The Guardian‘s splash about the first meeting of the party’s newly elected Federal Executive makes for rather generous coverage of a completely unexceptional decision by the FE.
That the first meeting of the newly elected committee, faced with deciding what motion to put to the Spring Conferences, goes for saying that the party should fight the next general election as an independent party is about as unsurprising an outcome as you could expect. But if The Guardian wants to give heavy coverage to the Lib Dems and Conservatives not being one and the same, that’s not exactly the worst the paper could do.
However, of more significance is what the Federal Executive didn’t really consider, which is the state of the party’s triple lock mechanism. It is generally considered to have worked well last May in making sure that the party was widely involved in the decision-making process and in strengthening the hands of the party’s negotiators. Indeed, many people in the media and other parties who started off mocking the number of party meetings ended up admiring the system, especially Labour and Conservative MPs who compared the involvement of Lib Dem MPs in decision-making with their own lack of a voice in their parties.
Yet it would be wrong to draw the conclusion that the triple lock did its job and can be put back on the shelf ready to use next time round. That’s because it was originally designed for a very different job – namely fears that Paddy Ashdown would try to merge the Lib Dems with Labour, in the middle of Parliament in which Labour had an overall majority. Mid-Parliament and majority government is a very different scenario from immediately after an election and a hung Parliament.
As a result, the triple lock has some very particular characteristics. Its final stage (a ballot of all party members) is very unlikely to be practical in the timescales of post-election talks. Its first stage involves the party’s Federal Executive, but not the Federal Policy Committee – even though as we saw in May post-election talks are overwhelmingly about policy. Its first stage also involves MPs but not peers. That made more sense in the late 1990s, with an unelected house. But imagine the situation after a 2015 election: there are former Lib Dem minsters in the Lords and Lib Dems elected for the first time in public elections to the Lords. The triple lock says: you don’t really fit with what we’re going to do. As with last year, there may be a meeting and vote amongst the Lords, but what if it doesn’t mirror the views of MPs?
It’s taking an unnecessary gamble to stick with a system that was designed for a different purpose, does not properly involve the party’s policy makers and does not account for changes in the Upper House. Despite working well last year it is all too easy to image scenarios in which, when put to use once again in a situation for which it was not designed, it fails.
Whether it comes from the Federal Executive or from an amendment at conference, the sensible course is to amend the triple lock now, in good time well clear of an election.
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10 Comments
A motion by Conference confirming that the LibDems will fight the next general election as an independent party, and contest every seat, should not be controversial.
It would, however, be very welcome: to reassure our members and to rebut speculation in the media, and suggestions by some Tory politicians, that some form of pact or merger is in the offing.
Paul, for those of us who do not read The Guardian, please will you please publish, on this thread, the text of the FE motion?
“is very unlikely to be practical in the timescales of post-election talks.”
Perhaps what is needed is the understanding that post election there will be a period of negotiation. Raising that awareness from this point onwards would allow a less frantic pace to be required. Gordon Brown (of whom I am no fan at all) was pillaried within the press as a squater etc when in fact he had no option but to remain in power until an agreement had been reached.
Perhaps if the environment is moving towards more Hung Parliaments it would be preferable to have a transition period of 30 days to allow a more orderly process without the baying press forcing the issues…
@Steve Way
I don’t tend to comment on LibDem structural party issues but I have to say that as – depending on the AV result – we may end up back in a coalition position so it makes the greatest of sense to set a time period as suggested. Having none just encourages a media feeding frenzy that grows daily and isn’t helpful to any discussions taking place – due to the external pressure to get a result – and also isn’t good for democracy due to the uncertaintly created and magnified by media coverage designed to sell papers rather than inform.
‘It is generally considered to have worked well last May in making sure that the party was widely involved in the decision-making process and in strengthening the hands of the party’s negotiators. Indeed, many people in the media and other parties who started off mocking the number of party meetings ended up admiring the system, especially Labour and Conservative MPs who compared the involvement of Lib Dem MPs in decision-making with their own lack of a voice in their parties.’
This might well be true Mr Pack. But now for the problems. If the various people involved in the triple lock could go back, knowing what they now know, would they do things differently? The Coalition Agreement is being implemented and the only people who have had a vote on it are people involved in the triple lock. No bad thing perhaps but it does rather bear out the concerns of those who worry about Coalition politics giving third parties excessive power.
I think that Steve Way is partly correct in that there needs to be a mechanism for an orderly transition – the US Presidency has a transition period between election and inauguration so there is precedent. But the LD leadership did seem strangely underprepared for circumstances – or at least that was the appearance. All that was ever said was that the LDs would look to work with the party with the most votes (all polls said that would be the Conservatives) yet there was no real effort to spell out what that would mean in practice. Clegg did talk about four points he would specifically pursue – but those, with all respect, were motherhood and apple pie.
The sense that Clegg, ‘lied,’ or, ‘hid,’ his intentions is wrong-headed, but equally it is difficult to reconcile some of the leadership election rhetoric with a big part of the Coalition Agreement. This is not what a lot of people felt was advertised by Nick Clegg. The triple lock is great for internal legitimacy (a very good thing), but that doesn’t really go all that far outside of the party. At worst, it runs the risk of being seen to give the leadership a party green light to ignore what was said in a campaign.
