Category Archives: Op-eds

David Thorpe

Why there is nothing illiberal about cutting taxes

By David Thorpe | Mon 19th June 2017 - 7:27 pm

The decision by the Liberal Democrats in 2010 to include as part of its manifesto, and subsequent coalition negotiations, the raising of the income tax threshold was the culmination of years of debate in the party about whether to cut taxes or increase public spending.

Because tax cuts are more often associated with right wing parties, there is a tendency to view them as profoundly illiberal.

But actually cutting taxes enforces a profound liberal principal, that of devolving power, the power to spend their slice of the wealth in the economy,  down to the lowest possible level, that of the individual, and away from the centralised state. That increases the power held by the individual relative to the state, and so is surely as liberal an idea as can be.

Of course, that principle only applies when the taxes being cut are those of lower earners, the wealthy already have a lot of power relative to the state, and are not likely to benefit by having some more.

So tax cuts for lower earners  increase the freedom of the individual to do something.

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Sean Williams

Tough Liberal love

By Sean Williams | Mon 19th June 2017 - 5:55 pm

Without doubt, this was a tough election, and I wasn’t even in a lead campaigning role, let alone running. (I thought about the latter, and was approved; but I then campaigned in my home constituency of Sheffield Hallam.)

Gutted about our loss of Nick Clegg, I took to the blogs and comments on Liberal Democrat Voice over the past week to see how our national results were perceived across the party. Despite some celebration, they also demonstrate that there is much discontent, with rallying cries for radical centrism to “so long, liberals” alike. Evidently, tough Liberal love is in order.

It would make sense for us to take stock of the core challenges as the leadership bids begin. The new leadership and conference will determine the direction of the party: are we to continue the strategy of placing the Lib Dems on an axis of “value politics”, or return to decisions about left, right or centre? But besides direction, there are two other key themes which I think need urgent debate, too.

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Louis Mian

The case for a softer Brexit

By Louis Mian | Mon 19th June 2017 - 4:05 pm

After the UK voted to leave the EU, by only a slim majority, May’s Conservatives (and to a certain extent Corbyn’s Labour) failed to understand that a compromise needed to be made between Leave voters and Remain voters. As I write this, I feel as though I will probably be branded as a ‘remoaner’, as ‘anti-democratic’ or as ‘against the will of the people’. The truth is that I am none of those.

Even many Leave supporting politicians in the lead up to the referendum, last year, supported the prospect of a Britain outside the EU, but inside the single market.

Nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market.
– Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP

Only a madman would actually leave the market.
– Owen Paterson, Conservative MP

Increasingly the Norway option looks the best for the UK.
– Arron Banks, Leave.EU founder

Clearly many people voted Leave on the assumption that the UK would stay in the single market, making May’s vision for a UK, isolated from the rest of Europe, twisted and unfair. A poll, published by NatCen Social Research, found that 90% of leave voters were in favour of the UK being inside the common market and around two thirds of all voters wanted British businesses to comply with EU design and safety regulations, as well as fisheries policies.

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David Becket

Tackling inequality

By David Becket | Mon 19th June 2017 - 2:24 pm

 

The Kensington disaster, along with the referendum that voted for Brexit, demonstrates the pressing need to tackle inequality. Corbyn’s success was due to him offering hope.

It is time for Lib Dems to step up and offer radical solutions, as we have seen in France. Every candidate for the leadership must be asked what he or she will do to tackle this issue. Here are some ideas, though not exhaustive.

Government priorities

With a lame duck PM and a government in chaos we cannot expect to see too many balls in the air. We are not in a fit condition to manage Brexit, but we could get a consensus to tackle inequality.

We should apply to the EU to put Brexit on hold, if that means a withdrawal of article 50 so be it. We are not ignoring the referendum result; we are putting it on hold until we are in a fit state to deal with it.

We can then tackle the causes of inequality.

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Wayne Chadburn

The challenge in Yorkshire

By Wayne Chadburn | Mon 19th June 2017 - 12:12 pm

 

Nationally it might be argued that the General Election was a moderate success for the Liberal Democrats and, maybe, even baby steps towards a revival.  A net increase of 4 seats on 2015 with a marginal decrease in the national share, which could arguably be put down to significant tactical voting, could provide some evidence of this.  However I would argue this masks disastrous performances regionally which should be of massive concern to the national party going forward.

