In February’s issue of Prospect, Chaminda Jayanetti asked: “We know what the Independent Group are against—but what on earth are they for?” They’re not going to give a clear answer any time soon. Why should they, when being all things to all people will draw in new supporters?
It’s different for us. What we believe has been consistently misrepresented for nine years. We have to explain clearer what are we for, if we are to correct this.
Some think we’ve become the party of Europe, the EU-KIP party. But that’s a short-term issue for the moment. We need to explain about what we are for on the other issues of key concern to the electorate.
In the Social Democrat Group, we’ve been trying to answer this question. To think about social democracy in the Liberal Democrats, and why we are social democrats.
For me, social democracy means three things:
1) Protecting and helping the vulnerable
2) Making this work for the whole electorate
3) Doing what works over the long-term
These are important, and they are in tension with each other.
Who the vulnerable are will vary. Someone may be rich and powerful, but if they are being mugged, at that moment they are vulnerable.
We need to be careful about what kind of help we offer. When asked, those in poverty sometimes define it as a lack of choice and a lack of dignity. In this area, I think the Liberal tradition has a lot to teach social democrats.
The vulnerable aren’t just people in our own country. For those in poverty overseas, a Social democracy which only cares about people in one country, is not social democracy at all. One of the most alarming developments in recent years has been the so-called progressives, who call for protectionism irrespective of the consequences elsewhere.
If we want to keep the support of the electorate, it will not be possible to do everything we want, because we need to bring the people with us. For example, there are limits to the development aid, unrestricted access to our markets, or easy immigration which we can bring about. But if we can move public policy in a better direction, that’s well worth it.
Making improvements sustainable is hard. Well-intentioned programmes often bring little but false hope, if they lacked long-term funding and careful planning, the same is true of government if it relies on unsustainable borrowing, fails to invest, or if allows corruption to corrode efficiency.
Truth is important too. Lying can sometimes get want you want in the short term, but then it will provoke disillusionment and angry opposition. For something to be sustainable, it’s important not to deceive people into making it happen.
We need to be honest about how hard all this is. Doing what works is difficult.
A key way is to listen to the experience of others, including those from different political traditions and from different countries.
Among members of the Social Democrat Group we disagree, so will we in the wider party. We should learn to listen better, to help us to refine our own views. If we disagree, but do so with mutual respect, we’ll have a better chance of avoiding group-think, and coming up with solutions that work.
* George Kendall is the acting chair of the Social Democrat Group. He writes in a personal capacity.
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21 Comments
Thanks George Social Democracy must be internationalist in outlook and not parochial in perspective .We do need to remind members to think globally as well as act locally but i sometimes think the latter being easier to do gets activists more motivated but the wider picture gets overlooked .its easy to recycle locally than challenge the vested interests who have allowed the climate clock to run down to 12 years .its easier to blame individual states for nuclear proliferation but ignore the super powers re-arming with even larger nuclear stock piles . its easier to go along with fracking and abstraction than face up to the challenge of over consumption of water and no new reserves being created or good management of our water courses .We can hope quick fix expensive power stations or keeping the coal fired ones burning a bit longer will do rather than invest in low carbon climate fuels stop that residual waste ending up in a landfill site .
Social Democracy should add to both social justice and enpowerment and ensure future generations have a planet and economy worth inheriting .
The bitter cold truth is that TIG offer the Lib Dems a lifeline and maybe your last chance to be big time players. The zero coverage on Television media etc and meagre returns in the polls should be self evident. Embrace TIG and give yourselves a fighting chance..are members not totally fed up of life in the margins
Good article, George.
In the 20th century the great ideological battles were not so much between left and right, but as Attlee described, between democracy and totalitarianism in the form of Fascism and Communism.
Attlee was able to achieve almost everything that Marx had dreamed of for the British working classes without a single violent civil act intervening. True progressive giants like Beveridge and the Conservative politician Rab Butler who introduced the 1944 Education Act are radicals of the real—those who accept that democracy implies pluralism, and that a plural society is self-evidently made up of many people and kinds, only a few of them truly exploitative and criminal, most just pursuing their own version of the good life as tradition and conviction has offered it to them.
