Category Archives: Op-eds

John King

Evidence-based politics is some way off, but the Brexit scandal will be a blockbuster story

By John King | Wed 19th April 2017 - 10:16 am

 

I’ve always been a strong believer in the scientific method, which is probably why the reasoning behind Brexit has baffled and dismayed me. In medicine, putting truth before dogma has resulted in effective treatments. Unfortunately though, it seems that politics has yet to learn this lesson, and seems to be intent on going in the opposite direction, with ideology and demagoguery trumping everything else.

At this point, I have a confession to make. Back in the 1980’s I wrote about the therapeutic potential of the sense of smell, illustrating with diagrams how it connected to the brain’s limbic system. It went viral and within a few years, many aromatherapists were portraying themselves as a new breed of neuroscientists.

Today aromatherapy is a lucrative industry, with even washing powders claiming to be therapeutic. In vain did I try to debunk, in the academic press, the enthusiastic claims that the essences of mother nature could cure everything from boils to bronchitis.1 This, like the Remain campaign, was ignored or attacked as a negative message.

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10 Comments
Duncan Greenland

Maximising the number of pro-European MPs

By Duncan Greenland | Wed 19th April 2017 - 8:55 am

Not just Liberal Democrats but small “l” liberals in all political parties should welcome the opportunity the June General Election will provide for voters to make clear their priorities by voting for candidates committed to the fight for us to maintain a continued close relationship with Europe.

In this increasingly uncertain world, there is nothing more important than that.

Those candidates will not just be Liberal Democrats.

If we want to maximise the strength of the opposition to May’s “hard Brexit”, the Lib Dems should have the courage to concentrate their limited resources on their candidates in seats that we can win this time ,which means making hard decisions about not squandering time,energy and money in seats that we cannot.

If we want to make a reality of any version of a progressive alliance, the Liberal Democrats cannot expect Labour to stand aside in some seats (or decide to make only a token effort )unless we are also prepared to stand aside (or make only a token effort) in selected seats where a pro-European Labour candidate has a very much better chance.

It will go against the grain – but it must be done!

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Paul Walter

General election – the right course of action for the country, but I have my suspicions as to the motives

By Paul Walter | Tue 18th April 2017 - 8:41 pm

Having a general election in June is absolutely the right course of action, for the good of the country.

We need it to clear the air and clarify the public’s view on Brexit.

The 23rd June 2016 referendum result was narrow, one dimensional and controversial.

We need a full general election to have a debate which clarifies the Brexit mandate.

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22 Comments
Arnold Kiel

Is the Euro a good reason for Euroscepticism and Brexit?

By Arnold Kiel | Tue 18th April 2017 - 7:41 pm

I often read here that the Euro has pushed Southern Europe, and indirectly somewhat also the UK, into misery and that the EU is therefore a doomed project that must be left. I could not disagree more.

Greece did not develop any competitive employment, especially for the qualified, since joining the EU 1981. Its dominant public and partially closed private sectors do not have the economic structures of a developed industrialized country. Strong growth in the last ten years has been based on public and private consumption financed by the EU and an uncontrolled amassment of debt. The disappearance of cheap money and the resulting fall in demand have brought record unemployment perpetuated by structural standstill.

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29 Comments
Joe Otten

My take on the decision to go to the country

By Joe Otten | Tue 18th April 2017 - 3:40 pm

My thoughts so far:

1. The timing is reasonably good before Brexit negotiations start in earnest. We are likely to lose a few weeks, and Article 50 day would have been a better choice on this count.

2. The PM is going on about the strength of her position, and how important this is in negotiations. There’s a certain amount of bluster here. A successful election reinforces her position in the House of Commons – it does nothing to induce EU governments to give us what we want.

3. The Tories are complaining about opposition existing and opposing. This must mean the SNP …

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34 Comments
Catherine Royce

Will the last doctor to leave the NHS switch off the light

By Catherine Royce | Tue 18th April 2017 - 9:56 am

 

Whilst the media concentrate on  shortages of beds, longer waiting times and the increasing indebtedness of Trusts,  all of which can easily be solved by investing more money, ie. a choice (or not) of the government of the day, something far more fundamental is happening – doctors are leaving the NHS.

