The Voice has got its hands on the press statement from David Nolan, the Liberal Democrat candidate in Haltemprice & Howden:
As David Davis is standing on the one single issue of opposing 42 day detention without charge and we happen to agree with him, the collective view of our Party is that we will not stand against him at this by-election.
As Lib Dem PPC for the Constituency, I fully support that decision.
However at the next General Election, when he will be standing on a Conservative Party Manifesto, we will oppose him vigorously.
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28 Comments
I think this is about right. Will there be an official Conservative candidate? In a straight fight between David Davis and whatever talentless, unprincipled drone Labour can fly in, I know whose side I’ll be taking.
I hope David Nolan makes as much noise as he can about the conditions of the conditional support coters will be offering to David Davis, so as to be able to hold him to account next time round.
I would fully support a ‘go out and vote’ campaign by the local party to increase the turnout and for organisational purposes – it should be used as the starting gun for the general election (whenever that will be).
Surely Davis is the Conservative candidate if Cameron has backed him. It would signal an even bigger rift if they add another Tory to the ballot.
Good on David Nolan.
They won’t, it would be suicide. But Tory HQ will not be funding his campaign…
Perhaps we’ll see some ‘LibDems against 42 days’ and ‘This time only: vote Davis’ posters going up….
My biggest worry is that we end up with the following line-up of candidates:
Davis
BNP
miscellaneous oddities (Beauties for Britain; OMRLP; etc)
And the BNP ends up with a large share of the vote (and thus loads of publicity).
Not good
What our MEP has to say:
Local Euro MP says if David Davis wants to fight on civil liberties he should speak to local Liberal Democrats
Local Euro MP Diana Wallis, who is President of the Haltemprice & Howden Liberal Democrats and who was David Davis’s opponent at the 1997 General Election, commenting on his resignation to fight a by-election today:
“When I fought David Davis in 1997 he declined to attend any public debates with other parties. If we are to believe in the depth of his feelings on civil liberties then local Liberal Democrats in this constituency should have the possibility to discuss with him his views. Particularly many would be interested to know for example why there appears to be some ambivalence on the issue of ID cards, an antipathy to the Human Rights Act and downright opposition to the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
“Civil liberties need some form of constitutional and international underpinning which as a Tory David Davis has up until now resisted.
“Liberal Democrats should have the right as the challenging party in this constituency to consider fully any candidate whom they stand aside for.
“To that effect I am writing to David Davis today to offer him the opportunity to speak to Liberal Democrats locally.”
Will Davis also run on repealing “hate laws” as he described them in his speech today?
He’s always been anti gay rights.
If so Clegg has dropped a serious bollock.
I;m wondering if he could be persuaded to run as a National Liberal candidate as a lot of Conservatives used to do until the mid 60s?
They merged into the Tories after another of the old Liberal party’s interminable splits, it’d be a good compromise that Cameron can’t formally object to.
Gosh, the Conservatives stood in Crewe on the single issue of opposing the abolition of the 10p starting rate for income tax – did the Lib Dems stand down then?
Guys, be sensible. It is fairly clear that Davis has put his career (as opposed to his seat) on the line for this. It seems that many Lib Dems get a Pavlovian reflex on mention of the phrase “By-Election”, which is sad in this case because the the bigger picture is far more important.
Guys, be sensible.
Why?
It is fairly clear that Davis has put his career (as opposed to his seat) on the line for this.
Now why would he do that? Surely the most effective way for Davis to reverse 42 days and all the other measures he objects to, would be as a Conservative Home Secretary. He only had to wait two years at the most.
I think he bottled it.
Now why would he do that?
It rather seems it is because he believes in the importance of making the case to the general public.
Amongst the general population the lock-em-up brigade is the majority view. It is therefore paramount to make the case for why the changes of the last few years are detrimental.
Maybe you, as a Liberal DEMOCRAT, would be happy to take the majority view on the suitable length for detention (and no doubt capital punishment too) and not try to bring people round to your way of thinking? No, I thought not.
Passing Tory, a hundred years ago the prevailing majority views were that homosexuals should be imprisoned and mixed race marriages were unnatural. That wasn’t and isn’t a sufficient reason not to oppose such beliefs.
I am curious to know why everyone keeps banging on about the BNP as a serious objection to Clegg’s strategy here. What sort of person is going to want to vote Lib Dem but decide, in our absence, to vote BNP? I very much doubt such a constituency exists. Our presence or absence will make not a whit of difference on that score.