I’d like to focus on my own region, Yorkshire.  Yorkshire contains 51 seats.  Going into the 2017 election you would have thought that the Lib Dems couldn’t do worse than their performance in 2015 where we had been reduced to just 2 Yorkshire MPs (Nick Clegg in Sheffield Hallam and Greg Mulholland in Leeds North West) and a massively reduced share of the regional vote.  In 2010, the Lib Dems won 3 seats in Yorkshire with near misses in Sheffield Central (less than 200 votes away) and Hull North (less than 650 votes away).  They polled 23% of the vote in Yorkshire and retained every deposit easily.

Fast forward to what many consider the nadir of Liberal Democratic performance in 2015.  It still resulted in 2 MPs and saved deposits in almost half of the seats in Yorkshire and a 7.3% share of the vote.  Surely this was as bad as it could get for the Liberal Democrats in Yorkshire?  Unfortunately not.  On 8th June the Lib Dems lost both seats they held as well as 41 of their 51 deposits. They polled in excess of 10% of the vote in only 4 of the 51 seats in Yorkshire.

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Chloe Hutchinson

Some questions to potential candidates

By Chloe Hutchinson | Mon 19th June 2017 - 10:15 am

With the news that Jo Swinson is running for Deputy Leader, not Leader, my enthusiasm has hit a low point. We’ve been through some hard times as a party, and in areas, particularly Wales, we are still facing them, and the road ahead is not easy. At the moment I see no potential candidate that can spark my enthusiasm and take us forward.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We need someone that can win people over, winning over party members is one thing, but winning over the general public when we are seen as toxic or an irrelevance is a lot harder.

I’m sure all possible candidates are a) qualified enough and b) will bring something different to the table but is that enough? We must not go easy on them. Ask the difficult questions and don’t back down.

To the candidates: some preliminary questions worth thinking about …

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Jo Swinson MP

Jo Swinson MP writes..The role I want to play in our party’s leadership

By Jo Swinson MP | Sun 18th June 2017 - 4:29 pm

It feels like an age since I was knocking on doors in the pouring rain in the final hour before polls closed, then hearing the shock of the exit poll on the car radio heading home to a hairdryer and somewhat less bedraggled attire for the count.

Yet here we are just a few days later, embarking on an election for leader of the Liberal Democrats.

I went to see Tim on Wednesday afternoon to tell him I thought he should definitely stay on, and I was excited at the prospect of putting myself forward to be Deputy Leader.  I was stunned when he told me he would be resigning that evening.

Listening to Tim’s dignified statement, outlining the personal turmoil he felt during the election, I can’t fault him for deciding to step down, but I feel very sad that it came to this.  Tim has done so much for our party.  In the devastating aftermath of the 2015 election, to build a record membership and increase MPs by 50% in just 2 years is a massive achievement.  Just as important, is that we now have our most diverse Parliamentary Party ever.  We owe Tim a massive debt of gratitude.

Since his shock announcement, I have been overwhelmed by so many lovely messages from people I know, and from many members I have not yet met, encouraging me to stand for leader.  I am touched and flattered that you look to me – and I am determined to play a key role in our party’s leadership.

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Liberal Britain – a counterfactual history

By Adam Smith | Sat 17th June 2017 - 6:55 pm

June 2017: The General Election has returned an entirely predictable result. It is the Liberals—yet again—who emerged as the dominant force.

Prime Minister Nick Clegg, seemingly secure in office for a second term, has now entered the familiar round of coalition negotiations with the third party—Labour. The oddly popular socialist maverick Jeremy Corbyn, no natural soul mate of the PM’s, leads a party with 85 seats. The leading radical left Liberal, deputy leader Yvette Cooper, is leading the coalition negotiations with Corbyn, with defence and welfare policy expected to be the biggest sticking points. But no one doubts that in the end a deal will be done as it has been done so many times before over the last century. Speaking on Question Time, the long-serving Liberal MP for Kirkaldy, Gordon Brown, son of the Manse and self-appointed heir of Scottish Gladstonian Liberal moralism, has taken up his traditional role, growling that the impending Liberal-led coalition must have a “moral compass.”

