Farron: Tories are taking the south west for granted

Tim Farron has been talking to the Western Morning News and accused the new Tory MPs for the south west of taking the area for granted.

He is clear, however, that the former Lib Dem heartlands will again be a priority for the party. This is for a number of reasons – not least the region’s strong liberal heritage – but he says he is particularly concerned about the lack of local opposition. “I’ve spent the last eight months observing what Conservative MPs from the Westcountry have been doing, and they’ve been voting for universal credit…cuts in green energy investment, and the 15% cuts to Defra,” he says. “I see a pattern here of Conservative MPs not standing up for the Westcountry and taking it for granted.

“There needs to be a strong alternative in the South West and I’m determined it should be us. Our comeback is on behalf of the people of the region who deserve a voice in Westminster.”

Other areas where Mr Farron argues the Government is letting Devon and Cornwall down include investment and devolution policies. He says the region “must be sick” of hearing about the Northern powerhouse, while seeing little new funding coming its way. “I can tell you from personal experience the Northern powerhouse is a sham…but the thing about David Cameron and George Osborne is they’re not even bothering to pretend that they’re investing in the Westcountry,” he says. “They’re not even going through that charade.”

And he reiterates the Liberal Democrat commitment to creating a Cornish Assembly, while promising Devon and Somerset an arrangement “that suits them”. “Devolution is not being told from the centre ‘you must have a mayor’ or ‘you must have that’,” he adds. “[And] resources have got to follow.”

You can read the whole article here.

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25 Comments

  • The problem with this is that the Liberal Democrats have promised devolution on demand and Nick Clegg gave a public speech when in government, supporting the notion of City Regions.

    Liberal Democrats have tacitly supported piecemeal devolution and the preferential treatment given to larger urban areas over those which are predominantly rural. Our sop to our “favourite little corner of the country” is to promise special treatment to Cornwall. Again, this is piecemeal and rather arbitrary even if Cornwall does have a particular historical difference. It’s just not good enough for the rest of us who live neither in London, Cornwall or any large English cities. I mean it’s barmy saying “Devon and Cornwall are being short-changed” if we then say we’ll offer special status to one of those two areas but not the other, as though “what suits them” actually means anything.

    Wake up, Tim! This piecemeal nonsense means that instead of the West Lothian Question we will have a multitude of Questions from Cornwall, Manchester, London, Barnsley and Bath, and each bloody question will be slightly different because each area/city/county will have a slightly different level of devolution “that suits them” and the result in the House of Commons will be a bloody mess with about twenty different classes of MPs instead of the two (Scots versus the rest) or three that we are having now.

    There’s only one way to solve this problem *properly* and that is to have a proposal on the table for the *whole* electorate of the country to gain something from. That means a thorough federal model outlining full regional devolution and as symmetric an arrangement as possible as the final goal and a clear road-map to getting there rather than offering things made up on the back of an envelope as the mood sees fit.

    Maybe one can’t go around telling people they “have to have that” but at the end of the day you have to offer something that empowers all citizens equitably, and that must imply a reasonably symmetric constitution. I refused to be a second-class citizen because I live in a village in the East of England and not in Cornwall, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, London or Manchester.

  • Eddie Sammon 10th Jan '16 - 1:52am

    Michael Kilpatrick is right about the mistake of devolution on demand. It will make political and economic activity too complicated and therefore probably less productive.

    What happens if the people who want the extra power no longer want it? Without centralisation on demand too the policy cannot work. It will just lead to local outrage when it goes wrong. There is the problem of unequal democratic rights too, as he mentions above with the West Lothian problems.

  • For those paid-up party members reading this who might agree with me, I would very much appreciate your support for a policy motion “Federalism and Fair Devolution” I intend to submit for the Spring Conference. You can find it in the Conferences section of the members-only forum area here. You can private message me your name and membership number if you’d like to help – or send me your criticisms of the text!

  • Tony Greaves 10th Jan '16 - 12:25pm

    The region’s strong heritage is its Liberal heritage, not a “liberal heritage” whatever that may mean.

