Not going to lie, I’m still reeling from the rollercoaster we’ve been on this year. The physical exhaustion of the general election campaign is slowly diminishing, but, for me, the emotional effect is still weighing heavy.
In January 2019, we were starting to make a tiny step forward and were in double figures in the polls most of the time. We had 12 MPs who were doing their damnedest to make sure we didn’t leave the EU on 29th March. Jo Swinson was just about to come back to full time work after her maternity leave.
We had high hopes that we might gain 300 or so seats on a good night in the local elections in May.
We all kind of dreaded Theresa May getting her Withdrawal Agreement through with the help of Labour votes.
And then she didn’t. And a million people at least took to the streets to call for a People’s Vote.
We gained over 700 councillors o that first Thursday in May. Our success was a springboard into a vibrant and uncompromising European election campaign where our Bollocks to Brexit message resonated. Although the Brexit party won more seats, more votes were cast for remain parties and the Liberal Democrats won an unprecedented 16 MEPs, 20.3% and 3.3 million votes. Between them, the Conservatives and Labour Party didn’t get much more than that.
For a time, we thought sense would prevail after all and we might be able to stop Brexit.
We had a friendly and uplifting leadership contest between Jo Swinson and Ed Davey and, to our surprise, our poll ratings hovered around the 20% mark.
Our parliamentary ranks swelled as, first, Chuka Umunna joined us in June and Sarah Wollaston, Angela Smith, Phillip Lee, Luciana Berger, Sam Gyimah, Antoinette Sandbach followed suit.
In the Summer, we’d decamped to the gorgeous Welsh constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire where a by-election had been called following a successful recall of the Conservative MP. We were thrilled when, in the early hours of 2nd August, Welsh Leader Jane Dodds triumphed.
We had a brilliant new leader, we had maintained our high poll rating and, in fact, there were four parties in the 20% range.
As we end the year after a brutal general election which saw us one seat down from our 2017 total and minus a brilliant leader, we have to ask where it all went wrong. There will be a formal review of the General Election – this takes place after every election – and all the decisions we took, from deciding to vote for the election to the targeting decisions we made during the campaign will be subject to scrutiny. Did we deliver enough/too many leaflets? Did we sell ourselves well enough?
We need to be very careful not to take the easy option and blame it all on our shift in policy to revoke Article 50 if we won a majority. There were good reasons to do so – a further extension from 31 January was not assured, it was the most popular policy position amongst remainers and it was distinctive and clear.
I think we also have to recognise that if we had stuck with the People’s Vote in any scenario, we would still have been attacked for that. The real problem was the concentration of the pro Brexit vote and the fragmentation of the Remain vote in an unforgiving electoral system.
Rather than heap blame on ourselves, imagine what it would have been like if Labour, the biggest opposition party, had taken an unequivocal Remain stance and campaigned enthusiastically for that and we had had, if not an electoral pact, at least a non-aggression pact with them. Then our combined force might have felled the Tories as it did in 1997. Jeremy Corbyn and those around him were not interested in any such arrangement.
We are probably not any worse off than we would have been. With Bercow gone, it was unlikely that we’d get to pull a stunt like the Benn Act again. We would probably have seen the Withdrawal Agreement Bill passed with reluctant Tory and some Labour votes and we would have left the EU anyway on 31st January. A Spring 2020 election would most likely have been no kinder to us than the December 2019 one.
But we undoubtedly made mistakes in our campaign. I for one am incredibly proud that our leader was the only one to emerge unscathed from her Andrew Neil grilling. I think that she did well in the debates and I think she was right to make a pitch to be PM. What is the point of us if we don’t show ambition?
Our vote went up by more than any other party’s in percentage terms. We gained 1.4 million voters from 2017. But we couldn’t save the country from a destructive Brexit and that hurts. We lost several of the brightest political talents of the next generation in the process. That really hurts.
