In mid January FCC members were asked to attend an additional meeting, entitled ‘Autumn Conference 2024 – strategy’.
We had a presentation from HQ and followed by a lengthy discussion about merits or otherwise or cancelling autumn conference. I won’t rehearse all the arguments, but in my nine years as a party member I’ve not left a meeting quite so frustrated. It was reminiscent of council officers telling me at budget time that the sky would fall in if we didn’t make savings in a particular area. The sky did not fall in.
I do understand the difficulty of having a Conference when there’s so much uncertainty around the election date. I work for the party in a target seat, and many friends are GE candidates.
However, I can’t quite believe there is really a debate about whether we should have an autumn conference this year or not. The arguments against having a conference (beyond being a bit awkward with the GE) are all very good arguments for never having conferences at all. After all we have a conference in March (almost) every year, weeks before the local elections and we seem to manage.
The suggestion that less than 5% of the party membership having a long weekend away in September would be the difference between winning and losing seats does an enormous disservice to the campaigns department and teams on the ground, and the years of work undertaken in target seats.
It also doesn’t reflect that a great many people (stalwart campaigners particularly) use conference to recharge their batteries and remember why we deliver leaflets in the dark and rain. For others, especially people new to the party, conference is the best member development opportunity there is. The best training, hearing from the powers that be and making lifelong friends (even if you don’t know it at the time).
We won’t do ourselves any favours by removing ourselves even further from the national conversation. And the immediate message it sends (should we cancel) is the Liberal Democrats exiting the battlefield. We will leave Labour and the Conservatives to fight it out amongst themselves, with both using their conference to even greater effect.
When asked in January, FCC members voted (having been reminded quite a few times that our view wasn’t binding) almost two thirds to retain Autumn Conference. I understand that when other party committees have been asked for a view, they have similarly not supported cancellation.
Cancelled conferences impact future conferences too – good policy gets delayed, and the backlog of procedural motions make for a far more boring agenda at future conferences.
The amount of effort, energy and time exhausted on this folly is quite remarkable – particularly given our supposed laser focus on the upcoming GE. I assume all this has given someone at CCHQ a wry smile.
Finally, context matters. If we cancel 2024 autumn conference – we’ll have only had one autumn conference over four years.
Political parties exist to win elections. If we cancel conference, all we are doing is demotivating our activist base, removing a key media opportunity and signalling to millions of voters that we are not a national party of government.
I encourage everyone to respond to the consultation, and obviously prefer people say they want to retain Autumn Conference.
* Darryl Smalley is a City of York councillor and the English Council representative to the Federal Conference Committee.
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24 Comments
IF you believe Sunak then May is off, He intends to hang on till Inflation hits 2%, Also He has “promised” that the Election won’t be after “Early October” – so as not to clash with The US .
The point about Conference is more to do with the possible cost if we cancel at the “Last Minute” isn’t it ?
Several days ago I responded to the consultation, expressing my support for the leadership’s concern about the costs of a cancelled conference.
Holding our conference if the general election has been called is not a sensible thing to do.
George Osbourne has claimed that his contacts near the prime minister were talking about holding the election after conference season, the logic being that they would use their conference as a springboard for Thier election campaign. If we cancel ours it will only boost the advantage this gives them.
And if the election really was going to get in the way of conference season then the conservatives would cancel or move the date of their conference. If they don’t do so then surely neither should we.
Completely agree, Darryl. And would FCC mind asking our President what the party strategy actually is to be for this General Election year, since the ‘strategy’ of cancellation has now hopefully been dropped?
I would have thought a Conference in the Autumn would give Sir Ed Davey an opportunity to get some media exposure.
Yes to conference, no to cancelling. It’s almost an insult to be asked to cancel conference even though FCC voted heavily to have it. Stop all this fannying around and get it organised with a plan for a GE jamboree if the GE is called for October.
I find it very worrying that these discussions are taking place, because it suggests that the Party is putting all its eggs in the Autumn basket.
I just hope that the Party is readying itself for an election on May 2nd. I guess that Sunak is inept enough to delay until clocks change to Winter time. but there is nothing to suggest an upturn for the Tories over the Summer and with more and more people facing substantial hikes in mortgage payments, with rising rents and with further rises for food prices, there is nothing to suggest any respite for the Tories. Moreover it is not as if there is any likelihood that they will cease their internal factional strife. Some might claim that the polls are so bad for the Tories that they can only improve, when in fact over the Summer and into Autumn their low support could more likely solidify.