    Tony Greaves

  • @Adrian Sanders

    “Instead, a number of people who had previously voted Liberal Democrat to prevent a majority Tory Government cast their votes for the Greens, Labour and Ukip, or not at all.”

    Yep. All the party needs to do is to convince us down here that a vote for a Lib Dem MP won’t be ever used to prop up a Tory Government, and back we’ll come. The $64,000 question is how you do that. May I humbly suggest that strident announcements from the ‘orange booker’ types, and strong defences of the Coalition will hamper the task. Frankly, I’d vote right now in the South West at a local level for a Lib Dem councillor, but not for an MP: more needs doing (and the right kind of more).

  • Bolano, whilst what you say may be (superficially) true the reality on the ground in quite a number of constituencies – not just in the southwest but in places such as Richmond and Twickenham too – is that people switched away from the Lib Dems to vote for others such as Labour,,Green, UKIP and resulted in handing a constituency to the Conservatives. Whilst it is obviously not the case that people know what other people in other constituencies are going to do and what the resultant make-up of Parliament will be, what has happened is that a fair number of Tory MPs were returned to Parliament for previously Lib Dem seats in which they hardly had any gain in vote but in which the Lib Dem vote evaporated. The unintended (for some people) consequence is that rather than having another coalition in which the excesses of the Conservatives were at least modified by another party, those people now have an absolute Conservative majority. There you go.

    i’m afraid there is no point in saying “won’t be ever used to prop up a Tory Government” because the reality of multi-party politics is one of compromise and coalition, and the acceptance of a lot of things you don’t like in order to get some of the things you don’t like.

  • Er, last sentence above should obviously have the word “do” instead of “don’t” as the penultimate word. oops!!!

  • @Michael Kilpatrick 10th Jan ’16 – 2:21pm

    Feel free to tell me if what I said isn’t true, rather than ‘superficially’.

    I made specific reference to the South West, and not the entire country because I’m not sure that the point I’m making holds outside of the – particularly rural – South West: in those areas the Lib Dems represent an anti-Tory coalition – and succeed or fall on the degree to which they represent such. I’m not stating that this is ideal, a net good, or… but that is how it is in the South West. I think the party could move forward remaining politically where say, Clegg stands – it may even regain some seats. But without addressing specifically the Tory position in the way I outlined I don’t think those seats will be in the rural South West.

    @Simon Shaw 10th Jan ’16 – 2:39pm

    I do agree with you there: I don’t think you do understand “that attitude”.

  • Bolano, the Lib Dems represent Lib Dem values. Labour represent Labour values, UKIP represent UKIP values, etc, etc.

    There is nothing more tiresome than talk of “anti-Tory coalition” for what it means is the reduction of politics to a two-horse race: Tories and everbody-else-who-isn’t-Tory. That’s nonsense, sorry.

    I don’t exist, as a Lib Dem member, just to be an opposition solely to the Tories and to be a somewhat more palatable oppposite to them for the benefit of people of certain constituencues who can’t/won’t vote anything else. I exist to support Lib Dem values which are distinct from the Conservatives, Labour, Greens, UKIP and others, in a mulit-dimensional political spectum which is not just a one-dimensional line with Con/Lab at the two far ends and having a division drawn neatly across that spectrum with the Conservatives on one side and “everybody else” on the other side of it.

  • @Michael Kilpatrick 10th Jan ’16 – 5:08pm

    Entirely reasonable for you to exist as any kind of Lib Dem member you want to be. Entirely reasonable for you to find anything you want tiresome. But historically, factually, in rural constituencies in the South West it is the Tories vs the Lib Dems, and the Tories are very clear about what they stand for, and who they represent. The Lib Dem fortunes in the South West have risen as they have defined themselves there against what the Tories stand for. In Yeovil, for instance, Paddy did a grandly successful job building a coalition of anti-Tories.

