Prominent blogger and journalist, Charlotte Henry, has today resigned from the Liberal Democrats. She explains her reasons on her blog:
Today, with genuine sadness, I am resigning from the Liberal Democrat party.
I joined in 2009, becoming an intern for Don Foster MP. There are few better ways to get a political education than chasing after Don. Since then I’ve campaigned and consulted for candidates, held senior roles in the youth wing, and stood for the London Assembly and my local council. However, I can no longer remain in the Liberal Democrats.
Covering the allegations around Lord Rennard as a journalist has been thoroughly depressing. Whatever did or did not happen, the women have been treated appallingly, by people more interested in the tribalism of politics than doing the right thing. The handling of the Rennard allegations, the attacks on those who try and unravel the story, including me, made me realise that the Liberal Democrats are no longer an organisation I wanted to actively be part of.
The continuing presence of David Ward on the Lib Dem benches has long made my stomach turn. He has made repeated comments that I believe are anti-semitic, and received almost no sanction from the party. Few party members see any real problems with what he says, some even defending him. Last night was the final straw for me, when he posted another highly offensive comment on social media after the horrific attacks in Jerusalem. Nothing will happen to him, he will remain a Lib Dem MP.
I cannot be in party that allows people to say the things David Ward has, and to continue unrepentant and unpunished. I cannot be in a party in which the concerns of women are not respected properly.
There are wonderful people in the party who I hope to remain close to. However, I cannot stay a member of the Liberal Democrats, tacitly accepting anti-semitism and misogyny, because I’m a liberal, and I’m against that sort of thing.
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52 Comments
A sad loss from the party.
So, again, an MP makes a criticism (admittedly a rather foolish and intemperate one) of Israeli government action and the international response to it, and is accused of “antisemitism”. No sign of calm rationality entering that debate then. I despair.
While I have no idea how this merits an article, it will help reinforce the pressure on parts of the party to realise how much of a problem these two issues are. They can then continue their current policy of doing absolutely nothing about them.
Obviously entitled to her opinions – but LD Voice describe her as a ” prominent blogger ” – is she? I have never heard of her – possibly LD voice way of expressing which side of the fence they are on. If she is so prominent – her reasons for her resignation will be widespread – so why give her the space – are we really trying to depress ourselves? I intend to stay in the party – warts and all – just like any other party – as it is the party that best represents what I believe – no problem with people leaving – just dont want to be told every time someone does – it is hardly inspiring.
Very sorry to hear this news. a loss to the Party.
I hadn’t realised, from reading her blog, she was still a Liberal Democrat.
Maybe if Israel was a multicultural society – like we are supposed to be – then the situation would calm down.
Malcolm Todd
I think “The handling of the Rennard allegations” probably carry more weight. I have yet to hear anyone who thinks that hasn’t been a disaster.
Criticising Israel and the international communities handing of Israel whilst condemning the atrocious terrorist attack is simply NOT anti-Semitic.
There are some very legitimate criticisms to make of Israel’s actions, such as the collective punishment of Palestinians by effectively turning the Gaza Strip into a huge prison due to the Israeli embargo, and Israel should not be beyond criticism and scrutiny of its actions just because the majority of its population are Jewish.
Very sad – but what do we expect when prominent Liberal Democrat women in the party waffle on about feminism and body confidence but show no solidarity with women who have experienced (to put it mildly) sexism within the party itself.
Charlotte is right that our response to Ward, Rennard (and Hancock – he is still sitting on OUR BENCH in the Commons chatting matily with OUR MPs) has been pitiful. But “prominent bloggers” resigning is not going to change anything. It’s a shame she’s left because nobody outside out little world of Lib Dem navel gazing will pay any attention to it. Sure she’s got her principles to uphold, but let’s not get carried away thinking her resignation is going to shake the party into action. How many more people who don’t have a blog are leaving unnoticed?
I cannot believe you allowed an article to be published that claims a Lib Dem MPs comments were anti-Semitic when they clearly weren’t.
I think this a drip drip drip thing with the handling of Rennard the main issue. I read David Wards latest comment, it’s not anti-Semitic.
Tsar Nicolas,
Israel is a little more multicultural than most people think. There are Christians, Muslims, Atheists and as far as I know Buddhists living openly as Israeli citizens. In truth it’s a lot more multi cultural than most Middle Eastern countries, Have said that Netanyahu really needs to calm down with the making people pay rhetoric.
Charlotte Henry should stay and Ward and Rennard should resign.
Charlotte and I disagree on almost everything, but we have worked together very well on issues around sexism and on the secret courts campaign and she’s become a friend. I am sorry to see her go.
