World politics is going to be rough in the next few years – and British politics will be increasingly difficult, too. Trump’s victory means that the USA’s role in global affairs will be highly unpredictable. But we can predict that American influence will not be constructive on a range of global issues, from combatting climate change to managing the world economy and containing conflicts, and is unlikely to be affected by consideration for British or European concerns. So how do we respond?
Ed Davey’s first response to Trump’s victory was spot on. We need to defend and promote liberal values and prioritise rebuilding closer relations with our European neighbours. Neither of those are easy. Illiberal movements are gaining ground in many democratic countries, including within the EU. Liberal democracy gains most support when economies are growing, societies are stable and international relations are peaceful. Even without the added complications of an incoherent and unfriendly US Administration, the challenges of preventing catastrophic climate change, of coping with the mass movement of people that climate change and regional conflicts are already driving, of moving towards a sustainable global economy and resisting Chinese and Russian expansionism would be hard to manage – and harder to persuade the British electorate to share the cost.
There will no doubt be a flood of analyses of why a majority of American voters supported Trump. But discontent at the economic and social disruption of their lives, and disillusion with the ‘elites’ who – as they see it – allowed disruptive change to sweep from outside through their communities, were major factors. Those discontents are widespread in Britain as well. The ‘left behind’ in northern and coastal towns feel similarly abandoned by educated elites and multinational corporations. You Gov tracker polls show that the answer to the question ‘Are members of Parliament in touch with the public or not?’ has consistently shown around 70% answering ‘out of touch’ and 10-12% ‘in touch’ over the past five years. Those in the Brexit Referendum who were saying ‘I want my country back’ were expressing a similar sense of loss to Trump supporters who want to ‘Make America Great Again.’
So Liberals are embattled. Many of us, like American Democrats, have met the charge on the doorstep that we are patronising voters by offering reasoned arguments in answer to powerful and resentful emotions. Our vote in July was drawn disproportionately from university graduates and professionals; older and poorer voters were more often drawn to the Conservatives or Reform. We know that it’s an error for them to look to Reform for help. Three of their five MPs are public schoolboys, four have had careers in finance, and only Lee Anderson is ‘authentic’ working class. Their platform promises tax cuts and a smaller state. But they successfully present themselves as against the ‘liberal establishment’ of Westminster and Whitehall.
How do we explain the hard choices that any government now faces to these disillusioned voters? Tax cuts are easy to promise, but impossible to deliver in current circumstances – as Liz Truss discovered. Our ageing population demands resources for pensions, health and social care. Public investment has been too low for decades and must be raised. Education and training is also part of the long-term investment we need to make – including political and citizenship education, if we are to regain public confidence. The weakening of US support for European security also means that we must increase defence spending. The Labour Party was afraid to explain the difficult choices that faced the UK, for fear of failing to win the election if it did so; we were, at least, a bit more honest. Kemi Badenoch is reasserting that tax cuts are the answer; we will discover how far she is able to sustain such a position as she competes with our MPs for the claim of ‘constructive’ opposition.
Liberal democracy depends upon a sense of shared citizenship, a relatively stable society and an inclusive economy without too great a gap between rich and poor. Those economists, like Dani Rodrick and Martin Wolf, who have argued that globalisation and financial capitalism are hard to reconcile with democracy put regulation and redistribution before the interests of the markets and millionaires like Trump, Farage, Tice, Musk and their like. To regain public trust and rebuild a liberal economy and society we will have to push both for political and economic reform, well beyond what our new Labour government has yet considered or the British public would at present accept. So how do we campaign for that?
* William Wallace is Liberal Democrat spokesman on constitutional issues in the Lords.
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32 Comments
This is idle thought at this point rather than well-worked out philosophy – do we need a way of communicating liberalism in a ‘doing’ rather than ‘being’ way. Conservatism often does well because hardcore nationalist authoritarians marry their bile with promises of sound economics and social stability, and moderate people who want a quiet, reliable life with stability and freedom in balance vote for it despite the nationalist bile. I’m really keen on liberal philosophy for its own sake, but I’ve got more than one friend from the non-committal left or right to be open to our way because in simple terms it means help when you need it, and being left to your own life when you don’t, and an economic and welfare system that means everyone has enough of both those things to have a decent life. Just a thought.