    I write this as an ex-Lib Dem supporter, now quite happy to support Corbyn’s Labour party. If the Lib Dems don’t want to position themselves again in the South West as anti-Tory – as they historically have done – then fine, best of luck with that approach. You won’t get my vote, and that of many other ex-voters in the South West, enough – I believe – to ensure you won’t regain those seats. But if the price of seats in the South West is one you’re unwilling to pay, that’s the way it goes. Best of luck.

  • Bolano, sadly a national party can’t be all things to all people. The Lib Dems has a certain viewpoint which is both anti-Conservativ and anti-Labour. If Labour happen to be absolutely nowhere in one part of the country and the Tories happen to be absolutely nowhere in another part of the country then it’s blindingly obious that a third party – in this case the Lib Dems – will be fighting both of them as the main opposition in difference places. You seem to be completely ignoring the fact that during the coalition years the Lib Dems were happily (?) in coalition with both Labour and Conservative local parties in a number of varied local governments whilst at the same time being obviously in coalition with the Tories nationally yet still having positioned themselves, in the run-up to both 2010 and 2015 general elections, as both anti-Tory and anti-Labour. If you can’t get your head round that and understand the obvious and indeed necessary and inevitable consequences of mult-party politics then we might as well not continue this.

  • @Michael Kilpatrick 10th Jan ’16 – 6:32pm

    Your arguments are strawmen. Am I saying a national party can be all things to all people? Am I denying the various collaborations in local government? No, in both cases. I repeat – I am saying in this specific area – the rural South West – the party made its success at parliamentary level as the representatives of a grand coalition of anti-Tories. The Lib Dem MPs represented us against the toff interests of those who’d ride through your garden on Boxing Day, regardless of the damage they’d cause. This is a piece about the South West, and I’m talking only about that area. What I’m suggesting quite simply is that for the voters who abandoned the party in that region at the last election it’s going to take a degree of honesty, and some serious thought as to what went wrong in that region, and how the party can put it right. If you want MPs back in place. Or you can simply say that – as you appear to be doing – the party has a national profile, so the South West can lump it. And John Marriott can say “the South West was always held up as an area where people voted liberal on a regular basis” (who was taking the area for granted?). And Simon Shaw can just say “I don’t really understand that attitude” and if you don’t vote for us you’re just going to let the Tories in.

    I’m not the party member. I’m the historic party voter in the South West. You’re the party member – you guys are the ones who – surely – are supposed to be concerned with how to win me back. Are these the best arguments you have? We don’t understand you, you always used to vote for us, it’s a national party we’re not making exceptions for you? Is this the measure of the fightback?

  • @Michael Kilpatrick

    “There is nothing more tiresome than talk of “anti-Tory coalition” for what it means is the reduction of politics to a two-horse race: Tories and everbody-else-who-isn’t-Tory. That’s nonsense, sorry”

    However, in recent years isn’t that the sort of campaign Lib Dems have been running (x can’t win here, vote Lib Dem to keep Y out)? If you run that campaign and then go into coalition with Y, then surely you’ve got to be prepared for reactions like those from Bolano? If you’re not prepared, then perhaps the campaign wasn’t thought through properly?

    The collective wisdom seems to be that winning seats in the SW should be easier than most other places, is that really the case though? If you look at the figures for Devon and Cornwall the Conservative share increased by an average of 3 and 2% respectively (no mean feat for a party that’s been in Gov). The other big winners were UKIP with their average increase being 8.5 & 8.9% respectively (and getting about 7k votes per seat on average).

    So surely you will not only have to win back people like Bolano who have switched to Labour, but also people who went to UKIP. When you consider there might not be a UKIP in 2020 (if it goes to Brexit is there much point in them carrying on, if Remain wins will they implode?), then all of those votes may be up for grabs. The protest voters may go somewhere else as you haven’t been out of Gov long enough. Then take into account that the EU referendum will no doubt turn spiteful and Lib Dems will do their best to insult UKIP, if that happens will the ex-UKIP voters come back to you if their Party disolves, or will they cause further problems as they will vote Labour or Conservative?

