates Mental Health First Aid

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 17th January 2019 - 8:19 am

The Backbench debate on incorporating Mental Health First Aid into First Aid At Work legislation is scheduled to take place this morning in Parliament.

The Government statement on this is here, with a debate pack pdf link at the bottom entitled, “Mental health first aid in the workplace”.

One of the reasons I entered politics, as a career musician, was my concern over mental health care and the lack of provision for those experiencing mental ill-health.

In March 2015 I successfully amended Liberal Democrat party policy on Mental Health to include incorporating mental health first aid into physical First Aid at Work courses.

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Caron Lindsay

What should Vince say to Theresa?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th January 2019 - 8:54 pm

So Theresa May is going to be meeting with party leaders tonight and over the next few days to find a way forward on Brexit.

Which party leader is best qualified for facing her down on daft ideas? Our Vince sparred a lot with her when they were in Cabinet together. She hated immigration. As business minister, he saw its benefits and fought for student visas. 

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Mark Goodrich

Theresa May needs an LBJ

By Mark Goodrich | Wed 16th January 2019 - 2:45 pm

After the historically unprecedented defeat of May’s Brexit deal, what comes next?  In her speech to the House of Commons, Theresa May promised not to run the clock down and to reach out to senior parliamentarians to work out what Brexit deal could pass the House of Commons.  Unfortunately, this promising development was immediately undercut by briefing that she wished to maintain her “red lines” which just can’t be done if she wants to get a Brexit deal through Parliament.

It was said of Lyndon B Johnson that nobody knew better how to count votes in a legislature – an essential political skill in the USA where a division between the executive and the legislature is the norm.  Theresa May desperately needs an LBJ to tell her what deal can be passed in Parliament.

However, without claiming I have the skills of an LBJ, the size of the defeat makes it clear that she needs to switch 116 votes without losing any.  This rule out any minor fiddles and means she needs to find a group with that many votes to pass any legislation.  There are lots of smaller groupings with interesting ideas, but they don’t have the votes.

The only possible options with those kinds of votes are as follows:

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David Warren

Paddy And Tony A Cautionary Tale

By David Warren | Wed 16th January 2019 - 12:00 pm

Paddy Ashdown became the leader of the Liberal Democrats in 1988. He inherited a party which was not in a particularly good place.

The merger of the Liberal Party and the SDP had been difficult, to say the least, poll ratings were low.

Worse still Dr David Owen continued to lead a separate force supported by MPs Rosie Barnes and John Cartwright.

Thatcher appeared to be going on forever, still with a comfortable Commons majority and showing no signs of going anytime soon.

Labour under Neil Kinnock was modernising a party very much on the left.

Dreams of breaking the mould seemed a long way off for the newly formed Lib Dems. However, the space for a radical party of the centre-left still exited if it could be rebuilt.

The Continuing SDP were seen off within a short period following humiliation in a byelection in which they finished behind the Monster Raving Loony party, and despite a surge in the 1989 European elections, the Green challenge came to nothing.

By the 1992 General Election, the good ship of Liberalism had steadied, and the crisis seemed to be a thing of the past.

Then two years later Tony Blair came onto the scene.

Paddy quite rightly viewed Blair’s project of positioning Labour more in the centre as a challenge that couldn’t be ignored, and he sought to build a new relationship based on cooperation.

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Paul Tyler

Ruling for the Thanet South case

By Paul Tyler | Wed 16th January 2019 - 7:45 am

With all the other political high-jinks in Westminster, the long-awaited judgement in the Thanet 2015 General Election expenses case has probably not caught the attention of those most likely to be affected by it – Candidates and their Agents.

In brief, this outcome challenges some of the most commonly held interpretations of the electoral law. Moreover, it requires urgent parliamentary attention BEFORE any new poll.

Liberal Democrat activists may like to be reminded that even the Conservatives now accept that the current legal position cannot be allowed to continue. In the last few days of the June 2017 General Election (when the extent of charges was still in doubt) the Conservative Party issued the following statement:

“There is broad consensus that election law is fragmented, confused and unclear, with two different sets of legislation and poor guidance from the Electoral Commission. Conservatives are committed to strengthening electoral law.”