But we should have had more seats, at the very least closer to the 20 seats we went in with. We lost too many by a small enough margin that extra boots on the ground would have made a difference. I still have the survivor guilt of increasing a Lib Dem majority while, an hour away, our leader was losing by 149 votes.
The next year will be about learning the lessons from the election, choosing a new leader and charting a new course in the face of the most regressive and right wing government I’ve known in my lifetime. They have been wanting to dismantle our human rights and civil liberties for long enough and now they have the majority to do it. Some think Boris Johnson, free of ideology other than furthering his own personal interests as he is, will become more moderate. Look to Donald Trump. They said that about him, and his mini-me will do the same.
Liberalism, and radical liberalism at that, is more needed than ever. We have to step up. Brexit has shown us that being right doesn’t count for much – we have to win over hearts and minds and limit the damage this country has inflicted on itself.
LDV will be here to provide a platform for discussion and debate within the party and a showcase for liberal ideas beyond.
Happy 2020, everyone.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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40 Comments
Your arrogance was beyond beleif , by what right did you seek to deny the WINNING side their resounding victory in the referendum .
Happy New Year to you Caron and all on here. There are local elections to fight.
The problem with Revoke was not how popular it might have been with Remainers. The problem was that it was an illiberal and undemocratic policy, which went against our core commitment to fair votes.
After the election Sal Brinton had to resort to accepting that Boris Johnson has a “mandate” for Brexit because of this policy. He does not. Brexit is being imposed on a majority who no longer want it by a minority thanks to our elective dictatorship.
@ Caron : ‘We had a brilliant new leader…. But we undoubtedly made mistakes in our campaign’
So, please explain to me how a brilliant leader leads a party to such a result, and lets down the extra voters who joined to stop brexit.
The truth is that campaigns around election times are not the only component in success.
A number of comments on other threads have already referred to the role of community involvement. As a Jewish LibDem, rejoining in April, I have been appalled at the gullibility of leadership (not just Jo) of believing all the stories of Labour Antisemitism. This, in spite of Jonathan Coulter et al providing the data in May to show that Antisemitism was very mainly a right wing phenomenon. Can we blame the Labour Party for their ire and not wishing to cooperate? Jo certainly helped to weaponise Antisemitism, and many of my Jewish Labour associates are furious with us. The weaponisation of Antisemitism has also led to genuine fear in parts of the Jewish Community. This is a form of Antisemitism.
Dr Jonathan Boyd, executive director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research published his predictions in the Jewish Chronicle https://www.thejc.com/comment/columnists/nine-places-where-a-jewish-vote-could-count-1.494058 They were virtually spot on, showing the majority Jewish vote shift of 2017 to the conservatives would remain there.
One of the most hurtful, but truthful , comments from Labour Jews has been concerning my membership of a party that has lost its principles. How on earth can we be a party of international social justice, equality and freedom when those who have stood up on behalf of the Palestinians are allowed to be villified by Zionists and their complaints not dealt with.
There were obviously mistakes in Targeting but its not an exact science. Was anyone in the last few Weeks saying that we should send more people to help Jo Swinsons campaign ? If there were then we need to listen better.
Labour, The Tories & The SNP all wanted an early Election, what The 20 Libdem MPs wanted was irrelevant, lets not sweat the small stuff.
We got a boost from The May Elections but it was always going to be temporarary, as such gains in the past have been. We had to dive for that tiny window of opportunity but a breakthrough this time was always very unlikely.
Above all, lets remember that the next General Election is almost certainly 5 Long Years away & will be very different from the one we just suffered, theres always a risk of trying to fight The Last War.
We have important Local Elections in 5 Months, they should be at the front of our minds now.
Caron asks; “What went wrong?” Well, here’s a few reasons for starters.
1. The opposition parties should never have agreed to trigger a General Elections, when all possibilities under the FTPA had yet to be explored.
