I have been a Liberal Democrat, and part of the wider liberal tradition, for my entire adult life. I believe there has rarely been a more important time for liberal politics to be at the forefront of British public life.
Yet too often, our party seems more comfortable talking about blocking 16 and 17-year-olds from social media than trusting the same young people we have long argued should have the right to vote.
That matters.
Liberalism is not meant to be timid. It is not meant to chase every passing moral panic. It is not meant to dress itself up as small-c social conservatism in the hope that people who do not share our values might suddenly decide to vote for us. They will not. Worse than that, it risks alienating the very people who naturally look to a liberal party for leadership, courage and principle.
In 2024, the Liberal Democrats got the campaign right. We returned to Parliament in significant numbers, and that achievement should not be dismissed. It was a remarkable electoral success.
But what have we done with it?
We have gone from being a party that once had a huge impact on British politics to one that too often seems willing to support almost anything if it gets a cheap headline. For a party with our history, that is not good enough.
We are the party of Gladstone, Lloyd George, Grimond, Ashdown and the long liberal tradition of reform, liberty, internationalism and individual freedom. Yet today, too many people remember us less for bold liberal ideas and more for stunts. That should worry every single one of us.
For me, the problem is simple: we are missing the moment, and in doing so we are forgetting our purpose.
The Liberal Democrats should be the party of liberalism. That means defending civil liberties, trusting individuals, challenging the overreach of the state, standing up for democratic reform, protecting human rights, and being radical where the country needs radical answers.
We should not be afraid of bold policy. We should not be afraid of being distinctive. And we should not be afraid of following the policy that our own members vote for at conference.
It is not good enough for the leadership to celebrate one member, one vote, and then ignore what the party actually believes when it becomes inconvenient. Of course, a parliamentary party needs the ability to respond to complex issues and fast-moving events. Nobody expects every decision to be simple.
But there is a clear difference between being agile and pursuing policies that do not reflect the values or decisions of the wider party.
If conference passes policy, it should mean something. If members are told they matter, then their votes should matter. If we claim to be a democratic party, then internal democracy cannot just be a slogan used when convenient.
The Liberal Democrats do not need to become a pale imitation of the Conservatives, Labour or anyone else. We need to become more confidently ourselves.
That means being liberal, radical, democratic and unafraid.
The country does not need another party chasing the same headlines in the same newspapers, trying to sound tough for the sake of it. It needs a party that will defend liberty when it is unpopular, challenge authoritarianism wherever it comes from, and offer a serious liberal alternative to the tired politics of control, fear and short-termism.
That is what our party should be for.
And if we want people to believe in us again, we need to start acting like we believe in ourselves.
* Stephen O'Brien is a Liberal Democrat City Councillor in Sunderland.
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11 Comments
“ It needs a party that will defend liberty when it is unpopular…”
I’ve been thinking about this and I can’t think of examples of when liberty may be unpopular, except when liberty for some individuals comes at a cost to others or to society as a whole, and we would not support such liberty in those situations. We are not like the Green MSP, recently elected, who believes prisons should be abolished – liberty for those who have committed some terrible deeds would indeed be very unpopular, and rightly so.
Do you have specific examples you were thinking about when you wrote this?
We must return to who we are and what were for. The Harry Kane Knighthood campaign is yet another example of ‘performative’ politics to grab the media spotlight for an audience which remains ambivalent to us. Saying that we are between Labour and the Tories gets in the way of saying who we are and what we are for. Worse, it leaves us with a very small group of voters who believe that both the other parties are extreme. For all other voters, our argument reinforces the view that voting for us risks putting into power the people they were against.
I’m just a little uncertain what this all means in practice. We must not chase small c conservatives, but we must champion the individual and challenge the over reach of the state, which is something many conservatives would agree with. But then again, many moderate Tories are small l liberals, in the original British, rather than the American sense.
@Jana
I mean liberty in the classic liberal sense: defending rights even when the cause or person is unpopular. Things like due process, free speech, protest rights, privacy, minority rights, and the rights of refugees or migrants.
It doesn’t mean liberty without limits, or letting people harm others. It means the state should not remove people’s rights just because doing so is politically convenient or popular.
I have much sympathy with this article.
Consistently over the past year or two many of us have been urging the party to promote our belief in Liberalism, not least as defined in the preamble to the party constitution. Keep telling people what our beliefs are , not merely toss yet another mealy-mouthed policy line at the media.
Also, political correctness is not Liberalism. We have had too many examples of what seem to be PC utterances but little more. No wonder people don’t know or don’t admire what we stand for.
If, as is the opinion and belief of some, liberalism is fundamentally concerned with freedom, might it help to promte liberalism by differentiating different types of freedom?
For example:
1) Freedom to (eg holding and speaking different views, reasonable protest etc.)
2) Freedom from (eg hunger, homelessness, biased legislation & enforcement)
3) Freedom under equitable law (Without equitable law and equitable enforcement and follow up there is no/limited freedom for the less powerful/affluent)
4) Freedoms gained from an equitable period of restraint (eg toilet training and some education)
Might it promote the theory and practices of liberalism to speak and obviously work for all of the above?
The world is changing and the second paragraph seems to be missing the point that Protecting us all from the abuse that is made of Social media is not managed by the companies that provide the platforms. Can our 10 to 16 year olds be safe against those who seek to take every possible advantage of them? The damage and harm inflicted must be prevented where we can. Votes at 16. Yes please.
“We should not be afraid of bold policy” Agreed. We should start by supporting the enfranchisement of ALL the 5 Million Long-Leaseholders in Wales and England. The government is proposing to wait 40 years to phase out this outdated, inefficient, expensive and unjust system of Leasehold that is a feudal-based relic of our past. The Parliamentary Scrutiny Committee suggested phasing out in 20 Years. “In the long-run we are all dead” said Keynes famously. Our Party should be campaigning to end the unfair system of Long-Leasehold housing within 7 Years for most cases. Lets be bold and start with a campaign that Liberals and Liberal Democrats have supported for more than 100 Years.
“Yet too often, our party seems more comfortable talking about blocking 16 and 17-year-olds from social media”
I stopped reading at this point. The party’s position is NOT to ban 16 and 17 year olds from social media. It is to protect people from age inappropriate content while allowing other access. It is to ensure that certain revolting content is kept from people under 18. To be clear, is the author suggesting that 16 year olds should be permitted to have unlimited access to hard porn on line? If he does not want this, not how does he suggest it is prevented in a reasonable and liberal way?
Criticise party policy by all means but please don’t lapse into Daily Mail-like inaccuracies about it. It devalues the argument
Agree with Stephen less stunts and more substance in our Liberal Democracy we have been through our current leader too busy chasing six oclock news sound bites than standing up for Great Britain .
We could and perhaps should find people whose human rights are being abused and stand up for them. Whether it’s an asylum seeker seaking refuge from persecution, a homeless person who wants nothing more than a roof over their head that they can call home or a long time resident of this country who is being subjected to abuse, we can do more to publicise their case and make their misfortune an example of how this country is not the country it was. People resonate with individuals, particularly when their stories are part of a wider issue.