To those of you who think this doesn’t merit an article (and I actually didn’t write this one), we’re a blog. The blogosphere is a bit of a community. That’s why we’re writing about one of our own who has left, in the same way as we did when Mark Thompson left. That was another sad day.
Clegg and co don’t seem to care how many people leave as long as their cronies stay.
The Lib Dems need a radical change internally starting with a change of leader.
Why it should be no shock that Charlotte Henry has resigned from the party. In her own words —
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/charlottehenry/2014/07/what-is-the-lib-dems-problem-with-the-jews/
I believe party membership has dropped from nearly 70,000 at the time of the 2010 GE, and is now around 45,000. Do we really need an article each time someone quits?? Just unnecessary.
And no, criticising Israel makes you as anti-semitic as criticising Britain makes you anti-Christian, ie. it doesn’t!
For those of you asking why we have covered this, can I also point that this is, by a long chalk, the most popular post on this site today. So the readers seem to be voting with their clicks.
@Paul Walter. Interpreting human behaviour isn’t necessarily as easy as it may seem! Perhaps people are clicking here to find out why someone should think this interesting, rather than as a result of actually being interested?
I did think of that but didn’t mention it. Or perhaps it is because Charlotte Henry is well known in the blogging community, which makes up a large part of our potential readership. Her blog has regularly been within the eBuzzing top ten LibDem blogs and she writes regularly for the Spectator, TotalPolitics magazine and the Independent on Sunday.
@Jack Smith 19th Nov ’14 – 3:22pm
“Do we really need an article each time someone quits?? Just unnecessary.”
“And no, criticising Israel makes you as anti-semitic as criticising Britain makes you anti-Christian, ie. it doesn’t!”
Jack, I completely agree on both points.
Very sorry to see Charlotte go.
I think – trying to be fair to all sides – the question of anti-semitism is very difficult to extract from the merits of Israel/Palestine question. This is some way from the worst thing David Ward has said, but his form adds context.
Now to some, saying Israel is to blame for terrorist attacks on Israel, is a statement of the obvious. To others it is an act of hate speech that would not be made against any other state, least of all one in the front line of the war on terror on all our behalfs, motivated, surely, by anti-semitism, what else could it be?
It is dispiriting that we, so far removed, find it so hard to discuss the issue without pushing these inflamatory buttons. How much harder must it be for those involved?
Sorry, This does not merit a separate article. Sad yes.
David’s most recent comments are far from his worst, but his worst are awful and I am reminded whenever he speaks that he holds such views. Perhaps his comments similarly reminded Charlotte. I’m certainly uncomfortable being in a party with Ward.
Joe Otten 19th Nov ’14 – 4:49pm
“…… in the front line of the war on terror on all our behalfs….”
Joe Otten, I am not entirely clear what you are making reference to here. Could you elaborate?
I fear you may be pressing one of those “inflammatory buttons” you mentioned.
As an activist working on the ground to restore trust and integrity in our Party I am disheartened that others feel free to express their personal angst publicly. They might get their five minutes of fame but they are pressing the self destruct button for the rest of us, and undermines the excellent work done across the country by those who have lost their seats. Stop washing your dirty linen in public and start moving the Party back to where it should be in a Liberal and Fair community. We all need to mind our words and our behaviour. We are still miles better than the rest.
I am sad to hear that Charlotte has left our party. I agree with her that, David Ward, can be seen to be undiplomatic towards the Israel/Palestine problem. I understand that there is fault on both sides and if we take a constructivist viewpoint – Britain can be partially blamed for leaving the problem in 1948 and allowing the Jewish Population to move into Palestine between the First and Second World War. However, this does not excuse Ward’s tweet, which can be implied that those innocent people deserved to die, although I accept that he does not mean this.
It is a shame to see John Tilley, attacking Charlotte, for joining in the first place. Whether she is on the right or the left of the party, is not the point, it is the fact that she left. I used to be a former member of the Conservative Party, but I left because of their stance towards the European Union and attitudes towards LGBT people. Indeed, there are some former Tories in the UEA Lib Dem Society, which I am part of. I think we should be a broad church as Caron has implied in her comment, not as John wrote on Charlotte’s page, explaining her decision to leave.
I have never been a regular reader of Charlotte Henry’s blog, however, she has cited two very valid reasons for leaving that should not be dismissed lightly.
The Rennard Scandal made the LibDems look like amateurs, hypocrites and Charlotte is certainly not alone in thinking the women in question were treated with an appalling lack of regard.
Any inference that anyone in anyway deserves or is justified in being hacked to death for whatever reason is pretty unforgivable. David Ward’s tweet can easily be interpreted as suggesting that the behaviour of the terrorists was justified, whether that’s what he intended or not, so I tend to agree that he deserves some form of censure.