That requires a focus that you describe well in your article in saying “Well-intentioned programmes often bring little but false hope, if they lacked long-term funding and careful planning, the same is true of government if it relies on unsustainable borrowing, fails to invest, or if allows corruption to corrode efficiency.”
Today with Fascism and communism defeated and discredited we face a return to the 19th century tensions of nationalism and populism in Europe and beyond. We should heed the words of Attlee and follow the example of Beveridge and Rab Butler in developing a political consensus around making Britain and the world a better place.
@SILVIO. Busy. Let’s have this conversation on May 3rd.
@Neil Sandison
I agree with you in principle, but when it comes to individual policies, I don’t want to be too prescriptive. Sometimes, environmentalists make mistakes, as in the debacle over the 1997 promotion of diesel over petrol. That’s why I think we need to first think about our values, which should remain consistent, and only then look at individual policies.
Tackling climate change is, indeed, a priority, because climate change will, in the long term, hurt us all, and particularly harm those already suffering from global poverty. However, it is difficult to know which is the best policy.
For example, environmentalists are split nuclear power. Many believe that without nuclear power, more carbon-based fuels will be burnt, and global warming will become worse. Others argue that nuclear power creates other serious long-term problems, and should be avoided.
If we want to reduce global poverty, there is another tension. Tackling poverty involves decent medical care, good education, and the ability to earn your living in something other than subsistence farming. But any such poverty reduction will have an impact on climate change. Modern healthcare requires an industrialised economy, education requires the availabilty of trained teachers, and jobs for those in poverty will themselves have an environmental impact.
I am very uneasy about those who say that global climate change means we should require companies to produce locally. That could well mean many hundreds of millions, in countries with growing populations, being trapped in subsistence farming. That would inevitablty mean ever-increasing poverty.
We cannot demand that those in poverty are denied a chance to join the world economy. If we claim that is necessary in order to save the planet, if we are consistent we would deny ourselves modern medical care, heating, and transport that allows us to travel more than fifty miles.
Climate change is a very serious looming crisis. But we need to face up to the huge challenge of working out how to use new technologies to reduce it, without blighting the lives of the poorest on our planet.
Renewables are part of the answer. But they don’t yet provide a complete answer. If we are to be evidence-based and have a just attitude to those who don’t yet benefit from modern technology, we have a lot of hard thinking to do.
@SILVIO @Martin Land “Let’s have this conversation on May 3rd.”
I can’t imagine there will be many candidates fighting the local elections under the TIG banner (and it is unclear what would be distinctive about a TIG councillor anyway), so a side-effect of the national publicity for the TIGgers might benefit Lib Dems without any formal relationship.
TIG have already lost the excitement and momentum (such as it was) of their early days. Had a cascade of MPs joined them, they might have had more push. It’s striking they refuse to consider by-elections, fearing they will all lose their seats.
Corbyn might actually call their bluff by organising a new confidence vote in May, in which the TIGs are all pledged to back the PM because they fear a general election.
@George
You need to be able to tell the average voter who we are and what we stand for in less than 30 seconds. Preferably less than 10 seconds. It need to be distinctive and unassailable. If we can do that we stand a chance. Forget policy. Nobody remembers policies. Policy is merely the manifestation of who and what we are.
ie. Party of the individual and against the aggregation of power.
P.J.
“Party of the individual and against the aggregation of power.” The average voter also has to understand what you are talking about.
How about “Party for every family who wants a fair chance at getting ahead in life for themselves and their children; and a helping hand whenever they might be in need of it.
“Some think we’ve become the party of Europe, the EU-KIP party. But that’s a short-term issue for the moment.”
No, it is not short term. It is a long-term policy of constitutional importance.
Roy Jenkins led a group of Labour MPs in voting for entry. They were hounded out of the Labour Party. One of them joined the Liberal Party, who had voted in the Commons to join at the very start.
Preventing the recurrence of wars between France and Germany (nee Prussia) in 1870, 1914 and 1939 is a founding principle and worthy of continued support. Please do not say it has been achieved, constant vigilance is needed.
@Silvio
If the TIG remain just 11 MPs, they’ll stop getting publicity and disappear. If more MPs join them, they may become significant. Eventually, they’ll need to choose a name that conveys a little more of what they stand for. If we end up forming an alliance with them, that alliance itself will have values, and we should want to shape the values that underpin it.
