As much as I disagreed with it, I actually read Buddy Anderson’s recent article with significant intrigue. I am glad that the conversation of “Where do we go now?” has appeared so suddenly after the election, cementing our position now rather than to fight the next election and all preceding contests in local government on the proverbial hop. I am also glad that we can do this with respect and candour, as it shows our better nature as a party. So, now I have had time to think about it, I wanted to respond with my opinion that a tacit suggestion of moving the fiscal dial one or two notches to the right would be a misstep, both nationally and locally for our party. It’s not what the electorate wants of us, and it would not do us much good, and I shall seek to explain why.
What led to the reward of 72 seats, mostly at Conservative expense, and most crucially how do we continue that into the future? That is the main question of this debate. Ultimately the 2024 manifesto was quite “economics-lite” to criticism from some quarters, but what was there was unquestionably progressive: shifting the tax burden from workers onto wealth and big business, meaningful action on the cost of living and the same on green investment. We are a party of market economics, yes. But I am reminded of something Tim Farron told John Harris from The Guardian in 2010: “No market is genuinely free unless it’s fair”. I don’t really see that as a centre-right statement, but it sums up the essence of our philosophy.
Instead, we succeeded on a practical message. Our NHS is in crisis, it continues to be in crisis and that will not change for some time whatever Labour may do and Social Care is ill-equipped for the needs of its service users. Sewage is being pumped into our waterways by careless private enterprise and the SEND crisis in education is failing children left, right and centre. We successfully argued that our local champions may not be able to change these things overnight, but they can do their best to make them better where you live.
In my view, now we have 72 MPs our primary focus is not Westminster, it is local Government. With the Counties up next year and key cities of historic significance up after that, we have a real opportunity. So, fellow Liberal Democrat, I want to ask you two rhetorical questions to help make my point, using examples:
If we are to chase a centre-right vote through fiscal policy, how are we going to replicate the work of York’s Cllr Darryl Smalley and his mum Cllr Clare Smalley, who took on Labour’s neglect, winning the ward containing the Lincoln council estate that Darryl grew up on? Further work has since made Clare the Leader of the Opposition These areas need strong voices to reach their potential and I cannot see that materialising without a progressive tone to our messaging that we could risk damaging.
Also, if we want to return to the halcyon days of the 2000s, we have to “go big”. I ask you therefore, without a progressive platform, one prepared to point out Labour’s failures, how are we going to try and make my good mate Cllr Carl Cashman Leader of Liverpool City Council in 2027? My birthplace once had the largest liberal Council Group in Europe, and we can do it again.
Simply, the Tories have already shown that they cannot provide effective and constructive opposition to Labour and their new leader is yet to be decided. I would rather we focus on our own qualities than try to, in some ways, emulate theirs of old. Voters of the centre-ground rarely pay much attention to ideology in my experience, they focus on your commitment and your competence. So that is what I think we should focus on.
And finally, I recognise as a northern liberal, with the examples I have listed above, that our style of campaigning can appear intense and brusque. But ultimately, we have experience opposing Labour in administration. So, I hope my intervention can point towards a wider conversation as we decide where we do go from here where, unlike the other parties, we actually listen to each other and disagree reasonably and constructively.
* I am a Wirral member and the current Chair of North West Young Liberals.
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13 Comments
No market is genuinely free unless it’s fair; what an excellent quote from Tim Farron 14 yrs ago. It focusses on the structures of our business and employment systems rather than the usual arguments about being pro or anti business. Apart from inheritance, big business is the way some people make themselves rich and too often then refuse to pay through taxation for the public services we all need and on which their employees depend or do not pay their employees or suppliers enough.
Possible by election at Runcorn where we came fifth in July and Reform second. Bearing in mind Labours current apparent loss of voting support and the danger of Reform winning it is I would suggest imperative upon ourselves to fight the seat in a full blooded manner.
This is a litmus test for our future moving on from the very successful raid on the Tories on July 4th.
Thank you for an interesting and timely article!
Might the L. D. party promote and emphasize its social liberalism root which wisely combines one of the basic freedoms which is “Freedom to” with the other which is “Freedom from”?
Might so doing encourage enterprise and initiative whilst protecting and enabling the vulnerable whose exploitation by many of the rich and powerful, under the cover of Austerity/Neo-liberalism, has been connived at by the recent government, and, possibly, the present government?
Globalisation, with low cost countries forming the supply chain and tax havens sheltering the wealth of the few, has so altered the economic system that makes it a lot harder for social democracies to exist.
Neoliberalism has already happened, and most of the damage is well embedded. Even China is struggling to control its economy despite being a one-party state.
Although Austerity was a failure, the solutions for fairer system from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s are just not achievable in the current economic situation.
Choosing between free-market Liberal and social Liberal will make as much difference as Labour’s up coming budget, just different sorts of tinkering around the edges.
We need Radical Liberalism, we need global partnerships and treaties to counteract the capital-flight of the global elite, we need rules based trade and entry to national markets only via adherence to the highest standards for workers and the environment.
So basically the broad opposite of Brexit, there should be a multi-national customs union and single market for the world’s Liberal Democracies.
We can’t directly work for this at the national level, instead we can only push for the prerequisites: high standards, strong institutions, good education, modern industries, a refreshed social contract, etc.
