The London Evening Standard has the story:
David Cameron today hailed the defection of a Liberal Democrat London mayoral hopeful to the Tories.
Barrister Chamali Fernando, 30, from Finchley, ran to be the Lib-Dem candidate for Mayor of London but was defeated by Brian Paddick in 2007.
Ms Fernando’s brother Chandila is also leaving the Lib-Dems to join the Conservatives. The 32-year-old business developer failed in his bid last year to become president of the Lib-Dems.
Mr Cameron said: “I am delighted to welcome Chamali and Chandila to the Conservative party.
“It is very pleasing that two people who have played such an active role at the highest level in the Liberal Democrats have decided that we are the only party that can deliver the change our country needs.
“Every day we are welcoming new people from all parties who share our values on civil liberties, the environment and quality of life issues.”
The Conservatives highlighted that the Fernandos come from a strongly Lib-Dem family.They said that their father, Sumal Fernando, was the first Sri Lankan to contest a parliamentary seat in the UK, for the Social Democratic Party in Leicester West in 1983. He later stood for the Liberal Alliance in Nottingham North in 1987.
Ms Fernando, who was born in Sri Lanka, first campaigned for the Liberal Democrats at the age of six, and was a member of the party for 20 years.
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52 Comments
Doesn’t this just demonstrate that Party members made the right decisions in respect of the candidacies of these two?
Yes it does. It was perfectly obvious at the time that they had both stood for those positions for self-promotion reasons. Neither of them was in any way qualified for what they were applying for. So I suspect they’ll fit in nicely with Cameron’s Conservatives!
Yup. Paint me astonished.
Wasn’t the brother Fernando one of the founding members of Liberal Vision?
Because this does serve to totally confirm my suspicions in this regard.
I am sad to see them go.
But Chandila is certainly rejoining the Conservatives. He was a member for several years before joining us.
Throwing your toys out of the pram or what?
Shame to see his commitment to progressive changes in the party were not genuine.
It does make it harder for those of us who share some of his views to be taken seriously now in the party, though maybe that was part of the point?
Scumbag.
I’m sad to see Chamali go actually.
While I supported Brian Paddick to be our Mayoral candidate, it was obvious that Chamali had many excellent qualities as a candidate.
So it’s a pity to lose her.
Quelle surprise!
No surprise at all – their attempts to turn the Party into a narrow neo-Conservative sect were overwhelmingly rejected last year.
‘Key players’? I don’t think so.
Well, that’s a relief.
Might I clarify that the views of Mark, as stated above, are not mine?
The loss of Chamali, who I voted for in the Mayoral selection contest, and Chandila, who I didn’t vote for in the Presidential contest, is regrettable. If, however, they consider the Conservatives to be a more natural home for their political beliefs, I fear that, if they are liberals, they will be disappointed in due course, and if they aren’t disappointed, it might imply that they weren’t liberals.
However, they have made their choice and we should respect it.
Daniel is right when he says: “‘Key players’? I don’t think so.”
They both stood for serious positions but neither got them.
Mark V is also right when he says: “if they are liberals, they will be disappointed in due course, and if they aren’t disappointed, it might imply that they weren’t liberals.
However, they have made their choice and we should respect it.”
What can one say?
I was quite impressed by Chamali Fernando during the mayoral selection but however disappointed I ended up being by Paddick’s performance it became quite clear to me that she would have fared far worse. I simply couldn’t understand why she didn’t go for a GLA seat and build her way up from there.
By contrast, I always thought that Chandila was a joke candidate for the Presidency. And again, why not go for the FE (or indeed any committee), first?
Each time I encountered both of them, I was left under the impression that it was somehow my fault for failing to see their obvious genius and not falling at their feet. Both seemed livid at not winning the internal contests they’d entered in a way that I found most odd.
I’m sure they’ll do brilliantly in the Conservatives and I’m sure they’ll feel quite at home. The irony about the Tories is that despite the way they cling to individualism, they have a tendency to go starry eyed over anyone who presents themselves as a future Sun King.
Naked ambition I’m fine with; blind arrogance is another matter entirely.
Liberal Vision is very disappointed to read that Chamali and Chandila Fernando are joining the Conservatives. While we respect their personal decisions, we believe that liberalism is best served with the Liberal Democrats and that David Cameron’s party will severely disappoint anyone expecting a liberal agenda.
Questions must still be asked about the Conservatives’ underlying beliefs on immigration, constitutional reform, the EU and even civil liberties. Meanwhile Cameron avoids all matters of substance, such as how to balance the UK’s budget during and after the recession.