This cannot be solved by money, or government dictat,  because the goodwill of medical staff which successive governments have taken for granted has run out, and frankly, doctors have sufficient skills to go anywhere in the world.

From its inception, the NHS has relied on imported staff from abroad; in the ‘50s and ‘60s it was mainly porters, cleaners and cooks from the Caribbean. In the ‘70s and ‘80s it was doctors from the Indian subcontinent and nurses from south East Asia and since the ‘90s from Europe.

The UK has never produced sufficient home grown doctors, partly because of the idiotic insistence of the system in pretending that almost no-one is academically gifted enough to get into medical school. Getting 4A* has little to do with becoming a good doctor; it’s just an effective way of stopping perfectly good candidates getting into medical school. The medical school expansion programme in the ‘70s didn’t fix the problem and neither will Jeremy Hunt’s offering of 6,000 more places over the next five years; the problem is much, much worse than that.

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Bernard Aris

Our Spanish sister-party Ciudadános is using “Community Politics” to build up support

By Bernard Aris | Fri 14th April 2017 - 4:48 pm

 

Two weekends ago (from Friday March 31st to Sunday April 2nd) a group of D66 party members from The Hague, with council leader Robert van Asten and national Foreign Secretary Tjeerd Dierckxsens from the party executive, visited our brand-new Spanish sister party Ciudadános in Madrid, where their constituency party received us. They turned out to be very similar to your average D66/LibDem man or woman.

Spain was the first European country ever where a small progressive majority of  anti-Napoleon politicians convening in Cádiz (protected by Wellingtons expeditionary force) promulgated a truly liberal Constitution in 1812; but when the Bourbon king returned from French captivity in 1814 he canceled all that and restored absolutist rule. Liberal rule was temporarily restored in 1820-1823, and later on for longer periods of time during the 19th century. But Conservatism (working hand in glove with the Catholic Church and the monarchy) and Socialism (starting in 1870-1900) proved stronger than the small, urban, liberal minority. Liberalism disappeared from Spanish politics in the 20th century, especially because of the polarization culminating in the Civil War (1936-9) and Franco’s dictatorship (1939-’75).

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16 Comments

Integrating the party’s Eurosceptics

By Eddie from Edinburgh | Fri 14th April 2017 - 1:41 pm

 

In recent months I’ve seen a few pieces on Liberal Democrat Voice- this one and this one stick in my mind- written by party members who voted to leave the EU and are still in favour of Brexit. As would be expected, the response in the comments sections has been mixed. Some, myself included, believe the liberal response is to accept Eurosceptics into the party and encourage their participation. Others believe Brexit is entirely illiberal and that the party should be reserved for Europhiles.

I think we can expect this type of dilemma to come up more and more over the next few years. As the party grows it will attract members of a variety of opinions, including some who campaigned for a Leave vote and hope for a liberal Brexit deal. This will of course contrast with our party’s pro-EU message which has been such an integral part of our strategy in the wake of the referendum. To help the party expand while maintaining a high level of party unity I propose a new covenant of sorts between the party and its Eurosceptic members.

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Katharine Pindar

Of eggs hatching, plants springing up, and polls rising for us

By Katharine Pindar | Fri 14th April 2017 - 10:35 am

 

Easter is a time of new beginnings, wrote my local Vicar in his April newsletter. New beginnings for whom? I wondered. If the followers of a 2000-year-old religion can talk about new beginnings, can there be anything in the idea for the rather younger Liberal Democrats?

This is a time of working and waiting, for us – working for the May elections and waiting for Brexit-related developments. But could this be a pregnant pause, with our party about to burst into new life after the nine-month post Referendum hard grind? I believe so.