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Patrick Maxwell

What next?

By Patrick Maxwell | Tue 15th January 2019 - 11:55 am

Theresa May’s Brexit deal is dead in the water. This has been true for a while, but with no obvious mandate for the Withdrawal Agreement, however it is tweaked, the political future for the Prime Minister looks bleak. Her steel and resilience have been tested many times before and have so far survived, but the seemingly hopeless situation before her now may be the final time that Mrs May bleats out her rhetorical tangents. With a government in disarray and a poignantly undecided Opposition, the Lib Dems need to find a logical and realistic Parliamentary solution to break the impasse.

There is not yet any majority for anything in the House of Commons. The next few weeks may well change that, but it shall be a time of unprecedented turmoil and uncertainty. Mrs May was perhaps correct to say earlier yesterday that no Brexit has a more genuine chance of getting through Parliament than no-deal. Let us hope so. That said, it will certainly take some trying to turn over the referendum result in such a short period of time. 

The hard-Brexit rabble have proved themselves to be zealous and ineffective over the year, and their logistical failures in the Commons are doomed to continue. If there is a majority for one thing on the green benches, it is that against no-deal. The very notion of not having a proper and palatable relationship with the largest trading block in the world seems impractical at best and economically cataclysmic at worst. The first mission of the small yellow-striped army inside the Commons should therefore be to rally against such an eventuality. 

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Caron Lindsay

When will Commons drag itself into this century?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 15th January 2019 - 6:58 am

It’s horrifying to think that an MP has been forced to delay her caesarean section in order to vote on the Brexit deal tomorrow.

Hampstead and Kilburn’s Tulip Siddiq told The Standard

If my son enters the world even one day later than the doctors advised, but it’s a world with a better chance of a strong relationship between Britain and Europe, then that’s worth fighting for.”

The Royal Free has been very clear on their legal and health duties. This is a high risk pregnancy and I am doing this against doctor’s advice.

Any idea that a pairing arrangement would be honoured was blown apart by Brandon Lewis’s failure to honour the agreement with Jo Swinson when her baby Gabriel was just weeks old last Summer.

People were also horrified to see Labour MP Naz Shah, who was sick and in pain, wheeled through the voting lobby.

There is a much more humane way of doing this – allowing MPs who are incapacitated in some way to cast their votes by proxy. Nobody should have to be taken to their place of work by ambulance to perform part of their duties.

Jo Swinson made it clear how she felt about the situation:

You have to wonder if they’d have been swifter to act if any of the babies due had been pm their side.

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Leon Duveen

In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Good Will.

By Leon Duveen | Mon 14th January 2019 - 4:03 pm

As Remainers, we have lived by the first two parts of Churchill’s famous saying from World War Two in our fight against Brexit. We have been by turns both resolute and defiant.

Now, on the verge of victory (not yet certain I know but looking more likely) we need to start looking at how we can be magnanimous and promote, hopefully, good will. To do this, we need to look at the reasons why some many areas outside the main metropolitan areas voted to leave the EU.

The lack of affordable housing, the concentration of economic development in the Home Counties …

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Geoffrey Payne

Time for a Progressive Alliance?

By Geoffrey Payne | Mon 14th January 2019 - 11:02 am

There is a lot of noise on social media at the moment with Labour members having to confront the awful reality that Jeremy Corbyn really does support Brexit, and if he succeeds in passing a motion of no confidence in the government then that will be the general election policy of the Labour party too. Many are giving up on Labour and are looking for a progressive alternative. So how about the Lib Dems?

There is the question of the ownership of the word progressive. There was an odd debate at conference in 2016 which rejected the “Progressive Alliance” because it …

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems want a People’s Vote to stop Brexit. Corbyn can’t say what Labour would do

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 13th January 2019 - 11:30 am

The Sunday morning political programmes can be summarised as follows: Tory psychodrama (Sophy Ridge had three rounds of it), Labour obfuscation and Lib Dem consistency and clarity.