In the run up to 1997, some Liberal Democrats such as Andrew Adonis were similarly enticed by the rhetoric and electoral advantage of Tony Blair’s New Labour. Yet in spite of the wave of optimism that surrounded their election, New Labour quickly turned into the illiberal machine of old. Who can say that Cameron’s government, should it come to fruition, will not be equally or even more disappointing?
For clarification: Chandila Fernando resigned from the Liberal Democrats many months ago. In doing so he automatically gave up his ties with Liberal Vision and has not been involved in our work this year.
Thanks, err, Nancy (!)
Full statement here: http://www.liberal-vision.org/2009/07/16/liberal-vision-statement-on-chandila-fernando-defection/
Contrary to what some might expect, I agree with most of the comments above – Mark V’s, for instance.
some Liberal Democrats such as Andrew Adonis
Wasn’t aware he used to be one of ours, but his obvious enthusiasm for railways has me warming to him the way he never could at Education. Come on home Andrew, we have cake and Weak Lemon Drink!
“It is very pleasing that two people who have played such an active role at the highest level in the Liberal Democrats” DC.
No, they sought to play such a role and were firmly rejected. I agree with James Graham: they seemed to believe that those who couldn’t see their genius were somehow themselves seriously flawed.
I’ve been expecting it since Chamali resigned from the Party after sending a letter to Clegg some 6 months ago, I think saying that Ethnic Minorities didn’t get enough support – so it’s no surprise.
Its a shame, I have a lot of respect for Chamali in particular, she is ambitious but that is no bad thing. I hope that she’s not sacrificed her beliefs for what she thinks is a promise of power – though it does look that way.
I’m sure the party will cope however.
Agree with Mark V. I am always amazed at how people act from anger rather than pity in these matters. They’ve made a personal choice that I disagree with, but it doesn’t make them dramatically worse people than they were a year or two ago. Good luck to them, although I fear they may be disappointed.
I think Andrew Adonis was at one time a member of the SDP.
It’s always a pity when people leave the party, but it has to be said that the Fernandos were not exactly in line with much of party thinking, were they?
“I left the Tories for a number of reasons, but mainly because of their position on race and immigration. As the son of an immigrant myself, I am appalled by the way the Right often takes an extreme, populist and dangerous stance on these sensitive and explosive issues. I am a true liberal and feel at home in the Lib Dems. David Cameron may have given the Conservatives a new-look, but he has not fundamentally changed his party.”
“They’ve made a personal choice that I disagree with, but it doesn’t make them dramatically worse people than they were a year or two ago.”
No, they were just as bad a year or two ago. Self obsession and arrogance are never easy traits to hold in a democratic party.
Oh dear. What a miscalculation by the two of them!
When I met the two of them ambitious may have been one word to describe them, but I fear they have tacitly accepted their limitations by this decision.
Either their judgement is to be called into question for changing their minds in such a public way, or it is their integrity which will continue to be doubted.
I wonder how they will react when they inevitably come up against the new glass ceiling they have now set themselves and it will be interesting indeed to watch and see if they are ever able to overcome this obstacle.
It makes me sorry to have lost a couple of enthusiastic youngsters and on the surface it looks like a coup for Cameron, but the loss of two strategic incompetents to the Conservatives is our gain.
If they do feel more at home under David Cameron it makes me more concerned about a potential government formed around him and only convinces me that we should be even more clear about the lines of opposition in order to be able to effectively limit tory excesses – a stronger team of LibDems in the next parliament is in everybody’s interests!
I’m going to say this and have Meral or someone shoot at me again, but whilst we need to actively encourage members of ethnic minorities to join the party, we must make it clear (and indeed actually be clear) that the only way to succeed in this party is to work and campaign hard and that being from an ethnic minority (or being a woman for that matter) is not a shortcut to success in the Liberal Democrats. Nor should it be.
A lot of people agree with you Martin.
The only thing that should ever matter in this party is how liberal you are.
From what I know about these folks & read above – no loss to us – the tories seem the perfect home – good luck to them.That being said there are plenty of liberals in the other parties (at all levels) & of none who should really be with us – lets work on them & let the self interested go.
PS I was going to add – we should be a braod church of liberals/liberal Democrats – not a broad church of liberals/lib dems & Tories/socialists.
There are some good Liberals in other parties, and occasionally they may be able to achieve more in their chosen party than in ours – on the face of it Andrew Adonis is a case in point. Think what a loss to the development of a more liberal society it would have been if Roy Jenkins had spent the 1960s fighting hopelessly to get into parliament for the Liberal Party. But it much more commonly seems to me to be the case that people who leave us and end up in other parties either should never have been here in the first place, or have had a perfectly legitimate change of mind about the most appropriate political vehicle for the creation of the sort of society they want to see. Peter Hain is an example of someone who was never a liberal: we always knew he would end up in a Labour Cabinet. John Horam is someone who, I assume, has been on a political journey over the past 30 years, and perhaps he has found his true political home now. Defectors often claim that the party they joined has changed: looking at the history of all three main parties over the past forty years it is difficult to claim that that is not true. Certainly the party I joined 40 odd years ago is not the one I belong to now, but it still represents my philosophy to a greater degree of entirety than any of the alternatives.