This is why I loathe Twitter!
Its full members of the political class talking to each other and having rows based on statements confined by the 140 character limit, that are open to (mis)interpretation.
As Peter Andrews and other have said David Ward’s comments were NOT anti-semitic, though they were anti the Israeli regime, and rightly so.
Adam Robertson
I am not sure why you are taking me to task for the comment I made on a blog. I did NOT attack her for joining the party in the first place. I said I did not know why she joined the party. In the context of some of the very extreme comments on that blog it is a very mild statement. Indeed compared to things Charlcotte Henry herself has written (example quoted in the article at the top of this thread and in The Spectator, link in my earlier comment) I think most objective observers would regard it as unusually polite.
What I said on Charlotte Henry’s blog was this —
“NOVEMBER 19, 2014 – 1:49 PM
John Tilley
Some make a mistake by joining one political party when their own political views are not really in line with the philosophy of that party.
Some join a political party when it is on the up and think it is a good career move.
I do not know why Charlotte Henry joined the Liberal Democrats, but whenever I have read her blog I have wondered why she did not join the Conservative Party.”
That is not an attack on her for joining the Liberal Democrats. It is not an attack n her at all. It is a statement of my honestly held view that she might have joined the wrong party in the first place. She joined the party which David Ward was already a very well established member of, elected to public office as a Liberal Democrat both as a councillor and an MP. Five years later she leaves the party because David Ward says what he has always said, which is usually nothing more than a statement of party policy.
well I thought she had actually resigned, as I had read about it on Facebook weeks ago. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have known who she was.
Yet another ego which demands that when they leave the tribe that they must maximise the self-publicity and do as much damage as they can in leaving.
Message to all. . if you decide to go, just go. Turn the page and get on with the rest of your life, you never know, you might want to re-join one day.
Until I read this article I’d never heard of either of them and I bet you no one else in Huntingdonshire had either. If people want to leave the party over comments like David Ward’s, that’s up to them. Meanwhile, back in the real world, people in my town are concerned about Jobs, Immigration, local government cuts and falling living standards. Can those of us who are left after Ms Henry’s departure focus on that, please?
BTW I suspect that David Ward’s comments, which are not in the slightest bit anti-semitic, were just a convenient excuse for something she was planning to do anyway.
It was obvious that Ms Henry was gearing up to leave when she attacked the party over their Remembrance Day wreath. Like many people she has probably not so much made a definite decision but allowed herself to topple slowly over the edge until it became clear to her that she was no longer in sympathy with the party. I hope she finds a congenial berth where she can use her energies. The same thing seems to be happening with Jeremy Browne.
Ward and Rennard are both difficult cases but are they alone sufficient reason for a serious membership decision ?
In many arguments about what we had been doing in Afghanistan (and still are, in the form of our American allies) I made reference to the fact that Afghans put up armed resistance to the Russians and they put up armed resistance to NATO because they didn’t appreciate their country being invaded. I often added that I would almost certainly feel the same way if an army from a foreign country speaking a different language with a religion that I did not appreciate had invaded and occupied these isles.
I don’t see anything wrong with this – my view in that respect reflects that of David Ward.
I’m really saddened by Charlotte’s resignation. She is an articulate liberal voice and we’re poorer for her not staying in the party.
I disagree with Charlotte frequently on policy in Israel/Palestine, and I don’t think that this tweet is on its own is anti-Semetic. It is obviously possible to criticise the policies of the Israeli government without being anti-Semetic.
However, some of David Ward’s previous statements have crossed the line into hate speech, and I am not pleased to be sharing a political platform with him.
If we get to the point of being unable to criticise some of the reprehensible actions of the Israeli government without automatically being accused of anti-Semitism then there’s no hope for this party anyway.
Where does the blowing up of the family homes of suspected criminals figure in any decent society? Especially when it doesn’t seem to happen to Israelis suspected of murdering Palestinians.
I have never heard of this person either.
Charlottes’s meeting with a person in Golders Green was clearly a nightmare for her. I sympathise but these things happen on doorsteps. The best solution for all countries in the Middle East, as anywhere, is that they work towards promoting free and fair societies within their borders. This is a very long-term project and we have all read of the current horrors which abound – and will prevent free and fair societal development every time a new horror occurs.
As an aside, I tell myself every day that I should leave the Lib Dems but looking at the other parties – where would I find similarly free and fair societies within them? We are not very good just now but our principles hold me in!
Its a bit late wondering whether this article should be on LDV, so I wont go into that one. I am late to this having been offline for 48 hours.
I have read a few of ms Henrys things & I am sad shes leaving. I agree with her that Rennard & Ward should have been thrown out years ago but I am not going to resign.