What strikes me first about this time is the sound of silence. All the fierce denunciations by Brexiteers of supposed backsliding by Remainers (who actually thought they were lucky to get a word in edgeways) has ceased. The angry headlines in the right-wing press, stirring up ordinary folk to stay agitated about immigrants and Brussels and rulings by foreign courts or even our own – all gone.

The intimidation of Remainers had its effects. Canvassing in Gorton last Saturday, I didn’t quite convince a young man who believes we are right in our demands over Brexit and for a referendum on the final deal, will vote for Jackie Pearcey but feels May is too entrenched with too many backers for our national aims to succeed. He had evidently been silenced by the angry clamour which claimed to represent that elusive ‘will of the people’, who ‘wanted their country back’.

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Australian charity workers or local Tory activists? Shropshire Tories struggle to tell the difference

By Andy Boddington | Thu 13th April 2017 - 10:56 am

This is from the “Department of You Couldn’t Make It Up”.

With less than a month to go to the May local elections here in Shropshire, the county Conservative group has had to halt delivery of its election manifesto. This came after we discovered the image of local activists at the head of the manifesto was lifted from the website of an Australian mental health charity.

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15 Comments
Sean Williams

Our country is divided, and our constituencies may be, too

By Sean Williams | Wed 12th April 2017 - 2:05 pm

Wayne Chadburn’s post yesterday afternoon asked a question that the Liberal Democrats may have answered and agreed on nationally – that the majority of Lib Dems oppose Brexit – but it is a question that is still of huge regional significance. And national electoral success is won regionally, seat by seat. Significantly, the proposed boundary changes – if recommended next year in their current form – would move parts of the current Penistone and Stocksbridge constituency in South Yorkshire (where Wayne Chadburn is based) into Sheffield Hallam, Nick Clegg’s patch.

When moving to Sheffield in late 2015, I bought a home within this constituency not only because I think south-west Sheffield is a great place to live, but because – for the first time in my life – I’d be living in a constituency where I would have voted for my sitting MP. I have since delivered Nick’s Christmas cards, enjoyed the annual fundraising dinner and made friends with fellow Lib Dems. As an academic in a university’s Modern Languages department, I worry about the future of ERASMUS. And so on.

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Wayne Chadburn

Is there room in this party for a pro-Brexit liberal?

By Wayne Chadburn | Tue 11th April 2017 - 12:45 pm

Since the result to the EU referendum result was declared on 24th June last year, one thing that has been crystal clear is that of the three main Britain wide political parties the Lib Dems are the party of the 48% whose driving ambition at the moment it seems is to fight to remain in the EU. If a man or woman on the street were approached by a pollster and asked which of the main nationwide parties has the most defined position on Brexit it would be the Lib Dems and that it is very much the most pro-EU national party.

Maybe because of this (or because of the contemptible joke the Labour party has become) the Liberal Democrat fortunes appear, at long last, to be on the up. For this I am very happy. This country needs a strong and vocal opposition and one that is capable of opposing the Tories across the length and breadth of Britain. Labour clearly either can’t or won’t do this, so the Lib Dems appear the only sane voice of reason opposing the increasingly extreme Tory government across England, Scotland and Wales.

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122 Comments
Diane Reddell

Lib Dems should be involved in the Digital Jobs Action Summit

By Diane Reddell | Tue 11th April 2017 - 9:35 am

With the Brexit negotiations looming I feel we need to look at our countries digital skills. We also need a nationwide digital strategy linked to the devolution plans for building digital skills, diversifying private IT investment UK-wide, support of digital start-up companies with both finance and IT mentoring and encouraging ‘pay it forward’ schemes for finance and IT mentoring for digital business and Government services.

However, we also must focus on diversity and inclusion as part of this digital strategy.  One example of this is the Northern voices programme which has been set up to get more women in IT and to speak about IT at conferences and in the media: it has similar aims as Liberal Democrat Women to get more women in STEM roles and in senior positions.

The Liberal Democrats want UK businesses to thrive and become global. Being part of the single market for trade, trade investment and for knowledge transfers of IT innovation will help these businesses thrive and thus keep and create digital jobs.