***

The Liberals have long been regarded as the “natural party of government” in the UK, indeed one of the most successful election-winning movements anywhere in the world. But it could have been very different: there have been moments when Liberal dominance seemed under threat. Back in the 1920s, division had nearly destroyed the party. There had even been an unsettling moment in the election of 1924 when it seemed possible that more Labour members would be returned than Liberals. An article in the Spectator that year, subsequently widely mocked, had even been entitled—absurdly as it now seems—“The strange death of Liberal England.” But the crisis passed. After Stanley Baldwin’s Tory government presided over mass unemployment, the Liberals, once again under the leadership of the aging warrior David Lloyd George won the 1931 General Election in a landslide. The Liberal response to the Great Depression “dished Labour” in the phrase of the time by implementing a national system of health and unemployment insurance and by vast public works schemes all set out in a best-selling pamphlet called “We Can Conquer Unemployment”. Contrary to many predictions at the time rising class politics did not destroy the Liberal coalition as its non-conformist tradition was fused with socialist ideas and a commitment to full employment and trade union rights that kept a majority of the labour movement inside the Liberal tent.

In the run-up to the 1935 General Election, the first to be conducted under the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies, the Liberals were bolstered by Labour defections—including their former leader Ramsay Macdonald. The coalition government formed that year was dominated by Liberals but had the support of a faction of Tories known as the “National Conservatives”. 

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Alexander Green

Seizing the centre: the road ahead

By Alexander Green | Fri 16th June 2017 - 2:30 pm

Tim Farron’s unexpected resignation ends another chapter in a tumultuous period of politics. With the wave of populism that carried Jeremy Corbyn to a triumphant defeat and shook the Conservatives, how should the next chapter begin for the Liberal Democrats? The next leader should strike out for the centre ground, and it is the Liberal Democrats economic credentials that should take centre stage over our unimpeachable social liberalism.

To begin with another exit, the loss of Nick Clegg perhaps signals the chance to rehabilitate the Coalition government. In too many ways the contribution of the Liberal Democrats has gone unnoticed; the pupil premium has been a lifeline for many schools struggling with constrained budgets, whilst the British Business Bank is one of the most recognised achievements of the happily re-elected Vince Cable.

We ought to champion such successes, and link them to our future strategy. Between state-led nationalisation and short-term cuts lies our own path. Targeted investment, support and stimulation of local enterprise, and recognition of the changing nature of the British economy and its vibrant tech sector (albeit a sector beset by the authoritarian proclivities of the current government). Now more then ever, it is vital that all corners of the United Kingdom see that the government’s economic strategy works for them, and we have been too coy about the benefits that liberalism can bring.

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Chris Fauske

The sudden death of Liberal England

By Chris Fauske | Fri 16th June 2017 - 11:30 am

I joined the Liberal Party the day of Margaret Thatcher’s first victory. I will be leaving its successor party the day after I return a spoiled ballot in the election for the next party leader.

As a party we have had our fights, our disagreements, and our debates. We have also proven that the strength of our shared commitments and ideals has been of a power that protects the very essence of what it means to be liberal and democratic.

One of my first committee appointments in the party offered the opportunity to work closely with Richard Wainwright, a devout Quaker. His faith guided him. At times, it made him uncomfortable. But, more often than not, his faith, which so few of us shared, offered him the impetus, the strength and, yes, the courage, to expect more of us than we often thought possible.

I worked in Liverpool on occasion with a Liberal city council that was helping re-shape that city. I was there the day of the Toxteth riots. Very soon thereafter, David Alton, our first MP from that city in so many years, and Eric Heffer, MP, sat down with Michael Heseltine and shape the only action plan I know of that caused Thatcher to have to admit that there was such a thing as society. Two of those men, Heffer and Alton, shared little. But they did share a faith and that faith shaped both of them in years of service that made the lives of so very many people so much better than it would otherwise have been.

Richard Wainwright and David Alton were not alone, but I worked with them well enough, and knew them well enough, to write what I did above with confidence.

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Eddie Sammon

Grenfell Tower fire: Answers, accountability and help are needed

By Eddie Sammon | Fri 16th June 2017 - 10:25 am

At approximately 00:54 on Wednesday morning an horrific fire was reported at Grenfell Tower in north Kensington, London. Within half an hour the flames were reported to have engulfed an entire side of the building, leaving many people trapped inside. We need answers and to do whatever we can to help the victims and ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.

Firstly, The Guardian has are some questions that need to be answered:

  • How did the fire start?
  • Why did the fire spread so quickly? Was the recently fitted new cladding at fault?
  • Did the new gas pipes, which were

…

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Chris Whiting

The choice for Lib Dems – embrace radicalism or die

By Chris Whiting | Fri 16th June 2017 - 8:55 am

I’m not going to mince my words or toe the centre-line in my summary of the Liberal Democrats’ election result for reasons that will become clearer the further you read.