2. The party should never have even mentioned revoking Article 50, let alone leading on it.
3 “Jo Swinson for PM”. Yes, possibly in ten years’ time; but not this time.
These were all basic mistakes. I could go on, as I am sure that others will, when they wake up to the prospect of another decade of Tory (miss)rule. Caron says that what is needed is “radical liberalism”. Liberalism, possibly, but what does she mean by “radical”. No. What this old country of ours, and the Liberal Democratic Party in particular needs is a bit of common sense.
Caron, you say this is the most right regressive and right wing government you’ve known in your lifetime. Actually I’m sure Thatcher’s government was more regressive and right wing. Just to give one example, can you seriously imagine the current government passing Clause 28? (though I do realise it’s difficult to compare governments which are a generation apart.)
Two points:
1. Brexit is now effectively a “done deal”; the UK will be leaving the EU on 31/1/20, with an interim arrangement, and the transition period will end on 31/12/20 come what may. Therefore the LDs need to accept that Brexit will happen, stop fretting about it and develop other distinctive popular polices with USPs.
2. In future, targeting at all FPTP elections needs to be focussed on a few selected winnable seats. Too many resources were wasted by the LDs on hopeless targets, such as Altrincham and Sale West, where the LDs circulated half a dozen leaflets per residence (compared to one each from all other parties contesting the seat), parachuted in a defecting ex-Labour MP, and implausibly claimed that the LDs were the real challenger to the Tories (having gained < 8% of the votes at GE2017). All resources in Greater Manchester should have been focussed on trying to win back the neighbouring Cheadle seat, where the Tory margin of victory over the LDs was < 5%.
Interesting piece in Private Eye (Page 12).
After all the crticism of comfort polling in 2015 why does it seem the same mistakes were made again. One thing that absolutely kills effective electioneering is making the easy assumptions that things are at the best end of expectations because that is how you want them to be.
But don’t beat yourself up with monday morning quarterbacking of targetting decisions – and I hope you’ll take a break and refresh yourself there is a lot on what you’ve written that sounds like fairly serious burnout. From my experience that can get to a point where it becomes impossible to recover from. I have this T-Shirt. I don’t want to lend it.
We still carry the baggage from the Coalition years. I hear it in conversations we have on the doorstep, in the street, in the pub. As soon as you start getting your point across, the “Are but, what about the Coalition…..” weapon of choice is deployed. Folk don’t trust us enough.
Hate to use the B word, but Blair did it for Labour in ’97, we need to do it for the Lib Dems now before it’s too late. We can naval gaze for the next six months or more by which time the local elections in May will have come and gone and another opportunity will have been missed.
Time to hit the reset button.
Four things led to the result:
1. A framing of the election around two men, two parties .. a sort of presidential race created and peddled by the broadcast media.
2. A decision by the broadcast media again to sideline the Brexit issue in much of the debate.
3. A constant repeating of polls and shaping of LibDem prospects as being either irrelevant to the big picture result or on the decline – thus creating a world of self fulfilling prophecies.
4. Our corrupt first past the post electoral system
Faced with this cocktail, the LibDems (and greens for that matter) were never on a level playing field.
Electoral reform has never been more important for our country’s future coupled with an acknowledgment that a serious review of how we cover politics and elections in our media is long over due.
None of the party’s policies were allowed the oxygen to flourish or wither because none were given enough exposure. So let’s stop beating ourselves up, keep up the fight and team up with others to make the electorate aware that reform the system is crucial if we’re to avoid 30 years of one party rule.
Lesson from Scotland: don’t argue in favour of a re-run of a referendum you lost (2016) while also arguing against a re-run of the referendum you won (2014). Voters hate political parties who put party advantage before consistent principles
I feel very sorry for Jo Swinson. In 2017, she said she had decided not to stand for the leadership, because her instincts told her that this was not the right time, and that for the moment the right role for her was that of deputy leader. I am afraid that this year she may have felt under pressure to stand, even though the time was probably still not right.