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Mary Reid

The Garden Bridge – or Johnson’s folly

By Mary Reid | Mon 10th April 2017 - 4:12 pm

If you live outside London you might be unaware of the on-going row over the proposal for a Garden Bridge. The concept was supported by Boris Johnson, with celebrity endorsement. The project envisaged a pedestrian bridge located between Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges, designed as a park.

The Mayor of London published a report last week, authored by Margaret Hodge, which identified major problems with the project and recommended that it should be scrapped. Costs have increased from £60m to over £200m, and the procurement processes were deeply flawed. What is more, the project was “driven more by electoral cycles than value for taxpayers’ money.”

Hodge said:

In the present climate, with continuing pressures on public spending, it is difficult to justify further public investment in the Garden Bridge.

Caroline Pidgeon had this to say about it:

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Steve Trevethan

Idlib gas attack? Is “Not Proven” currently the least worst verdict?

By Steve Trevethan | Mon 10th April 2017 - 12:50 pm

 

Scottish juries have the choice of three verdicts – Guilty, Not Guilty and Not Proven. This multiple choice is much more real to life than the “English” binary or oppositional choice of guilty or not guilty.

In non-judicial or “everyday terms” the Scottish three-way choice when facing a decision is “yes”; “no”; “I don’t know.” The Scottish choice seems to be closer to real life and so is worth using when considering and possibly taking action on matters of and relating to armed conflict which deals in death, mutilation, madness, theft and profit as well as, if not always, bravery and altruism.

Here are some questions and comments which appear to indicate that a Not Proven verdict is currently the most accurate fit before, it is hoped, an accurate analysis of responsibilities for the gas attacks is made.

How do we know what we are told and shown is reasonably genuine?

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Ashley Cartman

Strategy Consultation paper – there’s something important missing

By Ashley Cartman | Mon 10th April 2017 - 9:17 am

 

One thing I absolutely love about being a Liberal Democrat is the involvement we members have in formulating, developing and approving policy. This open and transparent process not only chimes with our values but also is a marvel to behold. At York last month, my first ever time at a conference, I voted in important policy proposals ranging from faith schools to nuclear weapons and partook in a consultative session on economic policy.  Nonetheless I feel this whole process is in danger of failing us.

A fast changing political environment needs a fast policy making process

In times past there was a reliable 4/5-year cycle all culminating in a general election. In the intervening period the party could spend time ruminating and developing policy. Unfortunately we no longer live in normal times. The tectonic plates of politics are shifting not only in the UK but also around the world. If we really want to redefine British politics and replace the old left/right dichotomy with a choice between open and closed then we need to be much more nimble.  The political environment no longer gives us the luxury of an extended period of reflection and policy consultation.

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The Voice

Lib Dem MBE Jen Yockney talks about discrimination faced by bisexual people

By The Voice | Sat 8th April 2017 - 1:10 pm

Last year Manchester Lib Dem Jen Yockney won the first MBE for services to the bisexual community. In the current issue of Big Issue North, she features in an article about bisexual people, highlighting the discrimination that they face, even within the LGBT community itself.

For example bi people earn less than their lesbian and gay peers. We are more likely to experience domestic violence and stalking than our gay friends. And we are less likely to feel we can be out at work – bi men are about four times less likely to be out at work, and given the impact on your income you might argue they are sensible to be cautious.

Despite the myth of bisexuality as a stepping stone towards coming out as gay or lesbian, Yockney says that at the Biphoria group as many attendees previously thought of themselves as gay as those who had considered themselves straight.

When I was first coming out 25 years ago the received wisdom was that bisexuality was kind of half gay, with an implication of having half the struggle, half the problems. That never made sense to me. After all, you never got half queerbashed! If you’ve a strong, secure sense of yourself as bi you can get through that but it’s silencing for a lot of people. And because you can’t tell by looking, that silencing makes bi people much more isolated.