Our result on the 8th June was embarrassing, demoralising, and worst of all, irrelevant. 7.4% of the vote was all that our party could accrue; 40,000 votes fewer than our 2015 performance which we naively thought was our floor. When the country was crying out for a party of the centre with both Labour and the Conservatives lurching to the extremes, we didn’t answer the call.

Whilst our swelling membership and activist base can feel rightly proud of their efforts in the campaign which saw an increase in Lib Dem MPs, they should also feel aggrieved at the lack of support our national message gave to them.

As a party we have failed to broaden our support, something that would have seen unthinkable in the wake of the 2015 election or even just a few weeks ago. We must address why we are primarily appealing to the white middle-classes and not other groups. As per Lord Ashcroft’s exit poll, just 6% of BME voters lent their support to the Liberal Democrats in this election, compared to 9% of white voters.

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What lessons can we learn from the election?

By A Liberal in Leeds | Thu 15th June 2017 - 7:40 pm

Overall I think Thursday night was very positive for the Liberal Democrats. We made four net gains, taking us up to twelve seats. This was in the face of a race to Number 10 where more than eighty per cent of voters backed the two main parties. We’ve had some excellent ‘big beasts’ like Jo, Vince, Stephen and Ed returned to Parliament, as well as fantastic new faces like Layla Moran and Christine Jardine. This article is going to focus on the lessons to be learnt, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that this was a result which did us credit.

Sadly we lost our only seat in Wales, and Sarah Olney lost out narrowly in Richmond Park. However, from my experience campaigning in Yorkshire I’d like to put forward some ideas about what went wrong in Labour-facing seats.

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How do the Lib Dems survive a stronger than ever two-party system?

By Mark Henderson | Thu 15th June 2017 - 6:08 pm

During this General Election campaign I spent my time helping my local party and in the last week, helping in a target seat. It became clear that this election wasn’t a Brexit election but instead a clear battle between Corbyn and May, Red vs Blue.

The policies of the Lib Dems didn’t seem to resonate nationally even though they were clearly sensible and credible, which lead to our party’s vote share declining by 0.5% compared to 2015. From this it’s clear to see that tactical voting damaged the party in nine target seats leading to deposits been lost in the most extreme circumstances. With the two main parties obtaining a collective 82.4% of the vote, higher than any election since 1970, we need to focus on surviving in a two party system now more than ever.

While our vote share did decline, we did however make net gains but also losing some of the party’s best talent like Nick Clegg on the way. The fact that the party could still make gains in such a tough political climate for third parties is a demonstration for future survival. Targeting the right seats with a mass amount of resources from the central party and the nearby local parties shows how, as a party, we can still stand toe-to-toe with the two larger parties.

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Jim Hodgson

Evangelical Christianity and liberalism: the compatibility question

By Jim Hodgson | Thu 15th June 2017 - 4:24 pm

 

In an election supposedly predicated on the issue of Brexit, few Liberal Democrats expected the issues of gay sex and abortion to dominate the headlines for the Uk’s most unequivocally pro-European party in 2017. Tim Farron’s repeated refusal to answer the question as to whether gay sex was a sin during an interview in April resulted in exceptional news coverage of the Lib Dems, but for the wrong reasons. Having led the party to a succession of impressive by-election victories and surpassing his own target to reach 100’000 members 3 years early, it was – up until that point – going so well. Farron was forced to clarify his position in Parliament the following day, exclaiming “I do not” (think gay sex is a sin). Unfortunately for the Liberal Democrats, the costs of Farron’s 24-hour inertia were colossal.

I won’t hesitate to disclose that the unfolding of this story was somewhat uncomfortable for me, worsened by Farron failing to distance himself from a statement that “…abortion is wrong”, made in 2007. Whilst many of my compatriots dismissed these stories as irrelevant, citing Tim’s positive voting record on LGBT rights, I was initially less willing to swat it aside. As a former member of the Labour Party, I have borne witness to the absurd realities of blinkered party-political tribalism, and believe it to be a dangerous trait. From disposing our future prosperity through continued support of hard Brexit, through to dodging his ostensible links to the IRA, for some folk it’s clear that Jeremy Corbyn is incapable of wrongdoing. The obstinance of Corbyn’s loyalists are reminiscent of a cult. Liberal Democracy necessitates divergence from this configuration; the Liberal Democrats are the party of evidence-based policy.