Unfortunately, I think our own values are unclear. Some LibDems loudly proclaim what we stand for, but I don’t think they speak for most members, and I think their values are often unclear, and sometimes self-contradictory.
This article, like previous articles I have written, is an attempt to get us to think about what our priorities are. I’m not claiming to speak for anyone. Other members of the Social Democrat Group may have different opinions. I want to encourage debate, get others thinking, and nudge the party a little in what I think is a good direction.
@Joseph Bourke
Fascism and Communism suffered temporary reverses and are on their way back. Terrible governments like that of Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela or that of Mugabe in Zimbabwe were effectively communist. There is a trend towards populist, authoritarian governments, which have a lot in common with fascism. Despite the awfulness of these governments, they have their defenders in the West and some who would probably like us to follow a similar route. Some of these people have positions of power and influence in both the UK and the USA, both on the right and the left.
I very much agree with you that we should applaud those in the past from other parties, like Attlee, who helped shape some of the good aspects of our country today. As you say, they are also good people in all the parties. A small number of Lib Dems can be excessively tribal, and dismiss these potential allies as illiberal and authoritarian. Those of us who are pluralistic need to speak more loudly. (The real illiberal authoritarians lock up their opponents, and a number of them have started to assassinate their opponents, for example in Saudi Arabia, Russia and North Korea)
If we are prepared to be less tribal, challenge our own thinking, and think through difficult questions, we have a chance to build a broad alliance that will be strong enough to resist those pushing our society in a dangerous direction.
@P.J.
I’m not trying to create a slogan to communicate with the general public. I’m trying to get us to think through what we believe is important. To do that, I am going to try to challenge the accepted wisdom in our party that our values can be adequately described by the word ‘Liberal’.
Slogans are useful in selling a party to the country, but if they become a substitute for rigorous thinking, they can be ineffectual, or, worse, dishonest and dangerous.
When it comes to mass communication, we do need slogans. But before we create them we need to think through what we really believe.
@Richard Underhill
Internationalism is an important value which I share. I am also strongly pro-Europe and will remain so if Brexit does happen.
However, as far as the political agenda is concerned, Europe may be a short-term issue to the voters, and a political party that wants to sustain itself in the long-term will have to be more than the party of Europe.
George Kendall .Your last sentence made the point for me . There are no magic bullets and policy should be evidence based .I would ask that Social Democrats support the evidence and not the prevailing wind .Micheal Gove wants us all to drive electric by 2040 but where are the new renewable EFW and AD plants to produce the power required ?
Where are the efficient means of transporting that power in cable or pylons to where it is needed we have seen without viable infrastructure you can have a society information rich but communications poor because of inadequate connectivity in terms of broadband .We should not accept the glib statements of ministers but be prepared to challenge those statements when they cannot be supported by sustainable evidence
The Commons on Fridays such as 22/3/2019 is for Private Members’ bills, so many MPs go home to their constituencies on a Friday, or leave slightly early on Thursday evening.
Anna Soubry (TIG) explained that she was on Channel 4 News because she could not go home. Her partner was away and she did not feel safe because of death threats, one of which said that they know where she lives and proved it by delivering it to her home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Soubry
I recall being shocked by the death of Jo Cox MP. I was out leafletting in the 2016 referendum and received a text from my wife who was looking at the news and said that we were all to stop immediately, which I did. the local Courier carried a letter which said that her killer was mentally ill, which was later disproved because he was convicted of murder. If the psychiatrists had thought pretrial that he was mentally ill they would have arranged for him to be detained under section 25 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (known as ‘sectioning’).
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=3He%2fVrWE&id=E702513704CFED9961BAF519F44CA475BDA9181F&thid=OIP.3He_VrWE_nV57ijOixPU-wHaFA&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fsn4hr.org%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2016%2f06%2fjo-cox.jpg&exph=755&expw=1116&q=jo+cox&simid=608017881464702704&selectedIndex=11&ajaxhist=0
I still remember where I was when I learned of the murder of John F Kennedy. I did not believe it. Obviously the US President could have top class protection and why would anyone want to assassinate him?
I recall John Alderdice confirming to me (at the Liberal International in Belfast) that he had bought a house next to a police station (in Northern Ireland). I hope that their Lordships continue to listen to his insight and wisdom. He was the first Speaker of the devolved Assembly, to which Gerry Adams and the late Ian Paisley were both elected.
