David Boyle has been writing for the Guardian following the EU referendum result:
I believe that we have to take the referendum result seriously. We can’t just finesse it or constitutionalise it away. We also need to shape a narrative that interprets it in the most liberal way we can. In fact, history may belong to whoever can do that most convincingly.
Now I have my own biases, as a Lib Dem. But, say what you like about my own party, it is one political force that may be united enough to do that. Yet – perhaps for understandable reasons – it spent the first few days of Brexit claiming to speak only for the 48% who voted to remain.
I’m not of course advocating that the Lib Dems should abandon the cause, or to back off their fundamental internationalism. But the nation looks to any political force now capable of uniting them, and that means treating the other side with enough respect to lead them beyond the current impasse.
So this article is rather a public plea to one man. Tim Farron. Farron, history demands that you step into the breach and speak for England – in the sense that Amery meant it – and not just on behalf of the losing side either, but the winning one too.
New divisions are emerging in national politics, says David, and Liberals must be attuned to them:
He needs to look ahead to a new political division, when the great divide emerging is between nationalists and liberals, and where the division will not be 48:52. It is too early for coherent plans, but not too early to speak for the nation as a whole and at its best. For its fundamental tolerance, including on the Brexit side. For its outward-looking focus and its moral commitment to Europe, even from outside the EU – and, if necessary, our commitment to work for a reformed, flexible EU, even from outside it.
Because what we need now is a clear voice, not from one side or the other, but from the leader of a united party – who understands what the nation is, fundamentally, and says so, clearly and courageously.
You can read David’s full piece here – and it’s well worth doing so.
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5 Comments
Full marks, David. I agree.
As a critical compoment of this, I think Tim should embark on a summer of low profile, active listening, up and down the country, around the housing estates and fishing ports, the fire stations and the care homes, the rural markets and the centres of broken industrial small towns.
No advance publicity, but local Lib Dem help in the planning, and mobile communications en route, so he can find his way to the people. No big, national entourage, one other person at most from his HQ team, but definitely one or two active and connected Lib Dems – as local as possible – all part of an active listening exercise.
Thought needs to be given to how to provide the best environment for active listening. People need to feel comfortable enough to speak, listeners need to be able to hear, without being asked to repeat, or speak louder.
Thought should also be given to two or three end of the day public meetings in the last week of this, for a different kind of listening (obviously), and also for feedback from Tim from the whole exercise, with the media primed. Perhaps we’ll have been able to demonstrate by then that we’ve something to say that they’ll want to report.
Finally, however, Tim’s diary at 3.00pm on Saturday 6 August is surely sacrosanct. I trust he’ll be at Ewood Park with Norman Lamb. A draw would be the best outcome, lads!
Spencer (B&H Albion supporter 🙂
Spencer, what possible reason could a politician looking to capitalise on a golden opportunity like this have for keeping a low profile?
Our obsession with local level politics at the expense of national focus is a millstone around our collective neck.
As for the drift of the article, we didn’t gain 10,000 new members in slightly under a week by embracing our civic duty to respect the referendum result. I might add that the last time we made a compromise in the name of civic duty, so we took a kicking at the ballot box from an unimpressed public.
Brexiteers are well represented already. We are carving out our territory by representing the other side, as is entirely consistent with our values and the values of a democracy.
Conor, binary thinking is a major curse of our politics, as it is in many other spheres of British life.
Of course, we have to look to “The 48” for our new supporters, voters, activists, councillors, MPs… But, that doesn’t entail continuing to ignore the marginalised, all those who’ve suffered from globalisation, the malign effects of which should have been mitigated for the worst affected, who had already suffered from lack of social and educational inclusion since forever, and have suffered appallingly from the effects of 30 years of neoliberal economic claptrap, which should have been left in the bowels of the Adam Smith Institute in the first place.
At least, appealing to “The 48” doesn’t entail ignoring the left-behind in my version of the preamble to the Lib Dem constitution, and I would not pretend so to any fellow Forty-Eighters who’ve just joined. Anyway, those I’ve met so far seem to know this already.
What we most need is a full on, well publicised (some hope) positive and constructive vision for the future. No time to hide our light under a bushel lets get out there and inspire the British people to be the best that we can be. I hate the idea of being out of the EU but we should be grabbing the headlines and the airwaves with an ambitious forward looking dialogue to capture the imagination and interest of the British public and press in a great future for our country.
David – I agree. And the sooner the better!