Just imagine that you were the Leader of the Opposition. You’re supposed to be showing leadership on the most important issue of most of our lifetimes. You talk about how you want a General Election, though you haven’t actually bothered to do anything to make one happen.

Then you’re asked what your policy in that General Election would be on the said major issue. Surely to goodness you would have something to tell people. You wouldn’t go on about how it still had to be decided by some party meeting. Surely you would have done that preparatory work already.  I mean, you’ve been going on about this General Election for months.

At least, if you wanted to show that you had even basic competence to run the country, you would be able to say where your party stood. If your policy was coming from principle and value, it would be instinctive.

Unfortunately, you don’t have to imagine any of this. It’s actually happening. The two paragraphs above is pretty much what Corbyn said on Marr this morning. And it’s pretty much what Rebecca Long-Bailey said on Sophy Ridge.

Corbyn did say, though, that if there was no General Election, he’d prefer a Brexit deal to a People’s Vote. He thinks he can go back to the EU and get what are essentially terms of full membership without being members. He said he wanted a customs union that enabled us to have a say in trade deals. And a unicorn that poos glittery rainbows. He didn’t say that last bit, but he might as well have done.

No wonder that Tom Brake tweeted:

Compare and contrast with a brilliant interview from Vince. He was incredibly clear and consistent.

  • Lib Dems want a People’s Vote because we oppose Brexit
  • Lib Dems oppose a Norway style compromise because we’d have all the expenses of EU membership but none of the say on policy
  • Cross-party working is happening and essential not just now but after this is all over to bring country together
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Caron Lindsay

Save the Date: Monday 14th January, 7pm

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 12th January 2019 - 5:04 pm

On Monday night at 7pm, the party will release a new video. It promises to be something that grabs us in the gut and will make a powerful case for a People’s Vote. The trailer looks good.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Fact Checking

By Tom Arms | Fri 11th January 2019 - 8:55 am

Donald Trump takes a reverse scientific approach to issues. He searches for the voters greatest fears; enunciates them in the most dramatic and divisive language possible; and then twists and invents facts and re-invents history to support his claims.

Some might say, so what? Isn’t that what every politician does?  Yes, but the President of the United States has taken the practice to an entirely new level, and in doing so has undermined a political class which was already standing on crumbling foundations.  The Washington Post, which keeps a tally of presidential lies, reported in his first 601 days of his presidency, Donald Trump lied or made misleading statements 5,000 times.

You would have thought that the Donald could have temporarily broken himself of this nasty habit when addressing the nation from behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.  Wrong.  Instead, his televised speech justifying the government shutdown and a demand for a southern border wall was possibly the best example yet of Donald Trump’s inability to speak the truth.

First off, there was no justification to use the tool of a televised address to the nation. There is no crisis. America is not being invaded. Terrorists are not flooding across US-Mexico border. These fears were manufactured by Donald Trump to insure his election to the White House and they are now being exaggerated to keep him there.

Trump is using the oldest political trick in the world. When in trouble create a crisis. Create an enemy. Offer a solution, the more expensive and grander the better. Trump’s crisis is the “invasion” from the south. The enemies are the Democrats, Hispanics and anyone who has a wish to live and work in the United States. The solution is a visible wall which Trump can point to and say: “See, look, there it is, the wall, I did something that no other president would.”.

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Bernard Aris

Desperate Brexiteers try to pick and choose

By Bernard Aris | Thu 10th January 2019 - 2:03 pm

According to The Independent, during the second instalment of the Brexit ‘Meaningful vote’ debate, Downing Street has agreed to let the Commons pick and choose around the crucial Backstop articles in the agreement Theresa May and Brussels reached. The agreement is legally binding, an official agreement or treaty between London and the EU.

On the Institute of Government website last December, former IoG expert Simon Hogarth said such an option could mean Downing Street violating its international obligations it freely entered into. That’s what the Hugo Swire Amendment is proposing.

If the Brexiteers in Downing Street or the Commons think this is going to wash in international politics, they are completely bonkers and political ignoramuses.

The Dutch know from bitter experience how swift, tough and compelling the international reaction will be if any country, Great Britain or small Netherlands, tries to opportunistically tinker with such a legally binding international agreement.

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