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I have always been fascinated with politics and how the world works. Our history, our present and our future. How we co-exist in society. Being a young idealist, I first felt that the answers to the issues that we faced were through Socialism. I remember seeing Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to the leadership of the Labour Party, a weary looking man who somehow was able to connect to people of different generations and backgrounds. I was inspired. I joined the Labour Party in 2016, hoping for a better future.
Looking back at that time, I did see the world through a one-dimensional lens. Rich versus poor, the bourgeoisie versus the proletariat. Back then, when asked on how to solve the issues of the day, I would always resort to “just raise taxes on the rich”. It was the magical answer I had to any issue on the economy, never looking at the potential consequences that major tax rises could have to both businesses and workers.
Even after the end of Corbynism, I still held a deep affection for the ideals of that cause. I was passionate and obsessed about the fight for the many against the few, holding a personal confidence where I felt that was the fight of our time. That was until my phone woke me up in the middle of the night, a news notification informing me that Russia had launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I turned on my TV and watched the news… I’ll never forget it. The first air raid sirens that screamed out into the streets of Kyiv. Whilst I was far away from the battlefields of Ukraine, I did feel this sense that the west was no longer safe.
We all know that Putin does not share the democratic values that we hold in the west but seeing Russia taking land on a massive scale, I could not help but think of the Ukrainians who would wake up to the horror of what was being taken from them. Their lives. Their loved ones. Their freedom.
All of this made me question the way I saw the world. Yes, of course, wealth inequality is a major problem that we face, and it must be resolved. But the question I started to ask myself was: What is the role of the government? A simple looking question that has a wide range of answers. Before, as a Socialist, I would have said that the role of the government should be to give people the control of the means of production. Now, as a Liberal, I believe the role of the government is to defend and expand the freedoms of the individual.
The war in Ukraine made me realise what was truly important. The exact freedoms that we all take for granted. Socialists and Conservatives ideologically battle the issues of the past. When I was a Socialist, I saw the world in the same way the likes of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles did. They understood issues that the working classes faced at that time, but they were men who lived in a completely different set of circumstances than what we live in today. Workers now have much more protections and employment rights than what they did before. Conservatives aim to preserve a constant state of culture but what they miss in their arguments is that the only constant state is change.
Freedom for all. That is the cause worth fighting for and that is where I found my home in Liberalism. After a long time of personal reflection, I left the Labour Party for the Liberal Democrats. Recently joining, I see the fortunate problems that the party faces today. How do the Liberal Democrats continue their political success after the General Election?
When the average voter does think of our party right now, they likely picture Sir Ed Davey bungee jumping, paddle boarding and all the other stunts he’s pulled off. The average voter needs to know what we stand for, not just in policy, but in our vision for Britain. What a Liberal politician would do from Westminster to their local parish council. They know what Labour is doing, they know what the Conservatives have done, and they know what Reform would do.
When speaking to voters, we need to start with our why. Why we matter, why we are different from the other parties and what our purpose is as Liberals. From protecting our civil liberties, reaching out to international partners, devolving more powers to local communities and creating a fairer economic and political system; Liberals are here to defend and expand the freedoms of the individual.
* Jim Coupland is a member of the Liberal Democrats who joined us from the Labour Party. He describes himself as a "passionate Liberal".
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21 Comments
Too many progressives are full of contradictions. Votes at 16, but banning vapes. Support legalising Cannabis but outlawing cigarettes. Support freedom of speech , but try to cancel & silence those whose views you opposed. I’ll believe the ‘defend and expand the freedoms of the individual’ when the Batley Grammar school teacher can exercise that right.
Craig, it’s a bizarre comment you’ve made considering I never mentioned anything about voting ages and vapes in my op-ed.
I don’t remember supporting vapes being banned or outlawing cigarettes. Legalising weed may not be such a bad idea…
Free speech is very much still here in the UK, nobody serious is advocating against free speech. Use whatever extreme anecdotal evidence you like (Batley Grammar School) but implying that there is no free speech, or we are at risk of free speech being taken away is an odd take. People who live in authoritarian regimes like Russia, North Korea and China are actual victims of suppression of speech; not conservatives focused on culture wars.
