On Monday, Conference debated our motion “Restoring Trans Rights”, and the motion passed overwhelmingly. As Chair of LGBT+ Liberal Democrats, I’m proud of that – proud of everyone who put the work in, proud of the people who got up and spoke, and proud that our party said clearly, again, that it stands with trans people.
But there is one thing I want us to carry forward from that debate.
We win the argument by making it. We win the vote by voting for it. We do not need to win it by shouting anyone down.
There will always be people at Conference who disagree with us. Sometimes profoundly, in ways that are genuinely upsetting or just plain wrong. But the right response to that is confidence, not volume. Speak up, challenge the misinformation, make the case properly – but let other speakers finish. A heckle has never changed anyone’s mind. Booing doesn’t make our argument stronger. Shouting over someone at a microphone doesn’t add anything. And we don’t need to do it.
Conference heard the arguments on Monday and made its decision. We should have enough confidence in our values, in our arguments and in Liberal Democrat members to allow a debate to happen and then win it.
This matters online too, where there are people whose entire political strategy is to provoke a reaction. They’re not trying to persuade you. They want the quote-tweet. They want hundreds of angry replies. They want the confrontation, because the confrontation is the content.
We should not give it to them.
I don’t mean go quiet. There’s plenty we should still call out – misinformation, prejudice, attacks on trans members, candidates and activists- and we should keep making the case for equality without apologising for it. But not every wind-up is worth our time, and sometimes the best move is simply not to play along.
So my ask, for future Conferences, is a simple one: when someone gets up to argue against us, hear them out, then make the better argument. Speak up. Vote for it. Trust Conference to decide.
Sometimes the strongest thing we can do is refuse to play somebody else’s game.
Liberals debate. On Monday, we did. And Conference overwhelmingly stood with us.
* Lucas North is Chair of LGBT+ Lib Dems
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5 Comments
Well said.
Anyone who isn’t prepared to listen to other peoples arguments is not a liberal in any meaningful sense.
However J.S. Mill in On Liberty II On the Liberty of Thought and Discussion wrote: “First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny it’s truth; but they are not infallible.” John Maynard Keynes is said to have written, but I haven’t traced the source: “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions.”
It is not enough just to listen to your opponents arguments and refute them You have to consider them and be prepared to change your mind if you think on reflection that their argument is more likely to be true.
I fully support the statement that heckling is not the way to make decisions in the Lib Dems, of all parties, as our historic commitment to free speech is surely at the core of what it means to be a Liberal. There is one extra item I would suggest though: You said, Lucas, that “We should have enough confidence in our values, in our arguments and in Liberal Democrat members to allow a debate to happen and then win it.” But we should also have enough confidence in our Liberal values to lose a vote too, or to be persuaded that our opinions are wrong, and to change our minds. If we cannot allow the possibility that we could be wrong then we will lose what it means to be Liberal. Can we sincerely listen to another person’s argument and allow the possibility that they could be right, even if we disagree with them?
There is another side to this. If we seek to overthrow legislation (and culture) that upholds biological sex as a reality on which it is reasonable to base policy, what will the real world consequences be for women and girls who have relied on single-sex provision? For most daily activities, biological sex doesn’t matter. But I’m thinking about the difficult issues – domestic violence and rape crisis refuges, refuges for homeless women, prisons, single sex personal care, sports, intimate personal care, workplace communal changing rooms. Who will suffer if sex-based rights are erased?
@Anne – biological sex based exclusions were always permitted under the Equality Act (before the Supreme Court ruling) in limited and defined circumstances like women’s refuges & rape crisis centres.
I don’t think any LibDems had a problem with the pre Supreme Court situation.