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Luke Jeffery

Radical Centrism: Why it’s time for the Lib Dems to be bolder

By Luke Jeffery | Thu 15th June 2017 - 2:57 pm

 

Radical centrism is often thought to be an oxymoron since Centrists rarely appear to want to tear up the current order and replace it with something new. However, given the significant challenges facing UK (and other countries throughout the world) is it not time to be bold in what we propose? For what has been shown across the world in the past year, most notably in France and the US and recently in the UK elections, is that a policy of more of the same will not win you an election.

Theresa May, while deviating from traditional Conservative policy, represented the supposedly “strong and stable” status quo and Corbyn represented something newer and bolder, while the Lib Dems were certainly separate from these two they did not offer anything ground-breaking. The result of the election was a reward for Labour for daring to dream of something new and different, despite the fact that many of their policies only existed in an economic dreamland.

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Isabelle Parasram

We’ve already won – in so many ways

By Isabelle Parasram | Thu 15th June 2017 - 1:15 pm

Our candidate in Walsall North, Isabelle Parasram, has written this letter to her supporters and we are pleased to share it with you.

Hello!

I’m writing to thank you for supporting me in my first campaign to stand for Parliament on behalf of the Liberal Democrats.

Though I didn’t win a seat in Walsall North this time ‘round, my campaign wasn’t all about gaining a seat for myself. Of course I gave it everything I had, but I wanted to see others win too.

My heart goes out to those candidates whom I campaigned for in one way or another, but who didn’t gain a seat: Ade Adeyemo (Solihull), Daisy Cooper (St Albans), Amna Ahmad (Sutton and Cheam), Ben Sims (Leyton/Wanstead) and Sarah Olney (Richmond).

Their constituencies have missed out on having a great MP…

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Tony Greaves

Lord Tony Greaves writes…Where now for the Liberal Democrats? Part 2: What we do about it

By Tony Greaves | Thu 15th June 2017 - 11:55 am

Yesterday, I laid out the issues facing the party. Here is my analysis of what we should do about them.

I suggest there are four or five things that should now be priorities for the party as an organisation and a movement. They may look rather different from each other but I suggest that they gel together more than may be immediately obvious. This is not an order of importance – I think they are all equally important.

First, in view of the election result we need to insure against the threat of another General Election in the next 12 months or two years. The very survival of the party requires a presence in the House of Commons. That means making sure that the 12 seats we held will be held again – no more carelessness or complacency. It means a similar level of intensive continuous work and campaigning in the 25 or so seats that are realistic targets for gains in an early poll. And those seats need to build up their local organisation to a level where they do not depend on support from lots of people in the surrounding areas and beyond when the election comes.

Second, from a longer term perspective, we need to rebuild and recreate the party as a campaigning organisation and movement. Campaigning in recent years has been diminished to mean just election campaigning, and a lot of that is now done in an arid “painting by numbers” fashion. The campaigning that gives political activity its interest, its excitement, its achievements, and its fun (and who is going to do it for year after year if it’s not fun?) is campaigning on issues, on projects, on protests, on getting things done. Community politics. It’s something the party almost abandoned during the Coalition. And campaigning of this kind is not just about elections – they are part of it but only a part. It’s much, much more, and genuinely all the year round stuff.

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Caron Lindsay

Brian Paddick resigns as Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 14th June 2017 - 5:30 pm

Lib Dem Peer Brian Paddick has resigned from his position as Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary. Brian, a former Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has always been a credible and authoritative voice on matters pertaining to crime, terrorism and civil liberties. The party owes him a debt of gratitude for his work in the role.

It’s the fashion these days to use Twitter to make announcements. In a tweet this afternoon, Brian said:

He doesn’t specify what particular views, but speculation centres around the issues around gay sex and abortion. Tim’s voting record on these issues is pretty clear and he’s made it plain that he is 100% in favour of LGBT equality. This matters to too many people I love so I certainly couldn’t support a leader I didn’t trust to do the right thing on these issues. In any event, I don’t think Tim’s views or record had changed since Brian had accepted the role, so I am perplexed by the timing. Unless…

I may be completely wrong here, but I’m starting to suspect that some things which have happened over the past few weeks have not been entirely random. There’s always been a sense that those few in the party who don’t like Tim have been biding their time. I’m hearing reports of conversations being initiated during the election campaign by a few people who did not support Tim last time. Those conversations were spookily similar, as if they were sticking to a script, covering a few key points that people wanted to get across. Indeed, I had more than one person say them to me.