I hope she may feel able to return to Parliament. Possibly she may even lead the party again one day.
I just hope that this year the party will become a truly liberal and democratic party again. Sadly, for the last three and a half years, it has often seemed to be neither.
@Dick R
“Your arrogance was beyond beleif , by what right did you seek to deny the WINNING side their resounding victory in the referendum .”
By the right granted under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. ”
And by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is enshrined in British law under the Human Rights Act 1998, and states:
“1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers….”
Jo may have emerged unscathed from her Andrew Neil interview but it was Ed Davey who landed the blows.
Paul Walter, Article 19 states that everyone has the right freely to express their views. That is not the same as saying that anyone has the right to stop a democratic decision from being implemented.
A democracy does depend on “losers’ consent”. The losers in any election are free to say that they think the decision was a mistake. They do not have the right to prevent it from being implemented (although they do have the right to campaign to reverse it at some point in the future, after it has been implemented)
Caron,
And a Happy New Year to you too!
I enjoy the debate here and the array of intellects and opinions displayed. I crave the arise of a true force of the centre and hope ( but don’t expect) the LibDems to be that as the centre is where Blair was and the party may not be comfortable there.
Anyway, very best wishes to you, your family and all the LibDemVoice team.
Successful campaigns are rarely those fought solely around election times Sad to say most of the advantage gained by LibDems from community based politics (grassroots feeding national politics) have been lost. We shall just have to see how many remainers who supported us this time round continue to support us.
Leadership also chose to ignore advice to be very wary about using claims of antisemitism in the Labour Party. Instead they went on about it. Thus the needed route for the remain vote to be successful – cooperation with Labour – was made impossible.
Quite right, Caron – let’s put aside the easy answers to why we were almost destroyed. (“Almost” now seems comforting).
But it’s about rather more than the number of leaflets delivered. It’s time to “talk quietly amongst ourselves” before we can seriously talk to the electors again at UK level, about why we exist – and how to rebuild that radical Liberal party you mention. (With a capital L please).
@Catherine Jane Crosland
“Article 19 states that everyone has the right freely to express their views. That is not the same as saying that anyone has the right to stop a democratic decision from being implemented.”
Some democratic decision! When we were told a pack of lies! Over and over again!
Sounds a bit like Goebbels to me. “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.”
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1419276
@Catherine Jane Crosland
“Paul Walter, Article 19 states that everyone has the right freely to express their views. That is not the same as saying that anyone has the right to stop a democratic decision from being implemented.
A democracy does depend on “losers’ consent”. The losers in any election are free to say that they think the decision was a mistake. They do not have the right to prevent it from being implemented (although they do have the right to campaign to reverse it at some point in the future, after it has been implemented)”
I am really puzzled by your comment.
What are the Liberal Democrats being accused of here? We obviously haven’t stopped the result of the 2016 referendum from being implemented, for starters.
We were using democratic means to say that we didn’t want the referendum implemented and that we wanted to persuade enough people for it to be democratically overturned ( that is by a final vote in the deal or a general election result).
That is entirely consistent with Article 19.
What are you suggesting? That we wanted to bring about a military coup to force the country to stay in the EU? Or to encourage people to ransack Number Ten Downing Street to stop the email leaving the EU from being sent? Or to somehow else use physical force to overturn the will of Parliament? Are you suggesting that we wanted to get tanks to roll down The Mall and overturn the government?
I just don’t get what is wrong, in a democracy, with people campaigning democratically (without violence or law breaking) against something. It is entirely consistent with Article 9 and with this being a free country.
Are you saying that once there is an indicative (non-mandatory) referendum then there can never be another vote (referendum or election) that overturns that referendum result? If so, that would be contrary to the Venice Commission on referenda and all previous international practice including most notably in nations with direct democracy models such as Switzerland. (The latter had several referenda on paternity leave over decades. Indeed, the 2016 EU referendum in the UK itself was a repeat referendum of the one we had in 1975!)