This is sad but Party membership has been rising slowly for more than a year, the first time that happened to a Party in Government since the 1940s. Our Partys imminent death has been announced many times, we are still here.
Well done! I agree with one article here, but it will never happen again. It is against my kind, I have been writing on the subject of anti-Semitic comments, and the abuse of those who I worship with.
Also, my comments are going into the EU, another unhealthy place for a Jew to live.
Again, well done!
“I cannot be in party that allows people to say the things David Ward has” – What happened to all those people who used to say, “I don’t agree with what you say but I’ll defend your right to say it”? Where have they all gone. And where did people get the idea that they have the right not to be offended?
I would not argue further, on the situation of comments which I feel are deeply offensive and could cause further problems here, and in other areas of the world.
If your Party wishes to take this stand, then of course, there is little I can do, other, than not vote for you and ban leaflets and Lib Dems from my home, I have that choice.
This I have done. now I leave you to carry as you were before.
Liberal member/Lib Dem since 1959/60.The Party is not perfect.It makes mistakes has made mistakes but a person like
Shirley Williams can remain a member but someone only a member since 2009 can not sorry but where do you go?
At conference we influence policy,ok again its not perfect not enough go we need to always adapt but never at the
expense of pandering to public opinion.
@Mr Wallace: the Voltaire quote is inappropriate for the context. This is not about freedom of speech but about whether one wants to be associated with someone who said particular things. So Charlotte Henry is not saying she thinks David Ward shouldn’t be allowed to say what he said, she is saying she does not want to be in an organisation that (in her view) condones his comments.
I support Charlotte Henry in her disquiet over the Rennard affair, but on David Ward’s tweet she has no justification.
It was anti-zionist, NOT anti-semitic. Israel is a colonial state, continually finding excuses to avoid even the half-satisfactory two-state solution.
Fo r a thoughtful recent review of its history – and dissection of yet another pro-Israeli apologist – I recommend
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n19/nathan-thrall/feeling-good-about-feeling-bad.
It is noteworthy that leading Jews opposed the colonisation of Israel at the outset, and foresaw it’s unfortunate likely consequences. To quote from the article cited:
” … after the Seventh Zionist Congress in Basel in 1905 a heated debate arose about the suitability of Palestine as a national home, given its large Arab population. A lecture by Yitzhak Epstein, ‘A Hidden Question’, helped spark the debate, exacerbating tensions between the territorialists, who wanted to establish Jewish self-rule wherever they could, and the Zionists of Zion, who insisted on a national home in Zion-Palestine. ‘Will those who are dispossessed remain silent and accept what is being done to them?’ Epstein asked. ‘In the end, they will wake up and return to us in blows what we have looted from them with our gold!’ “
Principals above party – so refreshing.
Westminster has created a tribal culture within political parties. Deny it,bury it, ignore it is the norm for ALL the main Westminster Parties.
As regards Israel – the UK are unfit to judge any nation given our bloody history from Empire to Iraq.
The UK divided more nations and their people than any other. They exceeded the Roman Empire in this regard.
Have you forgotten Africa, India, Pakistan. The slave trade. The drugs trade with China!
How many civilians died in Iraq and still are.. How can anyone ignore America and it’s actions and attack another?
Britain should remain silent.
A Britain with the 4th largest “Defence” but a nation who provides zero support to the UN peace keeping role
We lost the right to condemn other nations, ANY other nation
Oh dear, trendy lefty angst with a smattering of I dislike everything about my country. Julian, Just because bad things were done many, many years ago, by people long dead, it doesn’t mean people today in the UK who care should shut up. All it means is you want to shut them up. Lib Dems alone of all the main political groups stood against Blair’s invasion of Iraq. I presume you were telling them to remain silent. Lib Dems stood against and ultimately stopped meddling in Syria. I presume you were telling them to remain silent.
I suggest you go and post on a site more accepting of censorship.
@Julian Gibb
“A Britain with the 4th largest “Defence” but a nation who provides zero support to the UN peace keeping role”
we pay 6.7% of its budget – about $460m a year.
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/financing.shtml
I did read about the comments on how people left your Party ,and how it could damage it in the future.
If you have the knowledge on how to handle others in times of conflict, then this would not be the case.
Human beings have feelings and emotions. I contribute to relationship breakdowns and child access issues. Mediation is something that you should try, it works.
Too late, for those of us who left you without the solution to our grievances, but then to how I see things, your Party comes before anything.
Reading these comments, I feel ever more vindicated in my decision to resign.
I wonder which comments make you feel that way, Charlotte, and why?
Can someone link to the tweet she’s referring to as anti-Semitic please?