Yesterday, Lib Dem Peer Liz Barker retweeted an article calling on Tim to go:

And today, the Twitter account of the Political Office of Lord Anthony Lester said this in response to Brian’s tweet:

So far, this activity appears to be confined to people who have never been Tim’s biggest fans. Certainly, I am hearing from sources close to Tim that they are “unfazed” by what’s happening. Let’s hope that this is an end to it and that we don’t spend the next few months turning in on ourselves.  That would not be a good look. 

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Jane Reed

The nature of predictions

By Jane Reed | Wed 14th June 2017 - 4:30 pm

This General Election campaign has given me pause for thought about the nature of prediction. When we make a political prediction we use information that is available to us such as polls, statistical calculations based on data such as turnout and past performance and what we hear on the doorstep when campaigning. But we also use our past experience of such matters and our hopes. Computing all of this we come up with a prediction of likely outcome. Our predictions are important to us personally as they reflect the quality of our judgement, an aspect of our being that we hold dear, as it relates to our sense of competence and thus strongly relates to our sense of self. Because of this we can become over attached to our predictions which can lead to negative effects.

If our prediction is positive such attachment can lead us to be overconfident and unresponsive to the reality of what is going on around us, as possibly happened to Theresa May at the start of her campaign.

If the prediction is negative such attachment can lead us to becoming despondent in our campaigning, playing down our message when talking to people, not bothering to campaign so vigorously for example not delivering that extra round of leaflets and demotivating our fellow campaigners. Such negative responses can contribute to our negative prediction becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. To avoid such negativity we need to develop equanimity in relation to our prediction always having the humility to say, at the back of our minds, “but I might be wrong”. With this balanced approach, in spite of whatever prediction we make, we will continue to campaign in a positive constructive way. During campaigning obviously the results of polls are useful in deciding the sensible direction of the campaign but we should always take them with a pinch of salt and not allow them to make us negative in our approach.

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Tony Greaves

Lord Tony Greaves writes… Where now for the Liberal Democrats? Part 1: Where we are

By Tony Greaves | Wed 14th June 2017 - 2:55 pm

The morning after another disastrous General Election for the Liberal Democrats, the party’s press office issued a statement which started with the breath-taking words: “It has been a good night for the Liberal Democrats.”

It went on to say: “We hoped to hold our ground but instead we have increased our number of MPs by 50%. We welcome back big hitters to our ranks in Jo Swinson, Vince Cable and Ed Davey, who all regained their seats with emphatic majorities. We have won stunning victories in Eastbourne, Bath, Edinburgh West, Caithness and Oxford West & Abingdon.”

Well yes, and I cheered every one of them. But we lost five of the nine seats we were defending including four which had been held at the calamitous election in 2015. Many more seats that we recently held or which were strong targets fell back badly so that the number of possible winnable seats has shrunk to levels not seen for decades. We lost 375 deposits and it was clear that the basic Liberal Democrat vote in large parts of the country was still close to zero and that the much-vaunted fight-back in many areas had simply not happened at the Westminster level.

So let’s start again. It was a disastrous night for the Liberal Democrats. The best that can be said is that in an election when the very presence of the party in the House of Commons was in danger, we survived. The increase from eight seats in 2015 to 12 this time is welcome but only gets us back to the position in 1966. The truth is that over much of the country hardly anyone voted for us. The countrywide core vote we had been building up in the first decade of the 2000s has gone and shows no signs of coming back.

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Martin Thomas

Lord Martin Thomas writes…The House of Lords has the right to say “no” to Conservative/DUP Bills

By Martin Thomas | Wed 14th June 2017 - 1:30 pm

In early 1868, Mr Disraeli became the Prime Minister of a minority Conservative government. Mr Gladstone, leading the Opposition, took his opportunity and thrust a Bill to disestablish the Irish Church through the House of Commons. The then Marquess of Salisbury advised his fellow peers that:

“when the opinion of your countrymen has declared itself, and you see that their convictions – their firm, deliberate and sustained convictions – are in favour of any course, I do not for a moment deny that it is your duty to yield. But there is an enormous step between that and being the mere …

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Nick Hopkinson

May’s hard Brexit is dead. Now let’s bury Brexit

By Nick Hopkinson | Wed 14th June 2017 - 11:55 am

Brexiters claim that 82% of voters supporting the Tories and Labour validated Brexit in last week’s General Election. This has a grain of truth in it. However subsequent polls found issues such as health, the economy, and security were more important to voters. Furthermore, the election marked a return to two party politics in which smaller parties, including ours, were squeezed. A vote for Labour was not necessarily a vote for its ambiguous Brexit stance, but arguably one for hope and an end to Tory austerity.