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Caron Lindsay

Party members: Your chance to help shape the party’s strategy

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 7th April 2017 - 2:14 pm

Over the last couple of months, every Wednesday lunchtime and in another few meetings too, a group of us have been getting together to start the process of building the party’s future strategy which will be voted on at Autumn Conference in Bournemouth.

I don’t say very much in these groups because there are people much cleverer than me with much more useful things to say, but one of the things I wanted to make sure of from the start is that we involved members in the quest to shape our future direction. This is something that we must build together. It can’t be imposed. The group agreed that we would consult our members fully and we are doing just that.

The culmination of a lot of hard work popped into party members’ email inboxes late on Wednesday night. In the email, Party President Sal Brinton said:

At Spring Conference in York, our Leader Tim Farron outlined his vision for our Party:

“To replace the Labour Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives… so that we can replace the Conservatives as the Government of our country.”

This is a bold vision, which needs a bold strategy to deliver it.

We want to hear your views on how our Party can work to achieve Tim’s vision, and have set out some ideas of our own:

We want to hear your views on how our Party can work to achieve Tim’s vision, and have set out some ideas of our own:

We have also compiled an online survey for you to complete. It will only take a few minutes of your time.

Part of ensuring we deliver Tim’s vision is the need for every member to play their part to build a liberal society. Our country needs us now more than ever, and I know so many of you are taking part in some fantastic campaigns across the country, and I’m looking forward to seeing more gains on May 4th. So, don’t worry if you don’t have enough time to do it right now, because the closing date for the consultation is Monday 15th May at 12 noon.

We want to see an Open, Tolerant and United country, and we need you to help us build it.

In that email there is a unique link to the survey and a link to the consultation document. You’ll need to be logged in as a member on the party website to access it.

What we need you to do is basically mark our homework for us. We are bound to have missed something. What is it? Give us your feedback.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Hungary vs Soros

By Tom Arms | Fri 7th April 2017 - 8:55 am

As far as the proverbial man in the street is concerned, there is very little that separates the extreme right from the extreme left.

The results are the same: Power concentrated in the hands of a small circle of political leaders, suppression of human rights and academic freedom, political prisoners, torture, absence of a free press, no free speech, no freedom of assembly, rule by decree, corruption and politically-appointed judges presiding over show trials.

That is not say that there are no differences. There clearly are. The left tends to find its suppressive roots in an all-embracing ideology or – in some cases—a religion which claims to offer solutions to all of mankind’s problems. You need only embrace it.

The far right, on the other hand, is generally based on a belief that one nation or group of people are superior to all the others, and the inferior people should be treated accordingly. These are the ultra-nationalists.

Both groups are adept at conjuring up external threats to justify repression which is really aimed at controlling internal dissent. In modern history we can point to Hitler and the Jews, Stalin and capitalist West, McCarthy and the “Reds under the beds.”

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Bernard Aris

D66 leader makes waves taking a stand against anti-gay violence

By Bernard Aris | Thu 6th April 2017 - 1:28 pm

D66, the party that initiated a global wave of legalizing gay marriage, made itself the emblem of a day-long Dutch media craze that even extended to Dutch diplomats in London and at the UN in New York, as the Huffington Post reported.

It all started when two Dutch gay men, walking home hand in hand from their pub over the (in)famous bridge at Arnhem, were accosted by a group of youths (some of them around 14 years old), with one having four front teeth knocked out.

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5 Comments
Ryan Lailvaux

West of England: Five reasons to win with Williams

By Ryan Lailvaux | Thu 6th April 2017 - 11:24 am

The West of England Mayoral election is now only a month away. Here are five reasons to volunteer in the campaign.

1) It is a two-horse race
At the start of the campaign, the bookmakers Ladbrokes made Stephen the favourite to win with the Conservative candidate right on our heels. Notably, Labour and the Greens are completely out of the contest so we need to pick up all the progressive second preferences.

There is a real chance that the Liberal Democrats can win this newly created role. It is going to take a lot of enthusiasm to outcampaign the spending of the Conservatives but let us prove that the experts are worth listening to.