Perhaps I should be making ranty comments to complain that the will of the people in 1975 was overturned!!!
Paul, I did say in my comment that there is nothing wrong with campaigning to reverse the result of a democratic decision at some point in the future, after it has been implemented. But to insist on a second referendum before the first one has even been implemented? Or to say that you would overturn the referendum result without even bothering to hold another referendum, if you get a majority in Parliament, even though a majority in Parliament usually means less than fifty percent of the vote? I think most people can see why this is wrong. Freedom of speech may mean that you have the right to call for democracy to be ignored, but that doesn’t alter the fact it is undemocratic and morally wrong
Catherine
Ah I see. It’s the revoke thing.
Well I think that was bananas anyway.
We should have stuck with the “people’s vote on the final deal” line.
Paul, well I thought the “second referendum” policy was undemocratic too – insisting that people should have to vote again until they give the “right” answer. But the “revoke” policy was clearly even worse
Catherine, I will have to agree to disagree with you on the second/third referendum point for reasons which have been liberally outlined elsewhere.
Paul, I was much more in agreement with you when you wrote, on 25 June 2016, “The result was clear…end of. The people have spoken. Trust the people”
https://www.libdemvoice.org/the-people-have-spoken-trust-the-people-51087.html
Catherine
Yes I have consistently wanted an EFTA/customs union model personally and I was quite happy to move to that model without a further referendum. But the 2016 referendum simply asked whether someone wanted to leave the EU – it was sensible that the the exact nature of the deal was put to a final people’s vote, particularly when that deal was veering madly towards a “no deal” or extremely “hard deal” and indeed, in any developed direct democracy such as Switzerland, it would have been. But we don’t really need to go over all that again do we? It really is quite tiresome now.
I am flattered that you can be bothered to google my past articles – perhaps also have a look at this one, written just a few days after the one you link to?:
https://www.libdemvoice.org/we-need-a-dual-track-approach-which-embraces-rejoining-efta-while-staying-in-the-eea-51184.html
Also if you read the last words of the article you linked to, you will see that I specifically say that the referendum was a one word answer to a binary question and that it was up to parliament to move the thing forward in a “reasonable way”. As the former EU ambassador has said, Theresa May had the opportunity to make a magnaminous offer along the lines of EFTA/Customs union. But instead we veered unreasonably, in my view, towards no deal or a ludicrously hard deal, which we still seem to be headed towards (Great Britain only).
“While acknowledging that the people have spoken, one adds that what they have said, beyond the simple “no” to the question on the ballot paper, is not clear. If you prick up your ears to hear what they said, all you will hear is gobbledegook or “gkabdkdithekenidbdunfkfnrjn”.
It is up to parliament to make sense of the decision and move it forward in a reasonable way. And that is where we can influence a reasonable and progressive solution for the future. I believe we can make it a solution which all those young people, who voted “remain” in their droves yesterday, can be proud of.”
I admit that I signed that e petition for a second referendum. What I wanted was a Preferendum, with three options on offer, Leave with a deal/Leave without a deal/Remain, with the least popular option dropping out and its second choices reapplied. If asked to predict a result, I would have gone for Leave with a deal.
So, why all this heart searching? Brexit is going to happen in one form or another, whether many of us like it or not. It must be time to dismantle the barricades on this particular course. Surely there will be other elections and campaigns, which are so beloved of many in the party, to get the blood flowing again. After all, for these people, the important thing is how you campaigned. Winning occasionally is an added and not always expected bonus. So, Local Elections, anybody?
@daodao: we need to “stop fretting” about Brexit “and develop other distinctive popular policies with USPs”
@Rodney Watts: “the needed route for the remain vote to be successful – cooperation with Labour – was made impossible” (because the leadership ignored Coulter et al’s advice to be wary about using claims of Labour party antisemitism).