Shielded from many by her two former advisers and campaign managers, yet at the same time vulnerable to Tory ideological Europhobes, May’s closet premiership progressed an empty Hard Brexit. Instead of trying to unite a divided country after the 2016 referendum by reaching out to the 48% voting remain, May divided the country further by progressing a Hard Brexit which few voted for. Fully aware that half of voters wanted to stay in the Single Market and Customs Union as do most businesses, she seemed unbothered about harming the economy for the sake of meeting unrealistic immigration targets which were consistently missed when she was Home Secretary. Businesses could only engage with Government Ministers if they were enthusiastic about Brexit’s (unknown) opportunities. Her General Election bid for a personal blank cheque on Brexit (and seemingly everything else), possibly along the lines of the Canada-EU deal, left the electorate cold. So last week the people called time on her ‘bunker’ Brexit. So too it appears has business, her Cabinet, and parliamentarians.

A weakened May is now in discussion with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to prop up her minority Government. Meanwhile her Brexit secretary makes contradictory statements saying last Friday that the Government has lost its mandate for leaving the Single Market and Customs Union whilst implying the opposite on Radio 4’s Today. However, the DUP wants to avoid a hard Irish border, a demand which appears incompatible with the Tory manifesto pledge to leave the EU customs union. Similarly, the Scottish Conservatives want an ‘open’ Brexit, which appears to conflict with the Tory manifesto pledge to leave the EU Single Market. The two, with 10 and 13 seats respectively, effectively could each veto a Hard Brexit. But let us not forget the newly emboldened, but hitherto pusillanimous, pro-European Tories. Under the new parliamentary arithmetic, a handful of them could also frustrate Hard Brexit.

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged , and | 19 Comments
David Boyle

A Brexit thriller

By David Boyle | Wed 14th June 2017 - 10:25 am

Brexit may indeed mean Brexit, though that looks a little less certain these days. But what else does it mean?

To answer the question of meaning, you have to delve back into history, especially in a nation where Brussels assumed the peculiar position of Rome in the English psyche in centuries gone by.

But there are some truths that are not really communicable in the usual think-tank reports with an executive summary. Sometimes you have to fall back on fiction to help people understand parallels that are actually a good deal stranger. So I have.

I have become obsessed with understanding the significance of Brexit in this way, especially the parallels with the 1530s – when England went through a sudden withdrawal from mainstream Europe and a parallel selling off of the public service infrastructure (in this case, the monasteries) to the new rich.

I have always said that this was likely to be repeated – first as tragedy and then as farce, as they say – but had not expected it so soon, nor predicted the strange alliance of May and the hardline Ulster protestants who would seek to bring it about.

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Ben Andrew

Why Lib Dems should be proud

By Ben Andrew | Wed 14th June 2017 - 8:55 am

At Spring Conference last March, Tim Farron set the bar high – calling on us to replace Labour as the official opposition after the next election. With this in mind, I understand why some Lib Dem members may be angered by our performance last Thursday. It’s true that our national campaign failed to get off the ground, and that it added little value to our hard-fought local victories. But despite this, I think the party should be proud of how we fought hard, targeted well, and avoided a disastrous result.

We were never going to become a national force again on the back of a menu of carefully thought through policies on health, education and drug reform. With our Parliamentary team so diminished, we had no choice but to pile our chips against one defining issue, and hope that it would catch on. I think that we were right to make this cause our opposition to Brexit. Brexit is the biggest issue facing our country, our position on it is unique, and it is completely in line with our values as a party. It’s just unfortunate that when this snap election was called, opposing Brexit was not the main issue on voters’ minds. It’s been a year since the referendum, and leaving the EU hasn’t really affected most people’s lives at all. Compared with austerity and the decline of our public services, Brexit seemed like a side show. Corbyn’s vision was much more in line with the public mood – and he gained momentum at our expense.

It’s easy to blame the Lib Dems for not getting Brexit higher on people’s priority list, but there was only so much we could do. Parties with 9 MPs don’t get to shape the agenda. They can only respond to it, and capitalise on the public mood as much as possible to regain popularity. With the effects of Brexit still not being felt, it’s no surprise that most people were primarily concerned with other matters. 