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George Kendall

Why aren’t our poll ratings higher?

By George Kendall | Thu 6th April 2017 - 9:16 am

On the train to Spring conference, as I was chatting with a student, I mentioned I was a Lib Dem. He said: “Aren’t they the party that saved the country, and then got destroyed because of it?”

My first thought was: “Wow! Student opinion has shifted since 2010.” But I also noted that he didn’t realise how much we’ve recovered since the last General Election.

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56 Comments
David Hopps

Brexit related divisiveness mars school exchange visit

By David Hopps | Wed 5th April 2017 - 3:15 pm

Three Spanish Exchange students have descended on our home this week. Full of fun, responsive and impeccably mannered, it has been a pleasure to have them around. About parts of their experience in England, though, it is impossible to be so complimentary.

Their looks of bemusement have grown ever stronger during the week as the farcical events surrounding Gibraltar have unfolded.

Firstly, they watched in amazement as a former Tory leader – not a rogue backbencher, a former leader – envisaged a situation in which Britain would sent a Task Force, Union Jacks waving and bugles blowing, to defend the future of the island.

Walking round the supermarket, they stumbled across the front page of The Sun with its headline “Up Yours Senors”, although I suppose we should be mildly relieved that the paper fell short of calling for all-out war.

If they go back to the supermarket today, they can check out the Daily Mail with its tale of how a “Tiny Royal Navy patrol vessel chases giant Spanish gunboat out of British waters.”

Two newspapers which have done so much damage to the culture of the nation.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince Cable to liberals: Don’t despair, go local, celebrate identities and embrace social democratic policies

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 5th April 2017 - 1:45 pm

Last night, Vince Cable gave the annual John G Gray Lecture to the Scottish Liberal Club in Edinburgh. John G Gray was a leading Scottish figure in the fightback from near extinction in the middle of the last century. He was at one point the only Liberal councillor in Scotland. Vince observed that at the same time as he was successfully fighting a ridiculous proposal for a ring road in Glasgow, Gray was doing the same in Edinburgh, making sure that a proposal that would have damaged much of the city’s heritage never came to fruition.

The subject of his talk was Brexit, Trump and the Crisis of Liberalism. He set out four things that we should do to stop the “insidious” politics of populism and nationalism taking root.

Firstly, he looked at some of the reasons for populism taking hold. History has many examples, from the South Sea Bubble, to the Depression to the 2008 crash, of economic heart attacks being followed after some years by populism. When people lose out, they turn to the extremes and we have over the past decade seen the fall in post war living standards. Significantly, the measures used to keep the economy afloat, low interest rates and quantitative easing, ensured that pensioners’ savings didn’t grow. That resulted in discontent and nostalgia became a powerful emotional driver.

He warned that as the populists fail, the search for a scapegoat would turn on the judiciary and the other elements which underpin our democracy. He highlighted the Daily Fail’s talk of the enemy within – where the Lib Dems were top of the list. Populists do what they can to delegitimise anything that gets in their way. 

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Paul Walter

Easter egg hunt furore – something of the ridiculous?

By Paul Walter | Wed 5th April 2017 - 9:56 am

Can you see the word “Easter” in the image above? The image is a screenshot of the National Trust website for its Easter activity.

Yet, Theresa May saw fit to interrupt her visit to Saudi Arabia to criticise Cadbury’s and the National Trust for calling the activity an “Egg Hunt” rather than a “Easter Egg Hunt” – even though Easter is emblazoned above the title.

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Peter Scott Brooks

Brexit De-metrification: Inching our way to the periphery

By Peter Scott Brooks | Tue 4th April 2017 - 9:11 am

As predictably as UKIP politicians dressing in tweed, calls to return to Imperial measurements have being doing the rounds in the media within days of Theresa May triggering Article 50. Whilst this may sound trivial, the passion and practicality runs very deep.