Taken together, these observations contain the germ of future strategy. Whoever replaces Jeremy Corbyn, Labour will need help getting out of its current hole, and is likely to be more open to Lib Dem overtures than before.
We need USPs upon which the two parties can work together effectively. Media reform should come top of the list, because we share a common interest – that of overcoming the deep-seated corruption that media moguls like Murdoch and Dacre have sown in our body politic. If you need convincing I recommend reading “Hack Attack” by Nick Davies, the very man who (heroically) uncovered the hacking scandal early in this decade. I also suggest watching these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIUPCERBm7U, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2Wwvz0fkSs. As Davies highlights, Blair’s relationship with Murdoch played a major part in his shelving an initial Labour plan to break up media conglomerates, in not joining the European currency, and the invasion of Iraq. Yes, we badly need to “take back control” of our own country.
If we can work together with Labour on this, we could also collaborate on another USP, ending the FPTP system, ensuring that every vote counts.
My comment above doesn’t make much sense without the article – which I assume copyright concerns meant the link wasn’t posted.
The gist of it for non PE subscribers is that Best for Britain did some MRP type polling indicating that there would be a big tory win (40-100 seats) – if the Brexit party stood down. That was based on a fairly accurate poll in the Peterborough by-election.
It was taken to Nick Harvey, Denise Barron, Shaun Roberts and Rhiannon Leaman who dismissed it saying the Lib Dems own data analysis/analysts were pointing to a much rosier picture (c.100 seats+ for the LDs).
There are some clear parallels there with 2015 in terms of over reliance on internal polling.
I’m sorry but to call our ex leader “brilliant” when, with all the tail wind we had, we lost seats and votes almost halved during the campaign is putting your head in the sand. It was almost certain that Brexit party votes would collapse and LD voting would thus be squeezed by fptp even more than usual (given the unpopularity of the leaders of the 2 main parties). Simon Hughes was right when he said that all the big decisions since Swinson became leader were wrong. The GE was coming anyway (Corbyn would have felt compelled to say yes as soon as 31 Oct deadline was extended), so why put LD fingerprints all over it. Talk about naive! Revoke policy was also naive – best comment was Cable’s “unhelpful distraction”. Having voted for Swinson as leader I have to say it is a relief that she in no longer in that position. She should not have ignored the likes of Hughes/Cable/Lamb etc. Also, very disappointed that conference flagged through the policy change so easily. If we can blame Labour members for electing Corbyn how about LD members putting their hands up and saying thay also got the “revoke” policy wrong?
Russell, you are right about both the leadership and membership getting it wrong. We must learn from these mistakes and from the comments of people like Vince Cable and Simon Hughes and take time to work out the way forward nationally. Meanwhile concentrate on the local elections; surely we can wait at least until they are over before starting any process of finding a new leader. A leadership campaign between now and May would be a distraction we can ill afford. Ed Davey has much experience in local campaigning to lead us until May, so long as he stops talking about stopping Brexit.
How many more of these “don’t worry, nothing to see here, not my fault, everything went as well as it could, really we’re on the up” articles are we going to have?
Catastrophic mistakes were made, some of them similar to those that have been made previously, and many of them by the very same people.
We had a whitewash review of the 2017 campaign; how did that work out?
After probably the worst decade for our party in living memory, surely we would do better to recognise that it is time for the party to face up to the hard facts of our situation. We cannot afford to learn nothing from what is now the party’s third risible election campaign in a row.
My feeling is that the Conservatives or their leader won for a variety of reasons that are not directly related to politics as we see it. The electorate in those marginal seats wanted someone who would allow them to escape from the quagmire of the last three years and offered hope. Let’s hope for their sake that he delivers.
@Ian “How many more of these “don’t worry, nothing to see here, not my fault, everything went as well as it could, really we’re on the up” articles are we going to have?”