But, I think we have more in common than you realise when it comes to the values of freedom and liberty. It’s an interesting discussion that needs to be had in our society today and it is our duty as Liberals to defend the freedoms that others in the world are not so lucky to have.
Craig Levene’s comment (which is far from applicable to most “progressives”) could just as easily describe many (perhaps most?) soi-disant free speech advocates on the political right. Elon Musk is perhaps the biggest free-speech hypocrite, claiming to be a “free speech absolutist” while banning critics from his social media platform. The Trump regime of which he is part also supports “free speech” (their definition, meaning freedom from consequences) for the far right while silencing its opponents. The bogus “Free Speech Union” does the same sort of thing in the UK.
[The] “comment (which is far from applicable to most “progressives”) could just as easily describe many (perhaps most?) soi-disant free speech advocates on the political right”
It seems the original issue at Batley Grammar School was blasphemy against the Prophet in an RE lesson in Birmingham leading to the teacher concerned becoming a “victim of freedom-restricting harassment” and also being suspended from his job.
Apparently the report highlighted “a wider cultural problem of “community faith leaders aggressively interfering in teaching””.
The author of the independent report recommended “no protest zones” around schools, akin to those around abortion clinics, no doubt for the same kind of reasons.
Can a liberal society accept “community faith leaders aggressively interfering in teaching”? I suggest not, and certainly no more than we should accept aggressive protests close to abortion clinics.
I totally agree about the hypocrisy of Musk, Trump et al, but I think their definition of freedom of speech is actually freedom to agree with them only: exercising freedom to disagree with them certainly has consequences: you may be deported, or lose your research grant or be otherwise demonised.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-68659435
My view on the Batley Grammar School saga is that the teacher was badly treated by the school and the Council, both of which should have stood by him and supported his right to use the images in class. Notably, though, the local Labour MP, Kim Leadbeater, supports him. I’m totally opposed to Blasphemy laws and would like to see them abolished altogether. And I oppose “community faith leaders aggressively interfering in teaching” (and I oppose faith schools generally). Where protest slides into intimidation it also needs to be restricted, as this is a case of freedom interfering with the freedom of others (to go about their lawful business).
Does a hard line between liberalism and socialism actually even exist? There seems to be a big ideological overlap between liberals and libertarian leftists.
And if you count social democracy as a form of socialism then that would make a great many of us in the party socialists as a social liberal is just someone who is both a social democrat and a liberal.
Jim, my comment wasn’t directed at you personally in regards to what I’ve highlighted.
The thrust of the argument ‘Freedom for all. That is the cause worth fighting for and that is where I found my home in Liberalism’ is all well and good – but the progressive left has developed a puritanical streak – from intimidating lecturers to silencing critics. It’s almost if they cannot debate in a civil manner.
Ultimately it’s taken a judge to reiterate the freedoms you espouse . What we’ve ended up with is a defacto blasphemy law that only relates to one religion. Unacceptable in a liberal society we all wish for.
I joined the Liberals in 1974 because Liberalism treated people as individuals rather than designate them by the class-based politics still dominant in those days. The difference between Liberalism and Socialism was well illustrated by an argument between the Labour Government and the Liberal Party when we kept Labour in office during the Lib-Lab Pact of 1977-78. Labour agreed to our demand that a profit-sharing provision be included in the 1978 finance bill. Labour initially wanted any shares or cash bonuses for workers to be paid to the unions to use on behalf of employees but we wanted these given to individual employees and it was this view that prevailed.
Craig – You brought up interesting points so it’s great that you commented on this to expand the conversation. I think there are valid points to what you are saying, my point however, is that the right wing will over exacerbate that issue.
David – There are many overlaps with Socialism and Social Liberalism but I think the goals are different. The Socialist ultimate ideal is equality and the Liberal ultimate ideal is freedom.