Further to Whelan’s post… the link to the relevant article on LDV and Chandila Fernando’s website!. 🙂
In the words of Chandila Fernando himself:
“I left the Tories for a number of reasons, but mainly because of their position on race and immigration. As the son of an immigrant myself, I am appalled by the way the Right often takes an extreme, populist and dangerous stance on these sensitive and explosive issues. I am a true liberal and feel at home in the Lib Dems. David Cameron may have given the Conservatives a new-look, but he has not fundamentally changed his party. ”
Hmmm…
Great link from Martin to Chandila’s website. Particulary in answer to the “Why should we trust you, you have just left the Tories!”
I admired their charisma and I think they will have their day in the future sometime. However I am not sure their libertarian opinions fit nicely into any political party apart from a fringe one.
It’s a shame to see Chandila go; I felt he was by far the most convincing Presidential candidate.
I share the fear of Mark (not Valladares) that those of us who shared some of his opinions about the party will now find it harder to make our voices heard.
Actually I think Chandila was a very unconvincing candidate for president. He should have worked his way up before going for the top job. He was making all kinds of radical proposals about how the party should be run, at a time when the Bones report had just been published. Surely if his ideas were so good he should have contributed to that report first?
Dave
Looked at another way, perhaps this just reflects the fact that he was misguided when he said “I like the way Nick Clegg is taking the party, and want him to go further.”
Thankfully the rightward movement didn’t go further – in fact it reversed to some extent. Thankfully there is no longer any danger of the Lib Dems trying to outflank the Tories on the right. So it’s only appropriate that those who favoured that strategy should depart.
This has been on the cards for a good while, I had even thought about posting about this along the lines of ‘where are the Fernandos – look out Cameron’ but I gave up such blogging a while ago. They had dropped all Party connections and Party links (even from facebook !) and Chandila seems to have been out of Liberal Vison for many months, they had gone very quiet in the Lib Dems (since losing elections) to say the least. Both are intelligent, talented and a loss to the Lib Dems for sure but by their own definition they are from a ‘political family’ – their description, not mine – This ‘family’ were Tory, then SDP, then Lib Dem, then Tory, then Lib Dem again and are now again Tory (for the third time). I wonder if perchance Sumal and the good Mrs Fernando are also now Tories for the third time ? – what does this tell us – a coincidental quadruple Damascene conversion – or a bunch of sheep – I’m sorry Chandila and Chamali – the nature of Liberalism is the triumph of individualism and free thought vs the mindlessless of the pack mentality and acceptance of received wisdom – i.e. prejudice from parents. If either of you had stayed a Lib Dem, when the rest of the family decided to defect (I am sure your curiosity of the impact of your departure will mean you are reading this) that would have been truly brave, and Liberal – I would have had enormously more respect for you – but you took the weak and depressingly predictable option. I wish you were still with us and in a way I wish you well.
First in reply to Herbert, you are wrong, wrong, wrong.
This whole obsession about left/right thing is nauseating, and the fact that you want those that don’t exactly believe in “your” views to depart is shocking….how very illiberal of you.
Anyway as someone who spent time with both these people at conference, in London and at their home I am extremely disappointed with their decision(I read it in The Standard same as most…although with less surprise)
I fear that going after what they may think is guaranteed glory with the Tories will disappoint.
I have personally had many personal knocks within the party but defect! NEVER, just as I could not stop supporting my football team no matter how crap they are I could not so quickly & easily change my political outlook.
Whatever Nick did it seemed it was not enough(although Chandila along with myself & 2 other colleagues did some telephone canvassing for Nick)
The disappointing of them not getting in to a “position” in the party angered them, although both still very young in political terms they seemed to take it as a direct personal snub.
The issue of minorities not being represented well enough is true of all parties but to get elected just because of the colour of your skin, I think not.
I agree(as they both will) that they always flirted with the Tory party in the past far too easily, mostly because they thought the Tories as having more ambition….or as I see it a lust for power.
I believe as many have said they will be seriously wrong and I would publically question their motives on defecting on ideological grounds.
I am no shrinking violate, I once was desperate to “command” a position within the party(we am soon leaving the country so it longer applies) but to defect on a flimsy hope that it may happen with the Tories!