    At the moment I get the impression that a lot of people are relying on the gods to come down and smite their enemy (“Labour and/or the Conservatives are bound to split, just watch”), or that’s the impression from someone who isn’t a political expert and, tbh, not usually that interested in politics between GEs. 😉

  • Fair point, Simon.

    So in Yeovil you lost 3,253 votes to Labour & the Greens – let’s forget about them as none-to-easy to recover. Where next? 5,289 extra went to UKIP – do you think they might be easier targets to win back? Do you have some policies on, say, immigration likely to win their approval? Or is it the Tory voters that you see as the easiest win?

  • Tomas Howard-Jones 10th Jan '16 - 11:27pm

    @Simon Shaw:
    I can’t help feeling that your last comment to Bolano is somewhat complacent. Do you really believe that fans of Corbyn are swivel-eyed Stalinists?

    I do worry about people in the Liberal Democrats who hold this clumsy view, which is often lazily portrayed in the media or by those in the Labour party who are huge fans of Tony Blair.

    I think that Bolano makes a very good point that undoubtedly applies to much of the West Country- that the Liberal Democrats came to represent the Non-Conservative option that had a chance in winning under FPTP. Where the LibDems don’t target by squeezing the Labour vote, the Labour vote tends to be much higher, albeit being often (not always) lower than the LibDem vote.

    If the LibDems are to stand a chance in beating the Conservative candidate in many West country seats, a successful squeeze campaign on Labour (and tougher Green) vote remains crucial.

    While the Conservative bogeyman of Stalinist Islingtonites and Nicola Sturgeon only being stopped by voting Conservative may have swayed a few centre-right voters, the way to tackling this negative campaigning (even if notionally aimed at our other opponents) won’t be beaten by LibDems saying : ‘Don’t worry, our policies don’t have social democrat values- we’re another centre-right party’. We know what the result of that strategy is: Those Conservative leaning voters won’t go back to voting LibDem, and those who want to vote for a party whose policies sound social-democratic won’t vote LibDem either.

  • Peter Watson 10th Jan '16 - 11:52pm

    @Simon Shaw “I think we need to make it absolutely clear where we oppose Corbyn on policy grounds.”
    That would be great: most of the Corbyn comments on LDV appear to have little to do with his policies. Do Lib Dems oppose him when he emphasises the importance of mental healthcare? What about Trident: do Lib Dems all want to retain/replace it? Still on defence, do Lib Dems want to oppose him by supporting the bombing of Syria and invading Iraq? Should Lib Dems drop their aspiration to scrap tuition fees so that they can oppose him on that as well? And Corbyn opposes the PFI arrangements in the NHS so should Lib Dems support them? Corbyn disagreed with much of the new Labour policies from 1997-2010 and now stands against the current Tory government, as did/do Lib Dems, so surely the party must have more than a little common ground with him!

    A big problem with the demonisation of Corbyn by many on this website is that a lot of his individual polices are ones which Lib Dems can support. He may favour a socialist approach over a liberal one when it comes to implementing them, but when Lib Dems play the man rather than the ball, it gives the impression they disagree with everything he stands for, including policies that align with their own. As a former Lib Dem member and voter that just confuses me: I don’t know what the party currently stands for.

  • Petermartin, I don’t understand the implicit argument in what you’ve just said, which effectively is to suggest that:

    “opposition to the war in Iraq is a matter of principle of left-wing politics and therefore the Lib Dems demonstrated being more left-wing than Labour as a result of this”

    I don’t consider a vote on the war in Iraq as being a fundamental aspect of left-wing or right-wing views in any way whatsoever. Again, I’m seeing politics boiled down to a one-dimensional spectrum – a simple line with left and right at the ends.

  • Petermartin, you followed the left-wing argument directly with the comment about war voting record. It’s extremely ambiguous and it was therefore essential to paraphrase what you wrote in a way which made the inference I made clear to you.

    If you didn’t intend to imply that the war-voting be linked to left/right principles then of course I appreciate that clarification, thank you, but given the way you wrote what you wrote, I felt the implication was there.

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