In its quarterly journal Juncture, IPPR has published an article by David Hall-Matthews entitled “Liberalism in anxious times: Constructing a clear, positive liberal vision for society“.

David’s starting point is Nick Clegg’s resignation speech in which he said that liberalism was under threat, and not just in the UK. Is that true?

Globally, Putin’s neo-dictatorship and ISIS terror are fundamentally illiberal – but they are no more significant than recent liberal turns in international relations, such as the increasing economic strength and political integration of the BRICs.

In the UK context, is the astonishing success of the Scottish Nationalist party (SNP), with its broadly social-democratic approach, really a threat to liberal values? For Clegg, having fought a centrist, makeweight campaign, all radicals are a threat. He went as far as to cite ‘unity’ in his speech as a fundamental liberal value, though it could be argued to be the opposite of liberal respect for difference. Ed Miliband, too, found himself forced to decry the SNP as a nationalist danger, primarily for tactical reasons. Both ultimately found it difficult to convince floating voters that their differences from the SNP were greater than their common values.

After the general election debacle, and with a Lib Dem leadership campaign underway, there is an opportunity, as well as a necessity, to set out a clear, positive liberal vision for society.

He asks what binds liberals together?

Many Lib Dem activists – particularly those who see the party as naturally left-of-centre – take great exception to the notion of liberalism as a split-the-difference philosophy with the aim of offending no one. They reject the tactical logic behind the party’s election campaign, with its appeal to the reasonable centre ground and its manifesto designed as a template for possible coalition negotiations, because the number of voters likely to vote actively for compromise was never large. More importantly, they reject the principle of centrism as weak – as allowing the party to be defined only in relation to the changing position of others. However, such antagonism towards compromise is ironic for a party that believes in political pluralism. Proportional representation – which is supported by almost all liberals – would necessitate government by negotiation.

He cuts through the diverse and sometimes seemingly contradictory values that liberals say they stand for, by changing the question to “What does Liberalism offer?”

Liberalism as a philosophy starts with individuals and how they work together, and with a mistrust of the centralisation of power (whether in the hands of the state, or, for example, of service providers). Its strongest move now will therefore be to address the concerns of those who feel that they have lost a sense of their local community. While ‘hope’ versus ‘fear’ is a crude expression of liberal values, liberalism can make a distinct, decent offer to those who have been tempted by Ukip, or who have not voted in recent years. Moreover, this approach has been tried and tested, starting at the last time that liberalism was at a low ebb as a national force in the early 1970s. Community politics was not conceived to promote liberalism per se, still less the Liberal party. Nor was it about the redistribution of power – which, perhaps ironically, can only occur as a top-down process (unless it’s going in the wrong direction). Rather, it was the practical implementation of the liberal principle of starting from the bottom and letting people take control of their own lives.

Finally he asks how Liberalism can be influential. He thinks we may have to grit our teeth and form a cross-party alliance on liberal issues with the SNP as well as Labour. But do read the article in full to get the complete argument.

* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.