It is their choice(Mark V is always the voice of reason), but my God I thought I made some stupid moves….guys you have just trumped me 100 fold!
Disappointedly yours, Rab.
Sorry Mark V, I shall go by this moniker from now on on the rare occasions I chip in!
Herbert is illustrating my point nicely – I certainly didn’t agree with Chandila’s opinions on the political direction of the Westminster party. However, I did agree with his opinions on the organisational direction of the Federal Party, and I am worried about these things being confused.
Geoffrey, the Bones Report was an inside stitch-up, not something that has any credibility a serious attempt to reform the party from the grass roots. I suspect that had ordinary party members had a realistic chance to contribute to the report, and their opinions been respected, then the final report would have been very different. I have every respect for any Lib Dem who refused to touch it with a bargepole.
“two people who have played such an active role at the highest level in the Liberal Democrats”
Start as you mean to carry on – not actually telling the truth. Possibly what counted against them most in the intrenal party election was a lack of evidence that they played an active role in anything much.
Well that is the ultimate self fulfilling prophecy. Don’t say anything at all to the commission and then complain that your views were ignored.
If you think the commision is a stitch up, just for the sake of argument, all the more reason to try and contribute, and if they don’t take any notice then at least you can back up your predujice from personal experience.
Big Mak:
“This whole obsession about left/right thing is nauseating, and the fact that you want those that don’t exactly believe in “your” views to depart is shocking….how very illiberal of you.”
If can can stop being “nauseated” long enough to read properly what I wrote you’ll see that I didn’t (of course) say anything about “[wanting] those that don’t exactly believe in [my] views to depart”. I referred to people who wanted to outflank the Tories on the right.
And it’s ridiculous to assert that “right” and “left” are meaningless. Of course they’re not. It may be convenient for Lib Dems to make that claim, for tactical political reasons, but that’s a different matter.
“And it’s ridiculous to assert that “right” and “left” are meaningless. Of course they’re not. It may be convenient for Lib Dems to make that claim, for tactical political reasons, but that’s a different matter.”
I think you might have to accept that this is merely “the world as you see it”, Herbert Brown. I for one can see those terms evolving into meaninglessness right before my eyes, the further we get from the third quarter of the twentieth century.
Mark,
Don’t worry, I just felt that, given my unique perspective (I’m married to one of Chandila’s opponents for the Presidency), I ought to clarify.
Besides, the LDV woods are full of Marks, with Messrs Pack, Reckons and Wright, to name just three…
Alix:
“I think you might have to accept that this is merely “the world as you see it”, …”
No chance at all of the minority who don’t believe in “left” and “right” doing that, I suppose?
Well, I can only speak for myself, as I made clear by using the phrase “I for one”. So of course that is true in my case.
Alix
Ah well, if that’s all you mean, obviously we all know we can only speak for ourselves.
And I suppose even members of the Flat Earth Society can tell round-earthers that “that’s only the world as you see it”.
Geoffrey, I’m sure if ordinary party members like me had had a realistic chance to contribute to the Bones Report, we would have done so.
Herbert,
my recommendation is to tell both sides that the world is actually quite mountainous (although I suspect this won’t work in Norwich North…).
I for one am very pleased that the party is simultaneously outflanking both left and right from a liberal democratic standpoint.
Oranjepan
I’m not entirely sure what “simultaneously outflanking both left and right from a liberal democratic standpoint” means, but I’m sure it must be very different from outflanking the Tories on the right, which is what I said …
Decentralisation, m’boy, decentralisation: not just a strategy, also a policy approach.
I don’t think it helps to get doctrinaire about what we should support – different policies are successful under different circumstances, so I’m more interested to start with in what actually works than what people would like to work. Afterwards experience tells me we see convergence between the two.
Why should we conform to our opponents conception of the political spectrum when they consistently fail so spectacularly? Why should we continue to march to their left-right drumbeat? Liberals of all stripes and spots should be setting our own agendas and writing our own futures.
Martin Land: I’m going to say this and have Meral or someone shoot at me again, but whilst we need to actively encourage members of ethnic minorities to join the party, we must make it clear (and indeed actually be clear) that the only way to succeed in this party is to work and campaign hard and that being from an ethnic minority (or being a woman for that matter) is not a shortcut to success in the Liberal Democrats. Nor should it be.
Antony Hook: A lot of people agree with you Martin.
The only thing that should ever matter in this party is how liberal you are.
It needs to be pointed out that how liberal you are and how hard you are prepared to work are two very different things. Indeed at times they can come across as rather mutually exclusive concepts (at least when it comes to some of the more tribal and communitarian versions of our campaign techniques).
Oranjepan,
Conficius he say, man who simultaneously outflank you both left and right suffer severe anatomical dislocation ..