He spoke at our local party AGM once. I told them I had brought them a consultant psychiatrist.
Regarding TIG, we need to be patient and focus on what we have in common with them. They formed their grouping on a shared despair of their previous Parties and not wanting a hard Brexit. They are probably a mixed bag in other policy areas. However, if we are to strengthen the center ground, we must work with them and agree to differ when necessary.
SILVIO 22nd Mar ’19 – 11:49am
The bitter cold truth is that TIG offer the Lib Dems a lifeline and maybe your last chance to be big time players. The zero coverage on Television media etc and meagre returns in the polls should be self evident. Embrace TIG and give yourselves a fighting chance..are members not totally fed up of life in the margins.
Hi Silvio, you are being unnecessarily sensational.
As long as I’ve been a member, the Lib Dems have been ususally completely written off and ignored by TV and print journalists.
You have to be realistic: I’m in favor of co-operation with TIG, but they are currently lower tan us in the polls; they have no members; no councillors, no policies.
If they amount to anything, then there are grounds for cooperating. But you are really jumping the gun and clutching at straws.
BTW zero coverage in the media? Why exaggerate? it doesn’t make your point any stronger. I was over in the UK twice recently for a couple of weeks in total and saw and heard Lib Dems on both national and regional news quite a number of times.
Exaggeration and sensationalism do not make for clear thinking!
The SDP, very sensibly, took 2 Months after the split from Labour before they launched the new Party. They were constantly accused of not standing for anything. The parallels with TIG are obvious but TIG have the added problems of not wanting to get in the way of stopping Brexit & not knowing when to give up on more defections.
TIG do not represent our Last Chance but they may well be our best chance of breaking through quickly, in Months rather than Decades. We need the attention they get as a New Thing & their potential to appeal to people who aren’t Liberals; they need our Organisation, experience & Councillor base. Together we can be more than the sum of our parts, just like Britain in The EU.
@Neil Sandison
We’re very much in agreement, then.
On the environment, I was very influenced by the book, “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air”. It was written about ten years ago, so it’s possible some of the information is out-of-date, but I found two things particularly extremely helpful:
– The principle the author used in thinking about the issue – that we need to think about hard numbers (“numbers not adjectives”).
– And the warning that there is a lot of what he calls ‘twaddle’ in the debate about sustainable energy, on both sides of the debate. It’s the second I find most worrying – if people who talk about the issue for a living, and who claim to passionately care about the environment, are giving so much poor information, they are misleading the public, and may well set back the implementation of workable policies that will actually prevent catastrophic climate change.
The book is free at http://www.inference.org.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf
@George
My comment was not trying to put forward a slogan. I suppose what I was getting at is the concept of identity. I feel this is something that seems to be a weakness with the LibDems. Most voters follow identity politics at the ballot box. ‘Labour are the party of the workings man’, ‘I am a working man’, therefor I will vote Labour, sort of logic.
Fill in the following blanks.
Libdems are the party of ‘Blank’ I am ‘Blank’, therefor I will vote Libdem.
@P.J.
Thanks for clarifying. In my opinion, if we become a party of identity (for one group, and effectively against another), we will cease to be what we are.
The Tories are, at their worst, the party for the affluent, and against what they claim are scroungers. Labour, at their worst, are a party for the working man, and against the rich.
What I’m suggesting is that we should be for fighting poverty, but explicitly not against anyone. That’s more complex, but it is true for who we are.
So we need to be for fighting poverty, but in a way that works for the whole country, and in a way that works in the long term.
I think this approach is popular. It was effectively what Theresa May was claiming she was for when she became Prime Minister, but has done the opposite. It was what Cameron claimed he was for when he was savaging the poor with £11bn/yr of benefits cuts in 2015.
Our problem, in my view, is people don’t think this really describes us, because we don’t sound passionate about it, and people think we are more passionate about other things. If we were more explicit about our social democrat tradition, that might help.
I write on LDV because I love the debate, but, as always, the discussion winds up after a few days.
If anyone reading this wants to debate the piece further, you can add a comment on our Facebook page (see link below). I will then get a notification, and so will be able to reply.
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