The lesson to be taken is that third parties need to be more specific about how they see themselves working with the other parties – and indeed that might put some prospective voters off. But I’m not sure that that is any worse than what we are seeing now which at times has been pretty much a train-wreck. It might also be no bad thing for the major parties to float the possibility of a grand coalition and what it could look like.
It is also worth noting here that under PR, the same problems would likely have arisen, so FPTP is not an excuse.
So yes, have a good look at what the triple lock has meant in practice, and you are quite right Mr Pack that this is the time to do it. But I really think it is a small part of a bigger picture.
In Scotland, we have 28 days to sort out a government after the election. There was a huge rush to do it in less than a week this time because of the “markets”. I think the all member ballot needs to remain as a last resort. THe fundamental ideas behind the triple lock are sound – but I agree that FPC and a future elected upper house should be factored in.
I think a lesson for the Scottish Party who may be facing a similar issue in May, is that Nick Clegg did way more consultation than he needed to on the coalition. There was no requirement for a special conference but he was keen to go ahead anyway. I think that’s paid dividends in terms of keeping the party together and motivated through it. Ok, not everyone is happy with everything, but at least we can say we had the chance to have our say.
Funnily enough Mark I submitted a motion to Conference doing just that.
The triple lock palpably failed. Conference signed up to a “Coalition Agreement” which did not mention the massive changes in health and education which the Coalition is now implementing, and which implied that there would be no great problem coming to an adequate settlement on tuition fees. We bought a pig in a poke. It is quite nauseating to see how many people are now willing to argue that it turned out to be a really beautiful pig, and how refreshing it is to implement policies which are the opposite of what we told the voters we believed in.
As Steve Way suggests, the rushed timescale must first be questioned. We were pressurised by scaremongering about the bond markets and by an intensive campaign from the Tory side on the intrinsic virtues of being lovely efficient people who could (apparently) conclude an effective negotiation in a hell of a rush. In hindsight, Cameron must have known that delay might have given time for mature reflection or for leakage of information about the true nature of what we were signing up to, and so delay was what he was determined to avoid. We must put in place a mechanism that will reduce the risk of being conned again in the same way. (Just to be balanced, I would add that no doubt Labour will look at the successful tricks the Tories played on us, and think about how they might do likewise one day!)
There might, of course, be a real reason in future why we could genuinely need to agree a coalition deal in under a week. So we cannot simply insist on Steve’s transition period of 30 days. What we could do, however, would be to delay stages 2 and 3 of the “triple lock” for at least 30 days. Then, our MPs could if necessary agree a coalition deal on day 5 and thereby allow a government to function: but, it would have to be understood that it did so on an interim basis, and that a final deal would depend on confirmation by Special Conference (and if necessary members’ vote) on day 30 or afterwards.
Yes, I know this is to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. But it would be better than not doing so.
This party will not survive unless it can look its recent history in the face, admit to gross errors, and take action to put them right.
I agree with Mark that the decision on the FE motion, which I drafted, was unexceptional; in fact, it would have been taken by the old FE in December if there had been room on the agenda. It is not particularly contentious in Party terms. That’s partly why it was unhelpful to leak it before the Conference Committee had seen it and had the opportunity to decide on the debate.
As the proposer of the triple lock in 1998, I also agree that we need to re-think it for the next stage and that now is the time to do it. I am not sure, however, that the Policy Committee should also get votes. Of course, they can and should advise on policy matters but in terms of overall balance, it seemed right to give the key roles to the elected Parliamentarians and those elected representatives of the Party who have the overall responsibility for “directing, co-ordinating and implementing the work of the Federal Party”. Elected members of a second chamber would certainly be a new challenge to meet. I would however be wary of requiring set majorities of a larger number of different bodies.
As somebody who has submitted a rival motion to conference I’m rather disappointed that this is being proposed as I expect there to be very little debate on such a non-issue. Of course we’re going to fight the next election as an independent party. Why remove debating space for discussion of matters of greater importance? (but then I would say that wouldn’t I?)
I agree with David Allen. As for the triple lock, it makes me feel as though we’re locked into:
(a) a private deal on higher education funding (not revealed to us before the conference vote because we would have rejected it) which flies in the face of longstanding Lib Dem policy;
(b) a leadership which is not required to resubmit itself for re-election or any other form of direct democratic control of its actions by members because we are in government; and
(c) a Coalition agreement which is unlikely to be appropriate for the full 5 years of this Parliament (and in the case of (a) an agreement to permit abstentions if MPs could not support the Coalition’s response to the Browne review, which was inappropriate from the start because it turned out our ministers were asking Lib Dem MPs to support a response they had all quite rightly promised to vote against).
I appreciate that these issues are uncomfortable for the leadership, but they are the things many Lib Dem members are concerned about, and causing many of us to think: “I’m a Lib Dem, let me out of here!”. Will we get a chance to debate and vote on any of them at conference?