I sometimes think that this site is a great resource that is squandered by the party it “represents” (I don’t think that’s the best word for it but I can’t quite pin down the right one!).
Comments below the articles often challenge the official party line and appear to come from a variety of sources (members, former voters, supporters of other parties, etc.), and the party’s high-ups and inner circle should certainly be engaging with those alternative views (if not here, then in the private members’ forum – though perhaps they already do?).
Catherine Jane Crosland: “can you seriously imagine the current government passing Clause 28” Actually yes I can. It includes a lot of people who would undoubtedly agree with the sentiment behind it (Priti Patel, for instance). And Johnson himself is no stranger to casual homophobia, as his past writings show. and please don’t give me that stuff about how his personal life suggests he is a “liberal”. His womanising is a male-power thing, not a statement of “liberal” personal beliefs. and such behaviour actually goes hand-in-glove with homophobia, which is also an extreme masculist viewpoint.
“I think she was right to make a pitch to be PM.”
Wrong. An utterly incredible pitch – it blew our credibility in one go.
We are not going to occupy Downing Street in any foreseeable future. We have to craft a position where It’s perceived that we can influence, even though we do not govern. A difficult pitch to verbalise, but a believable one.
Not to pick this apart in to extreme a way – but a huge failing in the past has been how any post election discussion gets framed:
“But we should have had more seats, at the very least closer to the 20 seats we went in with. We lost too many by a small enough margin that extra boots on the ground would have made a difference. I”
If you give the Lib Dems 2000 more votes in every seat that would still only win 6 more seats. So still short of the 20 that the party started with. Simply put you cannot say ‘oh we were just unlucky to miss out be a small margin in a number of seats so with a little bit of a more favourable wind things would have looked much better.’
No-one would have thought 17 seats was a good result in advance of the election.
“There will be a formal review of the General Election… Did we deliver enough/too many leaflets?”
This is a constant issue that the party treats something as important because it can be easily measured. The issue in any campaign is not how many leaflets (or doors knocked on) but how effective that is in winning votes. Delivering thousand of rubbish leaflets isn’t going to achieve much (if anything) – see comments about Altrincham and Sale West (3.3% vote increase) for example.
It is quite easy to point to things that went wrong in the campaign, and plenty did. Slightly harder, especially for the cynics, is to identify those things that went right. The latter might actually be more helpful.
A number of positive things did shine through those results, gloomy though they were in total. Firstly, in six out of the 11 seats that we won we achieved a plurality of votes. That is the first time in the modern era that either the Lib Dems or the two predecessor parties have broken the 50% barrier in more than half of the seats they won. Secondly, in a tranche of seats focused in and around SW London we got best ever results. In Richmond Park, Twickenham, Wimbledon, Esher & Walton, Mole Valley and Wokingham we scored the best Lib Dem or predecessor performance since those places existed in their modern form. Believe it or not, Munira Wilson and Sarah Olney achieved higher vote shares than Vince Cable, Jenny Tongue and Susan Kramer ever got. Thirdly, in South-West Surrey, we obtained 38.7% in a seat where our councillor and activist base had evaporated during the Coalition. We need to know how all of this was done, in the teeth of intense hostility from the media, and do those things in other places. If we do enough of them well enough and often enough, we might start winning again.
By the way, it was not just about middle-class Southerners being against Brexit. That is a symptom, not the cause.
What went wrong?
Military advice would say “Contact with the enemy” affects even the best plans.
Tony Blair advised the Labour leadership not to fall into an elephant trap. He has unrivalled experience in elections as Tory leaders have said, but the Labour leadership does not know who to follow. The 2016 referendum was about the distribution of income, which Labour MPs experience and claim to understand, so they are the main losers. We failed to win as much as we hoped.
The next question for us is about the timing of the leadership election. Should we wait to see what Labour does? Michael Foot was slow, consulting the Durham miners first.
Labour’s lost deposits are the colour of oxygenated blood, again.