Thank you for this William. I am so pleased that, with this and Ed Davey’s brave statement, we are seeing the necessity to campaign on our Liberal values, rather than keeping quite and hoping no-one notices them
It is worth watching this video. This is a statement made by a two term Republican President Reagan.
The world has really changed!
@Jack Nicholls
Also listening to people is important. Not pretending we know all the answers – we need to understand peoples’ problems better before proposing solutions.
The answer to winning power is simple. Find an effective narrative, boil it down to 2-3 key point/slogans, and repeat it until you are blue in the face.
We learned this from Brexit vote, and the three elections of 2019; “bollocks to brexit” won us hundreds of council seats and numerous MEPs, but are awful messaging over revoke article 50 cost us half over polling.
The brutal fact is most voters don’t pay attention to policy or facts. They pay attention to themes, vibes, and signals of indentity. Farage knows this. Trump knows this. Edwardian and Victorian Liberals knew this whilst drumming up chants of “Big Loaf Little Loaf”.
@Nonconformistradical – yes, always sensible and on an ongoing basis
Well put, William. As usual, I agree entirely with you. But the next four years are going to be tough. The attitudes which have put Trump back in the White House (in 74 days time) are going to be encouraged and tried everywhere. So vested interests will be working full out against us, and vast sums of money will be expended to try and muzzle us. Just look at how much the media have failed to report or even mention Liberal views since the elections four months ago! That is no accident.
Drop and attack Austerity/Neo-liberalism?
Big the Social-Liberalism root of Liberalism?
Big time the listening to and use of any and every coherent point of view?
“The ‘left behind’ in northern and coastal towns feel similarly abandoned by educated elites and multinational corporations. ” Also in rural Britain, e.g. the Highlands and Islands. Of course we need detailed policy. However we also need a clear simple narrative to counter the clear simple slogans of our opponents. We need to double down on the roots of our Liberal name (we are all Democrats I hope) which should give us a clue. Liberation (from poverty, poor housing, crumbing infrastructure, incompetent public and private services etc ). Liberality in reaching out to and reaching all sectors of our society (beyond metropolitan elites?). Liberty in thought and speech. Folks often say they don’t know what we stand for. We need to start telling them Liberation, Liberality, Liberty. And perhaps we need to push back against being described as Lib Dems? The phrase conveys nothing at all up against the resonance of (say) Conservative, Labour, Reform, Scottish Nationalist or (as demonstrated by Mr Trump – MAGA?).
@ Chris, the Democrat part of our name is supposed to convey the Social Democrat roots of the party.
I think a lot of people absorbed within politics struggle to fully recognise how many people just don’t find it as interesting as we do. The popularity of streaming services means a lot of people aren’t faced with the evening news when they switch on the tv, or even hearing the two-minute dumbed down news from the radio.
Those who once watched the news religiously and took an active interest in politics struggle to keep up when they have small children. Many decide that life is a lot less stressful if they don’t know what’s going on. Or they end up subject to algorithms that lead them towards narrow thinking.
The simplified, often dishonest telling people what they want to hear type messaging of Reform works best when people aren’t getting their news from a range of balanced sources. On the other hand, the LibDem tradition of being community politicians gives us an advantage over the much lazier populists, so long as people can see what we stand for.
Most people aren’t fundamentally opposed to immigration – they just want a hospital appointment. Fixing the basics is the best way to take the wind out of the sails of extremists.
A cheaper fix, but unpopular with the Labour leadership, is electoral reform to move away from the two-party system that rewards polarised thinking and campaigning.
My apologies – this is the last speech Ronald Reagan made. How the Republication party has changed.
https://www.niussp.org/video/open-doors-for-the-american-dream-reagans-last-speech-as-president-1989/
@Mark – an interesting and telling speech in many ways, from what with hindsight we can see was a different world of politics.
Although, in light of Ken Westmoreland’s article (https://www.libdemvoice.org/dont-blame-us-for-trump-76493.html ), Reagan wasn’t being totally truthful when he said
“but anyone, from any corner of the earth, can come to live in America and become an American.”
It’s an unfortunate truth that being a populist political party is very much easier than being a liberal one.
Populists have the advantage of offering simple (if unrealistic) answers to complex questions and persuade people that they can have nice things without making any sacrifices to get them. And when they inevitably fail to deliver, just blame minorities or immigrants. It’s all very seductive, but an anathema to liberals like us.