@Craig Levene: The sort of left-wingers who indulge in the sort of behaviour you describe are not really progressive, much less liberal. They are mainly “trendy lefties”, which is a political class I, as a liberal, have no truck with.
But notwithstanding that tendency among the far left, “Free speech for me but not for thee” seems to me much more prevalent on the political right than on the left. The Trump~Musk~Vance complex being its prime advocates.
@Paul Hunt Undoubtedly influenced by the contemporaneous Mitbestimmung agreement signed between the German SPD and the FDP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitbestimmungsgesetz
Certainly, the role of the government should be to “defend and expand the freedoms of the individual” in terms of non-interference with private enterprise as far as possible, but the response in the event of that sector’s failure remains the emblematic divide within liberalism, with classical Liberals arguing that it’s not the State’s responsibility to intervene, while social liberals maintain that the government should then fill the gap, as was seen at the weekend with British Steel.
Might the promotion of a “Mixed Economy” make L. D. root socio-economic policy different, widen and deepen socio-political discussion and benefit regular citizens and their children?
America’s remarkable socio-economic growth from the end of its Civil War through to World War 1 came from a mixed public/private economy in which public infra structure was developed as a key factor of production and service. Thus they were run to provide basic services at minimal costs to citizens who became ever healthier, better educated, more skillful, more dynamic and more optimistic which, consequently increased the quality of products and services and the demand for them. Thus society gained benefits whilst keeping internal and export prices low.
They were not run, as is the current fashion, to provide extortionate profits for the private sector to the cost of the regular public. [Thames Water?]
Such is a considerable contrast to current socio-economic harmful orthodoxy.
From https://michael-hudson.com/
Be dynamically different and do great good!
Jim Coupland homes in on a key point that currently is hardly being addressed by the party – that Liberalism’s primry appeal needs to be its essential philosophy and its view of society, rather than the policies that flow from the philosophy.
It was because of this lack that the John Stuart Mill Institute commissioned its recent book, “When We Speak of Freedom – Radical Liberalism in an Age of Crisis”. It is a hefty tome but, with its twenty chapter writers, it aims to be a definitive book on Liberalism today. It is available via the Liberal publishers: https://www.beecroftpublications.co.uk/books.html. A much extended version of my introductory chapter (“Confronting Illiberalism and Disillusion – The Task for Liberals”) is also available free from the same source.
I don’t think it’s correct that “America’s remarkable socio-economic growth from the end of its Civil War through to World War 1 came from a mixed public/private economy” or that businesses “were not run, as is the current fashion, to provide extortionate profits for the private sector to the cost of the regular public.” On the contrary, in the US public infrastructure like the railways were provided by the private sector and the government had to implement anti-trust laws to curb over-mighty monopoly capitalists. This was the programme of the Progressives like Theodore Roosevelt, who were the contemporaries of the New Liberals in Britain.
Jim Coupland ……. They understood issues that the working classes faced at that time, but they were men who lived in a completely different set of circumstances than what we live in today…Workers now have much more protections and employment rights than what they did before….
Since Thatcher there has been a steady erosion of protections and employment rights…
If anything the last 40 years has seen a regression in that field AND this party’s brief period in government accelerated that ‘backsliding’..
Perhaps you should review Ed Davey’s stint as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills…His decimation of dismissal laws, reduction in unfair dismissal compensation payments and his attack on the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment (TUPE.) to say nothing of his involvement in the Post Office Scandal.. Hardly a champion of ‘workers rights’
EXPATS – I respectfully have to disagree with you there. You seem to be moving the goalposts in this argument. What I referred to was the difference of workers rights and protections from the 1800’s to today. I implore you to look at this source from Tribune, which eloquently shows the major differences in these two different time periods:
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/05/how-our-workers-rights-were-won/
You seem to also forget that I did mention in my op-ed, “Yes, of course, wealth inequality is a major problem that we face”. I did not state at any point that the average worker is living with perfect working conditions, nor did I defend Sir Ed Davey’s record in the coalition government.