No, of course I think that politicians should show leadership. But if you think this Davis stunt is leadership . . .
…and further, PT, there’s just nothing wrong with opposing a majority view full stop, so long as you do it fairly and argue your case, which is what we do do. People aren’t such precious little mice that they have to be protected from robust argument. If this alleged 70% reckon 42 days is the way to go then let them come up with a convincing argument.
passing tory
That’s all very well, but how is forcing a by election in Haltemprice going to achieve this, particularly if it turns out to be uncontested by any party currently represented in Parliament?
One would be more impressed if David Davis held his seat with a small majority over Labour. As it is, even if Labour puts up a candidate in Haltemprice, the result of the by election will tell us nothing meaningful about public opinion on this issue, and will have no effect on the future progress of the bill.
I am curious to know why everyone keeps banging on about the BNP as a serious objection to Clegg’s strategy here. What sort of person is going to want to vote Lib Dem but decide, in our absence, to vote BNP? I very much doubt such a constituency exists
It would be an interesting test. In fact, I think there are considerable psychological similarities between Lib Dem voters and BNP voters (as opposed to activists); both tend to have an anti-establishment streak – they look around at the world and don’t like what they see and then decide that the main parties won’t fix it. Of course, the BNP voter will then blame it on immigrants while the Lib Dem will tend to blame it on the establishment in general (esp. large corporates or, if you are Geoffrey Payne, “neoliberalism”). But fundamentally it is a very similar process. 🙂
It’s my understanding the BNP have said they won’t run against DD as they agree with him. I can’t source that unfortunately, far too many sites read today.
If this alleged 70% reckon 42 days is the way to go then let them come up with a convincing argument
I think that this is precisely what DD is trying to achieve. It sounds as though the Sun might stand against him (well, Kelvin McKenzie sounded really on for it on This Week just now) and that would be a perfect platform to argue the case, IMHO.
I’m actually with PT on this—DD wants to force a public debate, if MacKenzie runs we’ll get that in spades, and DD’s core vote may split off (a lot of Tory voters will instinctively be in favour of 42 days, even if it’s a minority).
This makes the debate public, it forces the issue properly into discussion. That’s obviously one of his three objectives (the other two being forcing his party to unite on policy and preventing justification for Parlt Act usage).
PT: I agree on the anti-establishment streak (similar for Green/LD waverers), and there are probably a few people who would vote BNP if no LD candidate – just as there are a decent number of vaguely xenophobic individuals, who that the country needs more discipline and fewer immigrants (“taking our jobs!”) who might normally vote Conservative (and actually Labour), because they believe that’s what the Conservatives/Labour stand for – but who could be tempted over to the BNP/UKIP in certain elections or if there was no Tory candidate.
From the inside, in the last couple of years the LDs have not found it so easy to attract the kind of protest vote/anti-establishment types – with the Greens picking up a lot of these. Part of being taken more seriously and achieving more success locally and nationally, I guess, is that you’re seen by some as part of the establishment . . .
Davis over my dead body! He is against the Human Rights Act for a start. Any Labour candidate would be better than him. I hope that Lib Dems in H&H will not be deceived by this stunt; by this paper thin charade ‘in defence of liberty’. Pah! Davis and his kind do not understand the meaning of the word.
Terry, you are doing a more than adequate job of coming over as an orange Colonel Blimp. On the HRA, I think you are confusing Davis’ support of the concepts of human rights with dislike of the implementation within the HRA.
Incidentally, I see ConHone has Dominic Grieve flagged as a supporter of the HRA…
I believe he is. But again, the argument is somewhat more subtle than it appears at first; it is less about supporting human rights than taking a position on whether the HRA is the best way of achieving them. Of course, at one level it seems silly; of course the HRA should be protecting human rights. But in practice the rights of the individual are relatively easy to implement while the responsibilities that comes with those rights (aka the rights that society has to expect of that individual) are not so you end up with a position in reality that does not have the balance of the original document. And that is pretty much what we see, which is why I am not a supporter of the HRA.
Well you go away for a day and what happens…this is a huge political shock…I am opposed to us not standing a candidate though….I can understand this puts Clegg in a bind because he doesnt want to stand a candidate and have our party as the repositary of those votes supporting 42 days but given David Davies character and his other stated policies it is wrong not to contest his view in this debate he has started