There is no easy answer, but it does put a huge premium on Liberal politicians being good and effective communicators in order to succeed.
Between them Ed and William have given us a very good start to our thinking about our response to the US election result. My understanding of American politics is pretty limited and others will be no doubt be better equipped to spell out the key differences between UK and US democracy.
However, for what it’s worth, my gut feeling is that “political party” means something different on the other side of the of the Atlantic, although the hijacking of the Republican Party has some similarities to the hijacking of the Conservative Party in the UK. Leadership between elections is quite different. Crucially ongoing campaigning is different, especially for our party. What would American Democrats make of a January Focus delivered in a non-election year? One thing Trump got right is that being in office is not a reason to wind down campaigning after winning an election. One of the most important elements of political nous is seeing what is coming down the track and I suspect the US Democrats failed on that one from Obama’s second term onwards. With an integration of philosophy/values, strategy and campaigning skills we could display more resilience than many other political parties in the dark days and years ahead.
Hints of a slightly new direction for our campaigning as William Wallace mentions economic reform so that includes new and sustainable (hence long term efficient) ways of doing business; another idea for that is the concept of public benefit companies; perhaps also more businesses like John Lewis ?
Chris Lewcock suggests aiming to liberate people from poor housing, poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and “incompetent public services”; perhaps poor public services is better since it includes lack of funding for them.
Did anyone notice the way in which Trump emphasised he was leader of a ‘movement’ not a party ? That suggests involvement of people, whether he meant that or not and hence attracts support.
It seems to me our attitude to the threats posed by a Trump-led America should first be to commit our party to defence. Defence of our people as well as our Liberal values by greater co-operation with all who share our values, particularly by promoting closer ties with the EU and Commonwealth, raising shared shields against our foes. And by declaring our commitment to defending the economic betterment of our citizens as well as their health and welfare in the difficult years ahead.
Following Mark’s link to the (amazing to hear it now) last Reagan speech, I was reminded of these words:
‘Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’
I read this inscription at the Statue of Liberty as a young man and was inspired. Not so sure now.
Watching the Cenotaph Remembrance Day ceremonies on BBC 1 this morning was reassuring. So many nations laying wreaths, and so many service people from abroad marching, reminded me of the vast outreach of Britain in the past and still today. We have a world community for us to help protect and them to back us in their turn, if we now face an indifferent and isolationist America.
“Those in the Brexit Referendum who were saying ‘I want my country back’ were expressing a similar sense of loss to Trump supporters who want to ‘Make America Great Again.’ ”
Saying “Put the Great back in Britain” would be similar. Both would be right wing nationalist sentiments.
Saying ” I want my country back” isn’t the same thing at all. It is a democratic request. It means that we set our own laws according to the electoral Process. It means that if we choose to run a budget deficit of 3.5%, or whatever figure we choose to run, we don’t have some political apparatchik from Brussels putting us under an “Excessive Deficit Procedure” and constantly being pressured to meet the EU’s 3% target!
Saying ” I want my country back” isn’t the same thing at all. It is a democratic request…
If that were true why are the Brexiters still saying it years after we left the EU?
“I want my country back” is not a democratic request – it’s a psychological condition. ‘They’ never had it in the first place.
Most things now belong to the expat billionaires (some of whom fund Reform), what’s left of the landed gentry, the Royals and a few footballers.
@ Andrew and David,
Possibly the nearest we’ve been to having our own country was in the post war genuinely mixed economy period. But I take your point. We would still have had a ruling class.
I’d put it that Brexit was a necessary but not a sufficient condition for this to genuinely happen. It’s a stage in the process.
@ Peter Martin, “I’d put it that Brexit was a necessary but not a sufficient condition for this to genuinely happen”.
I’m afraid I wouldn’t, Peter.
The days of Empire are long gone, the aftermath of Brexit has been catastrophic economically for the UK and worsened the condition of ordinary people, and there’s nothing splendid about isolation. “Making Britain Great Again” when it never really was for ordinary folk (despite much propaganda to the contrary) is a particularly empty vacuum.
@David Raw …. Ordinary folk were hardly living it up when we were members of the EU. Most were indifferent to it’s existence . Woeful election turnouts anonymous Mep’s the norm.