@Jim Coupland 16th Apr ’25 – 6:55pm..
Jim, I was questioning your assertion that, “Workers now have much more protections and employment rights than what they did before”..
Workers, certainly, have more rights now than they had in the 1800’s; however, we, as a society, are reversing the safeguards of just 40 years ago.. Zero Hours Contracts, the demonising of Trade Unions, fire/re-hire (always on worse pay/conditions); the timing of toilet breaks, etc., etc.
We all condemn, and rightfully, the 19th Century mill owners but are Amazon, Uber, etc. any better?
EXPATS – In some areas I agree with what you’re saying and in some areas not quite.
I agree that Amazon, Uber or the ‘gig-economy’ is not good for workers and there needs to be more protections put in place for that sector of industry but it’s a stretch to say that they are not better than the mill owners of the past. They don’t hire children for a start.
I support trade unions, I am a member of one myself, but they should not be immune from criticism. If you take the current situation in Birmingham, whilst they may have legitimate grievances with the council, the bin strikes are a serious health and safety issue for residents which could cause serious damage. The Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, even stressed this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3v9w72py1xo
Issues like what you have brought up are part of the wealth inequality that workers face, however, there are consequences to every action a government can take. Labour said in the last General Election that they wouldn’t raise taxes on “working people” but raise National Insurance on employers, which affects small business owners. I would class them as ‘working people’ too. Combine this with the Employment Rights Bill, I understand why businesses are worried about the current state of the economy.
The challenge is balance. Yes, the Employment Rights Bill will do good for workers but having that with tax rises is too much for businesses to afford. Recently, a report has showed that there are less vacancies now because of these measures:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c30qzng45mzo
And, there are examples of jobs being cut from businesses due to the current economic climate:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvged0x5ykxo
Is this good for workers when they are being let go from work and can’t find a job? Socialist policies has done a lot of good for workers over the past couple of hundred years, but the question is, when does it go too far?
I have just left the Labour Party, having first joined about 39 years ago. Whilst I have never been a doctrinaire socialist or a believer in a Marxist class struggle, I saw myself as ‘Labour’ because I knew I definitely was not a Conservative. Liberalism was not something I ever considered – too middle class, too ‘Southern’, not for me. I read J S Mill and other central liberal texts, and have been philosophically aligned with ‘liberalism’, but I believed the best vehicle for that was through a Labour Government. Although I was not a socialist, I adopted the language and identity because Labour were the ‘good guys’. You are absolutely right – if the Liberal Democrats are to prosper, you need to ‘own’ liberalism; it has to be your USP. A lot of Labour members like myself are really liberals and should be in your party – they either just do not realise, or do not wish to for familial, geographical or other tribal reasons. I am mulling over joining your party – 39 years too late, perhaps!
Pure socialism is based on a dangerous myth, that if we create an equal society that is a worthwhile end in its own right. So many rich people are not happy and surely happiness is more important than personal wealth. When you add that happiness is available to us all regardless of our circumstances then the aim of a political party must be to empower all to achieve it.
Unfettered capitalism -of the sort Donald Trump gavour – is not good for workers or consumers. This was recognised even by Adam Smith, who whilst thinking capitalism was the best system, nevertheless thought that business people left to their own devices would meet together -whether for business or diversion – and the result would be a conspiracy against the public. He also said that the government must hold the ring to make sure everything runs fairly.
Socialism is not the answer either. Liberals must make sure that extreme disparities of wealth and income do not continue and strive to build a fairer and more equal society, where no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. And, yes, it will mean the very wealthy making a bigger contribution and they will squeal and shout and try to convince voters that they shouldn’t pay more, usually by pretending that any new taxes will affect everybody. The USA has a rule that if you’re a citizen you must pay US taxes – reduced by taxes paid elsewhere. So, if you live in or have a business in the US you pay US taxes. We should do that here.