The Tim Farrim quote…
The merging of the “Freedom from…” with the “Freedom to…”
Understanding that Liberal Reform (is how/what) and Social Liberal (is why/what to do) would serve the party well.
We should embrace alsorts of central economic ideas based on a viability and long-term development test rather than any particular subset of Liberal thinking.
@Theakes – Fun bit of Trivia. I was actually the Election Agent for Runcorn and Helsby. I have made it known that should there be a byelection, I shall be moving to Nepal until further notice!
It’s funny that an article that actually said very little has now received two reply articles. The only line that advocated anything was “if you really want to “finish the job”, then you aren’t going to do that by shifting to the left on fiscal policy”
Which we are just supposed to accept, presumably on the assumption that (ex) conservative voters want right wing fiscal policy.
Yet even our wealthiest constituency (Richmond park) has a median income of only £45,200 which is just within the higher tax band but below the national insurance cap and considerably below the top rate of income tax. The remaining Tory/Lib seats are all less affluent than this with most voters not paying more than the basic rate.
So if these voters really do want a tax cut we can just do it by hiking taxes on those who have more.
The Tories actually gave us an open goal with the real terms cut to tax thresholds (which is basically a new poll tax), but we just stood there and looked at the ball for fear of offending a small minority of voters.
Matthew Radmore 28th Oct ’24 – 4:12pm:
…we need rules based trade and entry to national markets only via adherence to the highest standards for workers and the environment.
So basically the broad opposite of Brexit,…
On the contrary, only ‘Brexit’ enables us to do as you suggest and make high quality trade agreements with the 85% of the world (by GDP) outside the EU. Our CPTPP agreement, which commences on 15th. December, is a modern ”gold standard” plurilateral free trade agreement which has dedicated chapters on labour and environmental standards as well as digital trade and services.
‘Labour Provisions In The CPTPP: What Does It Mean For UK Businesses?’:
https://www.mondaq.com/uk/employee-benefits-compensation/1514258/
…there should be a multi-national customs union and single market for the world’s Liberal Democracies.
That’s unrealistic. The EU has demonstrated that the larger a customs union the more difficult it becomes to negotiate new trade agreements. They have to be negotiated down to the lowest common denominator amongst all members and even then many are still reluctant. For example, Canada and the EU signed CETA in 2016. Eight years on and 10 member states have still not ratified it. Will they ever? The CPTPP is more flexible in that it allows some opt-outs. Japan can maintain tariffs on rice to protect traditional farmers and the UK can keep its ban on hormone treated beef.
‘CETA Ratification Tracker’ [August 2024]:
https://carleton.ca/tradenetwork/research-publications/ceta-ratification-tracker/
Tory constituencies contain very few voters who would be won over to vote Lib Dem by the Lib Dems moving to the right economically. On the other hand, they have many voters who we’d put off by such a move: non-Tory voters who are present in large numbers!! And who are likely to vote for us, if we are the credible alternative.
Btw very few Tory voters actually self-identify as “right-wing.”
Of course, we COULD put off Tory voters by endorsing punitive personal taxation or VAT on school fees, by being anti-aspirational.
To win them over however, we need to offer a convincing alternative programme. We did this pretty well at the GE. It’s called positive liberalism.
The difference between Tory seats that fell to us and those that didn’t is NOT their degree of conservatism, but whether we had well-organised and dug in local parties or not.
To win further seats off the Tories, we need to get organised in those seats, not move to the right.
In the next few years, the gaps available to us will be determined by the government. They are currently making it clear that their commitment is to ‘Working people’. It is after all why they are called the Labour Party. Their definition though is ‘people who get a payslip at the end of the month’. That rules out a lot of people who may work more or less and earn more or less than their favoured demographic but do so in more complicated ways. They are not a coherent group that can be targeted with a simplistic message but they exist in great numbers in every seat.
Somewhere in the depths of our epic policy documents we probably have policy that matters to every niche group in the country. Treating people as individuals rather than as classes is at the heart of our philosophy. Matching the voters to the policies will never be easy but when you knock on doors and get talking, you do find people who don’t fit Labour’s stereotypes and who are looking for a party that gets that.
“Their definition {of working class} though is ‘people who get a payslip at the end of the month’”
Starmer has struggled to provide a satisfactory definition of social class which is perhaps surprising for someone who was, at one time, a genuine leftist. He couldn’t answer why supposedly “middle class” people weren’t also working class even though they do usually work for a living. The answer is that they probably are but choose not to self identify in this way.
Neither does the “payslip” definition doesn’t totally answer the question. I’m sure Rishi Sunak, and others with similar wealth, will at least take advantage their £12.5k or so tax free allowances, and so will need payslips to meet legal requirements.
This doesn’t make them working class though. They own lots of land, property, and the means of production. The young Starmer would have been able to explain this, with no problem at all.
“Neoliberalism has already happened, and most of the damage is well embedded. Even China is struggling to control its economy despite being a one-party state.”
The increase in wealth and human rights across the world as a result of the (broadly) liberal away of doing things over the last 150 odd years should not be so lightly dismissed, especially when it is under attack from the likes of Trump, Farage, Orban, Putin and the rest of the authoritarian gang.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Now
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enlightenment-Now-Science-Humanism-Progress/dp/0525427570
Thank you for taking the time to write this excellent response, Tom. It may not come as a surprise to know my mind has not been changed, but I enjoyed reading it.