It seems to me more than possible that the Autumn conference will be a rather demoralised occasion. Our recent polling is between 7 and 10%, given the continuing low support for the Conservatives, this is extraordinary; it means that too many people do not register our Party as in any way relevant, so when turning away from the Conservatives, they do not give us their consideration. It would help if we had more distinctively Liberal ideas to present.
Trying to out bid Labour in having as little to say as possible is hardly a viable strategy for us.
Martin Bennett: how right you surely are to be anxious about our national polling, because we have not yet achieved the ‘bold and distinctive’ message advised for us by John Curtice. But all is not yet lost, we still have the Spring Conference later this month.
David LG,
If George Osbourne is correct and the Conservatives hold their conference between 29th September and 2nd October, then I think the earliest date for a general election is 7th November.
As many have said with a general election on or after 7th November the party conference would be a springboard for the general election.
I encourage members to respond to the consultation saying that the conference should be held and not changed at this time. I feel that members are only being consulted because FCC didn’t agree to the suggestions made at that January meeting.
“Advised by us for John Curtice….”
Honestly, let’s liberate ourselves from false gurus. We
John Curtice is not a political strategist. And not much of an electoral predictor either. The two probably go hand-in-hand.
He inevitably seriously underestimates our future performance at local elections.
And I note he believed the cancelled Labour candidate would sweep home in Rochdale, though of course making “intelligent” post-facto remarks about why Galloway won.
We have bad poll ratings currently because of the dreadful publicity around Ed and the PO.
We could change that.
“Advised for us by John Curtice.”
Chris Moore: are your hunches really worth more than John Curtice’s access to detailed polling and focus group data? For the last three years our polling has bumped around at 10 ± 3%, during which time the Conservative vote has fallen by about 15 percentage points to the mid 20s and the Labour vote has risen to around the mid 40s.
Your hunch that the PO scandal is the source of our depressed polling strikes me as somewhat implausible, though it may have reinforced a view of Ed Davey as a politician who is not particularly good at standing up for himself.
John Curtice is saying that the people interviewed by the polling company he is associated with are not finding positive reasons for turning to us. We seem to be following the lead from Labour in avoiding putting out anything that might induce people to turn away from us. For a party that gets little media attention this approach does not work.
Darryl is right, and as he tells us, we have been here before – too much of the party hierarchy have become wedded to the aim of cancelling conference whenever possible. Was it really only September 2022 when I wrote
“Yet another article on LDV supporting the powers that be in their decision to retreat from the battle and do nothing to fight Liz Truss and the Conservatives at this critical time. No debate on a windfall tax – we will say nothing. No debate on Tax cuts and a panicky dash for growth that will only stoke up inflation – we will say nothing. No debate on the Crisis in Ukraine – We will say nothing. Big bonuses for bankers who got us into the mess in the first place – We will say nothing.
What happened to that can do, ‘Towards the sound of Gunfire’ party that Jo Grimond and Paddy Ashdown led?”
Now even LDV are realising this has to end – repeatedly hiding from the public and the membership is simply entrenching irrelevance and failure.
The issue seems to be that, if the election happens in the autumn, then holding the conference is very risky and it might end up having to be cancelled at the last minute, costing the party a lot of money. On the other hand, if the election happens in May, there will be no reason not to hold the conference.
If (plausibly) the election does happen on the same day as the council elections, then the announcement of the election will happen by the beginning of April. Is there an insurmountable problem with holding any the decision about the conference until that time?
I agree with Darryl. Perhaps those advocating such cancellation could better spend their time assisting g the regional conferences that struggle and thereby broaden our base for coverage rather than shrink it.
Time to print a snappy badge: Members and activists say “Hands off the Party Conference”
I am struck by the fact that people who constantly tell us how much they enjoy conferences and don’t want to cancel them keep recommending we cancel them, year after year.
Hundreds of members have been left hundreds of pounds out of pocket every time a conference has been cancelled – surely if the Powers That Be cancel yet another, no member will seriously consider paying hundreds of pounds to attend another non-event ever again.