Membership didn’t make one iota of a difference their lives – looking around those communities – who could blame them for voting how they did…
@ Martin Gray ……… and, Martin, if you want the details that are not on the side of a bus, here’s a link for the full report :
Cambridge Econometrics
https://www.camecon.com › uploads › 2024/01
PDF
Overall, by 2035, UK output, investment, exports, imports, employment and productivity are all expected to be lower than if the UK remained in the EU. New trade ……… 50 pages
@ Katharine Pindar – “It seems to me our attitude to the threats posed … should first be to commit our party to defence.”
I like the use of the word ‘defence’, it carries a number of connotations, which would chime with many.
@Martin Gray – You are being very selective , but perhaps the problem was the UK economy was (and still is) in a bad place and people find it difficult to see connections.
A good piece of advice I was given back in the early days of John Major’s government, when the economic outlook was “gloomy”, was a simple observation “perhaps this is as good as it gets”. So rather than waiting, we got on and built a hugely profitable pan-EU IT centre of excellence here in the UK, without EU membership that is now very difficult…
Remember also places like Grimsby received large amounts of EE regeneration funding, without the politics and repeated announcements, and very slow delivery of monies that bedevilled Westminster funding.
Given Trump is wanting everyone to be subservient to the US/Trump, we can expect that £71.2bn trade surplus the UK enjoys with the US is under threat. Reduce this and the infamous Brexiteer claim that EU trade accounted for a reducing amount of UK external trade looks very hollow…
Life is going to be hard in the coming years, I suspect many will be unaware that Brexit helped to make it harder….
“Remember also places like Grimsby received large amounts of EE regeneration funding, without the politics and repeated announcements, and very slow delivery of monies that bedevilled Westminster funding.”
Or maybe people in Grimsby remembered a time when they didn’t need a grants from the EU or UK government because they had a prsperous fishing industry. Perhaps they believe that had they not been in the EU they would have had a fairer share of the fish from British territorial waters and could have been a prosperouis and self supporting community.
@ David Raw,
The weakness of the supposed “full report” produced by the Cambridge Econometrics group is that it is based on the difference of two questionable forecasts going over a decade or more into the future. One is what is claimed would likely happen if we were still in the EU. The other is what is claimed will actually happen.
There’s no way of checking the first hypothesis of course. The errors in the two forecasts don’t look to have been even estimated let alone calculated with any degree of scientific precision. For example the report quote a figure of 10.1% of GVA (Gross Value Added) reduction. Three significant figures of precision eh? I don’t think so!
There is always an arithmetical problem when calculating the difference between two very large numbers which are approximately the same. If one is 1.1 million and the other is 1.05 million for example the true difference is 0.05 million. Put an error of 5% on what is calculated in each case and the error can be huge.
No-one really knows how well or badly both the EU and the UK will handle their economies in the next decade or so. All we can do is make comparisons of what has actually happened, in both the EU and UK, rather than what a neoliberal economic group thinks might happen or could have happened if only we hadn’t left.
@Andrew – Still the root cause is … Westminster…
Martin Gray 17th Nov ’24 – 10:32am:
[EU] Membership didn’t make one iota of a difference their lives – looking around those communities – who could blame them for voting how they did…
Actually, many could see from their own experience how ‘freedom of movement’’ suppressed their wages, reduced their opportunities for on the job training and promotion, pushed up their cost of housing, and increased competition for limited public services such as council housing and school places. Those involved in running businesses (not just the owners) could see a deluge of overly prescriptive EU regulation making life harder. GDP per capita for the UK as a whole peaked in 2008, but for many outside the South East their real income peaked years before that. They knew that the EU wasn’t working for them or for the country.
Peter Martin 18th Nov ’24 – 8:40am:
The weakness of the supposed “full report” produced by the Cambridge Econometrics group is that it is based on the difference of two questionable forecasts going over a decade or more into the future.
.
It was commissioned by Sadiq Khan abusing Council Tax payers’ money. Needless to say it’s stuff and nonsense. The projections are laughably implausible as shown graphically in this article…
.
‘Sadiq Khan’s Brexit figures are straight out of fantasyland’ [January 2024]:
https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/sadiq-khans-brexit-figures-are-straight-out-of-fantasyland/
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An altogether more realistic assessment is that Brexit has, so far, made little difference economically; hardly surprising when we continue to have full tariff and quota free access to the EU and only a few new trade deals have yet been implemented.
.
‘Why Leaving the EU was no big deal’ [November 2024]:
https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/why-leaving-the-eu-was-no-big-deal/