The Active Resistance to Metrification has removed or vandalised thousands of metric road signs. The “metric martyrs” championed in sections of the press, sold goods illegally using only Imperial measurements. At the same time we currently use the same metric units as the counties we have over 90% of our overseas trade with, a boon to the ‘frictionless trade’ that our Prime Minister wants. And they won’t be changing units just because of our Brexit!

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Chris Key

War with Spain over Gibraltar?

By Chris Key | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 5:28 pm

 

Normally I try to switch off on holiday. I am in the Canary Islands with my family. When I switched on my Twitter feed I nearly choked on my cafe con leche after reading Lord Howard’s comments about Gibraltar.

Today was the 35th Anniversary of the start of the Falklands war and should have been a day to remember the dead and learn from the past. Yet instead Lord Howard used an interview on a Sunday politics program to remind people of what Thatcher did in 1982 and support a similar reaction in relation to Gibraltar.

This was wrong at so many levels. As my wife who is from Argentina said, how can someone of his experience make a comparison between the military junta of Argentina in 1982 and the democratically elected government of Mariano Rajoy.

Secondly, we want to set up trade deals with the EU and other Latin American countries. Does Lord Howard think that being the class room bully  will help us to enter this wonderful global world we are told by Brexiteers was created on June 24, 2016 ?

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Sean Williams

Post-referendum positivity isn’t foolish

By Sean Williams | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 3:52 pm

I was taken in by Saturday’s April 1st joke on the pages of The Liberal Democrat Voice: that we should stop “remoaning”, and be a bit more positive about the Brexit process.  No doubt some readers will call me foolish, but I absolutely agreed with the thrust of the article. After all, many a true word’s spoken in jest…

So here are three reasons for my optimism:

1) Moving past the romanticism of the EU would help, not hinder a more pragmatic pro-European cause. During both the referendum and the period before Article 50 was triggered, extreme arguments flourished on both sides: a nostalgia for British Imperialism or a desire for “Singapore on steroids” on the one hand, and too romantic an image of the EU on the other. Having lived in Europe — both in the EU and in Switzerland — I am surprised at how much fellow Liberal Democrats idealise the EU as an organisation. One that, in the romantic story, has simply enabled individuals across the continent to lead freer lives, become more open-minded, and move beyond ugly nationalism. Now that Article 50 has been triggered, the negotiations will pour cold water on so much idealism — on both sides of the Brexit divide.

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Arnold Kiel

Meet the new Brexit actors: facts, realism, truth

By Arnold Kiel | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 2:33 pm

 

“This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back.” If the second part of the PM’s sentence had been true, there would have been no need to state it. Therefore it isn’t. Revocation of Article 50 by a British Government would be the ultimate vote of confidence in the EU. Europe would never pass on that opportunity. Therefore the campaign continues.

In the first phase of the Brexit-campaign until now, Leave’s weapons (unsubstantiated dreams, outright lies, fraudulent slogans, the opinion press), were more effective than Remain’s (appreciation of a status quo, plausible but uncertain projections, the information press).

The EU will conduct the negotiations publicly, and thereby also force the UK Government into the open. All dreams, lies and slogans will be exposed; Remain will rearm with powerful, hitherto unavailable or ineffective weapons: facts, realism and truth.

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Callum Gurr

Talk about economics, or we’ll be back to the party of the 8%    

By Callum Gurr | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 12:36 pm

 

I was delighted by Tim Farron’s performance at Spring Conference this year; his eloquence and passionate words show a good leader moulding into a great one. Yet, there is one thing that Tim’s speech missed: a distinct view upon the economy. The need for a Liberal Democrat policy on the economy is clear, with Tim himself saying in the speech ‘Britain needs a progressive party… a plan for an economy that makes the most of the opportunities in front of us’.

To put it short the Liberal Democrats need a clear economic policy so that when we get back into government (whether that’s in 2020 or 40 years away) that our voters know what they voted for. To my mind, we must focus upon investment. That investment starts with taking money creation away from high street banks and making it a government-influenced mechanism, as I called for in a previous article. Only then can we invest in our economy without extending the web of debt Britons and Britain find themselves in.

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