The Liberal Democrats have a growing urban problem and pretending otherwise will only make it worse.
Last week’s local election results exposed something many campaigners in cities have felt for some time: our local organisation is often far stronger than our national political message. In too many urban areas, particularly diverse cities, voters simply do not hear a compelling Liberal Democrat case for why we matter to modern Britain.
Politics today is increasingly shaped nationally, even in local elections. Voters consume politics through social media, online debate, podcasts and national narratives. Parties that succeed understand this and communicate with clarity and confidence. Too often, we do not.
In cities especially, the Liberal Democrats can appear politically invisible not because our values are unpopular, but because our national message lacks definition and urgency. We are too often seen as a party speaking comfortably to affluent southern seats while struggling to project a clear vision for younger renters, working-class families and diverse urban communities.
That should concern us because those voters ought to be natural Liberal Democrats.
I recently wrote privately and constructively to Ed Davey to raise these concerns and invited him to Southwark to discuss them further. Not to complain, but because there are genuine signs of opportunity if the party is prepared to adapt.
In Southwark, despite difficult national headwinds, we gained a councillor and returned 12 Liberal Democrat councillors in one of the most diverse boroughs in the country. That success did not come from national momentum. It came from relentless local campaigning, strong community relationships and candidates with personal credibility built over years of work. But we deserved to get far more people elected and do better.
But many Liberal Democrat campaigners across London and other metropolitan areas also worked incredibly hard and still fell short. The frustration many of us feel is not about effort. It is about the growing gap between effective local campaigning and a national message that is failing to cut through.
Southwark demonstrates both the challenge and the opportunity. Residents here care deeply about diversity, openness, fairness, opportunity and community. There is real frustration about housing, the cost of living and the lack of long-term thinking in Westminster. These are liberal issues. Yet many voters who instinctively share liberal values no longer instinctively look to the Liberal Democrats.
For too long, the party has relied on a model that prioritises local campaigning while underestimating the importance of national political identity. That approach is becoming less sustainable in a political environment where voters increasingly want to know what a party stands for nationally and whether it understands their lives.
Meanwhile, other parties are adapting faster. Through digital campaigning, sharper messaging and stronger online identities, they are connecting with audiences we often struggle to reach.
This matters because there is enormous political space opening up. Labour is disappointing many progressive voters, trust in politics is fragile and younger generations face increasingly difficult economic realities. Issues such as housing, intergenerational inequality, electoral reform and Britain’s place back in the European Union should present real opportunities for liberal politics.
But we will not seize those opportunities by sounding overly cautious or comfortable with the status quo.
None of this means abandoning the community politics that has always been our strength. Southwark’s result shows how powerful local liberalism can still be. But community politics alone is no longer enough. It must be matched with a national message that feels modern, ambitious and relevant to urban Britain.
The Liberal Democrats cannot afford to be absent from Britain’s cities. There is real opportunity for growth but only if we are willing to adapt to a changing political landscape.
* Cllr Victor Chamberlain is Leader of Southwark Liberal Democrats, Vice Chair of Federal Council and Liberal Democrat Vice Chair of the Neighbourhoods Committee at the Local Government Association
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12 Comments
“Southwark’s result shows how powerful local liberalism can still be.”
No they don’t, you got fewer seats than in 2014 during the coalition. A gain of one seat when Labour are more unpopular than ever is a complete disaster!
Our gain in Southampton was double that, and we’re a much smaller local party with no history of parliamentary representation.
And even then we mainly got lucky that the Greens didn’t do much in those two wards and that we’d managed to win one of the seats in each during 2024.
Local politics can never and will never work on its own with young educated voters, they’re not interested in the local bin collection.
Either you offer them a radical, hopeful pro change national message, with bold progressive policies or you don’t bother.
Totally agree the Party must take heed. In Southwark, we could quite easily have been blown away, as could many others across the country.
London is not one political landscape anymore. Outer London and Inner London are now very different electorally, socially and politically, and what works in Outer London was shown very clearly not to work in Inner London, or indeed in many other metropolitan Lib Dem areas across the UK.
Gary Glover
Champaign Chair and Agent, Southwark.
The messages Victor has raised above need to be discussed in an open and transparent way. This is one of the most important things both the Region and HQ must take into consideration going forward. A one-size-fits-all approach is no longer viable if we are serious about competing and growing in these very different areas, action is needed from Federal Party reconsidering the problems that excise.
@Gary
I don’t think we can even look at it in terms of inner Vs outer, as there are very big differences within each.
The only bit of outer London where the party does well is the south west, which has higher levels of home ownership combined with high numbers of middle class voters compared with other areas of the capital, where only one of those things are true we tend not to do well.
As a Southwark old hand (with my Mum still active there at 82!) I must support Victor and Gary. Their survival in Southwark is a tribute to their teamwork and resilience in the face of 7+ leaflet campaigns from the Greens and an electoral register with a frenetic, inner-city level of change and churn.
I was elected in Southwark in 1994 and re-elected in 1998. I doubt if there are more than a handful of people who would still be on my ward’s electoral register after all these years, due to regeneration, decants and so many other factors
Colleagues in my old PPC patch of East Hants, for example, did stupendously well, but it is easier terrain, when I was on a polling station there in 2024 I knew huge numbers of voters because the register is so static.
I won’t name names but a number of Southwark stalwarts (and ex stalwarts like me) turn 60 next year. We can look to the future, and look back with pride, seeing a fantastic leader and PPC there. But, for crying out loud they deserve better than the national party’s dreary waffle about “Middle England”.
What policies are you after on:
housing, intergenerational inequality, electoral reform and Britain’s place back in the European Union?
When I joined the Liberal Democrats in 1989 the first event I attended outside my constituency was a campaign weekend in Bermondsey. I was really interested to see what would happen. I thought there was a strong chance the Greens would make massive gains. They did, but at Labour’s expense. Something is obviously going right in this local party. In Bermondsey and Old Southwark the party is in solid second place at both local and parliamentary level. That must be almost unique. Has anyone done the numbers on how the party did in the wards in Bermondsey and Old Southwark? Well done.
Good to see that the Lib Dems are hanging on in Southwark, no doubt due to tenacity, organisation and hard work. But what is missing from this conversation is that they went from 11 to 12 while the Greens went from Zero to 22. Surely something to learn from this, not least the need for a convincing national narrative that cuts through as a message for real change. Interesting also that Labour lost 23 seats so that the Lib Dem 12 and the Green 22 now have the chance to end Labour’s stranglehold on Southwark. But will they?
Can I amplify that last question, are The Libdems in Southwark negotiating with Labour & The Greens to form an administration & are there any plans to consult Our members about such ?
As someone who campaigned to help Simon Hughes in the original by-election, I am saddened but not surprised to see Southwark LibDems leap-frogged by the Greens into second place on the Council. I’m sure the Lib Dem activist teams worked their socks off to retain their existing seats and gain one extra, but clearly the message did not permeate the Lib Dem hierarchy nationally, even though they are just a few miles away across the river. I hope desperately that they are now talking with the Green group of 22 new councillors (who have certainly much to learn from the experience of the Lib Dem council group) with a view to forming a new administration. In the process the two groups should learn how much they have in common in terms of shares values and an attitude to life.
The key to that is the working class vote. Once we harness that and ensure they know what we are genuinely about. The rest will fall into place naturally.
@ Stephen Crocker, as Tommy Cooper used to say, “Just like that !”……………
Victor is right. And if we want to be taken seriously in urban area, we need to stand a candidate in Makerfield.