In a general election year, this is the very last distraction we need. The Powers That Be need to get a grip. I wholly agree with Darryl and strongly encourage as many members as possible to respond to the consultation in no uncertain terms that whatever happens, the conference should not, yet again, be cancelled. If a GE is called we can have a launch event with training for those who attend instead.
“The suggestion that less than 5% of the party membership having a long weekend away in September would be the difference between winning and losing seats does an enormous disservice to the campaigns department and teams on the ground, and the years of work undertaken in target seats.”
But that 5% is probably 50% of the activists in the Party, and maybe we should be asking the question if there is not a May 2nd election (we still have to plan for that possibility) is it a really a good idea for them to take out four days from their campaigning at a time when the election either has just been called or we expect it will be called within two more weeks. Conference coverage by the media is pretty poor already; we probably could justify a weekend conference if we debated the manifesto on Saturday, held the Conference Rally on Saturday evening, used Sunday morning for Emergency motions and ended with the Leader’s speech on Sunday afternoon.
One thing that the public won’t be interested in is us debating standing orders and references back. I for one plan to opt for attendance online where I can dip in and out of the Conference without leaving home.
Martin it’s not really a question of my “hunches” against Sir John’s “detailed” polling, is it?
Our poll ratings have declined markedly since Ed’s role in the PO scandal was highlighted. Sir John has not done any polling whatsoever on that subject that I’m aware of. Maybe you are privy to his private polling? Is that what you are referring to?
Is it YOUR “hunch” then that the PO scandal hasn’t besmirched Ed and lowered our ratings in the last couple of months?
There are numerous political scientists and commentators in the UK with a wide range of opinions. I see no good reason to create a guru out of Sir John or any other pollster. In the case of Sir JC, he’s been particularly poor at predicting future LD performances in the past.
@ Chris Moore I happen to agree with you about the impact of the PO scandal. My guess is it won’t go away – it’s reputational and the sort of thing that will stick because there’s no compelling reason that anything else will replace it. J
But, just because you’re not aware of any polling done by Professor Sir John Curtis doesn’t mean he hasn’t done any. I would imagine he does polling for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That’s what he does…… no matter how much you may wish he didn’t.
I do object to one point – that we “only had one autumn conference over four years”. The online conferences were different to in-person ones but just as valid: I was on FCC when we had to move conference online due to Covid, and we put a lot of time and hard work into recreating as much of conference as possible so we could come together and make policy even in uniquely difficult circumstances.
That aside, I completely agree with Darryl: the argument that we should cancel conference entirely, against the wishes of FCC itself, due to the mere possibility that the election might be awkwardly timed is weak. We’re creating a huge backlog in policy-making, denying ourselves guaranteed media coverage, and removing an opportunity for our activists to come together, train and socialise (and costing them money, too, if they’ve already booked accommodation). And even after relevant party committees have rejected the arguments for cancellation, it’s pushed out to the membership nonetheless, with the survey being framed heavily in favour of cancellation via the remarkable threat that not doing so now could lose us a quarter of our target seats. I worry that between this and the other recent cancellation (after the Queen’s death, without any attempt to reorganise conference or hold some kind of alternative event), our liberal party democracy and the right of ordinary members to make policy at conference is being cut back wherever possible, seen as just a distraction from electioneering rather than something valuable.
Hello David Raw,
Delighted to be in agreement with you. Always reassuring to know there is at least one other sentient being who shares one’s point of view.
I’m also perfectly happy for JC to poll on any and every aspect of modern day existence.
However, the fact remains, as far as we know the Messiah has done no polling on the effect of the PO scandal on LDs’ poll ratings.
Sadly it seems that increased centralization and streamlining of party structures is resulting in the Lib Dems becoming ever more like a party controlled by its bureaucracy and less like a democratic party controlling the bureaucrats. Is that a good look for a party wanting to change the way our country is governed?
David Evans,
Indeed, we need to restore the idea that the party has to be run according to liberal principles not for some drive for efficiency. We need to show that running the party according to liberal principles is efficient so therefore society can be run according to liberal principles.
Chris Moore.
John Curtice may well have not done any holding on the Royal Mail scandal. But LibDem campaigners have spoken to literally hundreds of thousands of people on their doorsteps since then and it is NOT something that people are talking about. In contrast to the very online (and possibly sometimes not real) people who post on Social media who are VERY ANGRY and specifically VERY ANGRY with Ed, normal people don’t blame him personally