CommentIsFree has published a piece from Liberal Democrat peer Chris Rennard about the coalition, its future and what the party’s priorities should be. The Guardian has published an abbreviated version of the piece, the full version of which we publish here:
Liberals and Liberal Democrats became accustomed over many decades to attending our party conferences amidst media reports of the party’s imminent demise. At one of the first that I attended, I remember the then Liberal Leader Jeremy Thorpe describing how the “Fleet Street hearse” regularly turned up to the Liberal Assembly but went away empty. The Lib Dem Conference in Liverpool this week will be unlike any previous Liberal or Lib Dem Conference. But party members attending are again bracing themselves for some commentators making dire forecasts about the party’s future. They will often be the same people whose previous forecasts were confounded by the huge progress that the Liberal Democrats have made in electoral terms and in changing in the way that Paddy Ashdown advocated from “a party of protest to a party of power.”
There certainly were many times previously when it was much easier to see the party disappearing from the national stage. Twenty years ago we met for our conference in Blackpool’s dreary Winter Gardens in a most depressing atmosphere. Most of the media questions that week were about whether or not the party could hope to survive a General Election. The party had only recently been able to despatch the rump “Owenite” SDP. (when we pushed them below the level of the Monster Raving Loony Party in the Bootle by-election that May). Lib Dems that September were below 8% in the polls, we had not begun the series of 11 spectacular by-election wins and general expectations were that many of our 19 MPs would lose their seats.
But the party has now fought five General Elections as Liberal Democrats. In each of them the vote share achieved has been around 20%. The variation from this figure has been less than 3% on each occasion with the most recent result being the best. Far from disappearing back to the Celtic fringe, the party survived in 1992, doubled its number of MPs in 1997 and has now elected over 50 MPs in three successive General Elections. Of course, there have been turbulent times for the party over the last twenty years. But the fluctuations in support over this period should show that the position of the party is now much more durable than some would be prepared to admit.
This year the party meets in Liverpool’s Arena and Convention Centre. Those attending will enjoy excellent facilities and see the impressive regeneration of the city centre. These are achievements of which Liverpool Liberal Democrats are very proud. At the conference itself, we will celebrate the sight of so many Liberal Democrat Ministers “mingling” at the conference, but also brace ourselves for the inevitable criticism that follows the formation of a coalition and a return to forecasts of impending doom.
Journalist accreditation is already up by more than 60% on last year’s Lib Dem Conference. They will all want to know how the party can survive being in coalition. In the 1990s, Paddy Ashdown asked me to look at how our European sister parties maintained their vote share whilst so frequently serving as junior coalition partners. The leaders of these parties talked to me about the importance of being able to show in the following General Election both what they had achieved through coalition and what they had prevented. Some of them were so successful that they became the senior partners in future coalitions.
Liberal Democrat members (and membership numbers are rising) feel confident that Nick Clegg did the right thing in May. His first aim this week must be to demonstrate that coalition works. Liberal Democrats have always believed that proving that a pluralist approach to politics can provide strong and effective government requires working with people who are not natural allies on many issues. The Conservatives are not “allies” but they are “colleagues”. In these circumstances, credit should be given to David Cameron for agreeing to a remarkable series of concessions in the coalition negotiations in order to make a coalition work much better than a short lived and exclusively Conservative minority government was likely to have done.
Over the course of the Parliament the Liberal Democrats will have to be positive in saying that we have made the difference in delivering much of the “Four Steps to a Fairer Britain” programme that was outlined in the General Election. Achievements such as lifting income tax thresholds, guaranteeing significant pension increases and a new focus on reducing carbon emissions by 80% from 2050 will not, however, be sufficient of a message.
Liberal Democrats will also have to remind people of the reasons why thirteen years of Labour Government ended with Labour’s vote share being just 1% above their 1983 nadir under Michael Foot. People knew that Labour had lost much of the moral purpose that was the basis on which many of them placed their hopes and trust in 1997. They also knew that major cutbacks were on the way if Labour had won. They need now to be reminded that the biggest difference between Government and Opposition at present is that the Labour opposition won’t say where their 20% cuts would have fallen.
But it will also be important to show over the five years that Liberal Democrats are independent of the Conservatives and have a different approach to Government. This difference in approach was summed up for me by Mario Cuomo when he was Governor of New York and was challenging Ronald Reagan’s attacks upon the Federal Government in the US. He said quite simply that, “We demand only the government that we need. But we demand all the government that we need.” Liberal Democrats over the next five years need to continue to explain, more than the Conservatives are likely to do, what we expect government to do to make Britain a more liberal society.
There will be tough challenges ahead for the Liberal Democrats in both working constructively to make the coalition work and maintaining the distinctiveness that gives the party its “raison d’etre”. Differences between Liberal Democrats and Conservatives (and Labour for that matter) were clear in this year’s General Election over issues such as Trident, student tuition fees and immigration. If decisions on Trident can at least be postponed then there will be a clear area of distinction for Clegg and Cameron to argue about in 2015. If a way can be found to prevent students from poorer backgrounds deciding that they can’t afford to go to university then it will be seen as a success for the Lib Dems. And if the Lib Dems and Conservatives continue to argue over the flexibility and appropriate size of any immigration cap, then the contrasting philosophies of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will again be at the heart of the next General Election campaign.
Lord Rennard was Director of Campaigns & Elections for the Liberal Democrats 1989 – 2003 and Chief Executive 2003 – 2009.