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Beyond tribalism: why we now need a cross-party approach to Brexit

By Gordon Lynch | Tue 13th June 2017 - 7:32 pm

After last week’s General Election, we face arguably the most uncertain period of our post-war political history. As the clock ticks down to our exit from the EU on 29th March 2019, the question of how we conduct these negotiations effectively alongside the profound instability of our domestic politics remains unresolved.

Neither the Conservatives, nor Labour, have the strength to take the lead in this process by themselves. Labour, although performing much better than expected, has won too few seats to be able to act alone, and the Conservatives remain so divided over Europe that even a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP cannot hope to paper over the cracks.

Such is the tribalism of those parties, however, that the leadership of both still wrongly assume that they can only do this alone through some form of single-party minority government. This will not only lack credibility with voters at home and our negotiating partners in Europe, though, but threaten to deepen further the divisions in our country that the EU referendum has already opened up.

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John King

Referendums: an addendum to the conundrum

By John King | Tue 13th June 2017 - 3:40 pm

In my previous post I reviewed some of the problems associated with referendums, in particular the conundrum posed by the “once in a lifetime” proposition. It is no wonder that two of our previous Prime Ministers described them as un-British, and a tool for dictators and demagogues.

Here, as a break from all the election talk, I add a few more criticisms for good measure. But despite the shortcomings that referendums undoubtedly have, my conclusion remains the same: we still need another one. 

Chancy outcomes

Referendums can have perverse and unexpected consequences. To take a rather silly example, suppose the British Medical Association called a vote on whether flower remedies should replace the MMR vaccine. The BMA might think it was a sure win for the vaccine, which does a wonderful job of protecting our children. But in reality it would be an enormous gamble.

The problem here is that, just like the benefits of the EU, the benefits of the vaccine have been taken for granted for years. People have forgotten how serious illnesses like measles, mumps and rubella can be.

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Gove governing Defra is a bad move for the environment

By Andy Boddington | Mon 12th June 2017 - 7:47 pm

Michael Gove now oversees environmental policy, food, farming and fisheries. His arrival in the cabinet is part of Theresa May’s struggle to avert a leadership bid. More than ever, we need an independent government-backed assessor for the environment, biodiversity and wildlife.

Politically, we live in curious times with no certainty that the government will be stable or strong enough to survive the Brexit process. Theresa May has reappointed most of her pre-election cabinet, but she moved Andrea Leadsom from Defra to become Leader of the House of Commons. Michael Gove has been brought back to cabinet as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. We have gone from a barely noticed Defra Secretary to one that will crave attention by swinging a wrecking ball through environmental regulation.

Andrea Leadsom was a climate change sceptic and even asked Defra officials whether climate change is real. Apparently convinced by them that it was, she nevertheless supported shale gas extraction through fracking. She also backed foxhunting and selling off forests.

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Anna Pitcher

I was never mad at the Lib Dems and you shouldn’t be either

By Anna Pitcher | Mon 12th June 2017 - 5:00 pm

Going through my final exams during a general election was heart breaking. I wanted to canvass and I wanted to write, but the only thing I seemed to have time to get involved in were political debates with friends and family, and it always came back the same comment: If you’re a student, why would you vote for the Lib Dems?

I remember the day that Nick Clegg supposedly betrayed his younger voters well. I was studying for my GCSEs when a BBC news reporter announced that a video of Nick Clegg apologising had gone viral on the internet and, although I was planning on sending off a UCAS application in a couple of years, I wasn’t angry at the Lib Dems. Yet it seems that many still are.

Going to university isn’t a right granted to us when we are born and it would be unfair to expect those who haven’t attended to fund a student’s education, when they themselves could be paying taxes to the government and improve the quality of our public services. Unfortunately, not every career allows people to work their way up and requires a degree, but if that is the type of career we want, then it is fair that we take out a loan to fund ourselves and repay it when we have the funds to do so. The reason for this? Social mobility.

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Joe Otten

It could have been the economy, stupid

By Joe Otten | Mon 12th June 2017 - 3:26 pm

One of the strangest things about this last election was how little the economy featured. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, was unseen. The Conservatives didn’t bother to cost their manifesto. Nobody wanted to talk about the Brexit black hole – not even the Liberal Democrats much, I mean couldn’t we have promised to fund £60bn of spending by not leaving the EU? It would have made the point.

Why? Theresa May and her advisers never really understood the economy, only that it was something that the Conservatives generally get the credit for being sounder on with the larger part of the electorate, and that if you say nothing, you have more freedom of action after you have won your big majority.

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