Tim Farron was challenged this morning on the radio whether the decision by the local party to stand down in Brighton Pavilion respresented some sort of deal. It isn’t, and nor should it be.
For all my long standing political differences with the Greens, I, like Tim, am relaxed about this decision. We weren’t going to win in Brighton Pavilion, and it is only fair that the Greens have a voice in parliament. Their politics are really quite bad in some ways but it is better they have a voice than are silenced. And tactically, I’d rather see a remainer Green MP than another Tory. The decision to stand down is a reasonable one irrespective of any quid pro quo. If there were any prospect of Lucas putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street, I would reconsider, but there isn’t.
Similarly the Greens’ decisions not to stand in Richmond Park, Lewes, and Oxford West and Abingdon are sound in their eyes – they would rather see Lib Dems win those seats than Tories. If you believe what the Greens believe, then the Tories are much worse than the Lib Dems. I welcome and applaud the non-tribalism.
There is of course a conflict here between this post-Brexit pragmatism and the more tribal, purist view that my party should stand in every seat and give every voter the choice. Labour take a purist view, as they have every right to. Indeed if Labour were more pragmatic, and if they admitted that to any social democrat the Lib Dems are by far preferable to the Tories, it would open a whole Pandora’s box of seats is it better not to fight, and risk creating a momentum for us, their rivals, at odds with their longer term goal of defeating us. I think it is worth the risk, but I would say that.
The converse doesn’t apply. It is not the case that to the average Lib Dem voter that Labour are any better than the Tories – in fact we already risk leaking votes to the Tories precisely because Labour under Corbyn is so much worse. Labour have found a leader whose economic policy is probably the one thing that could do more damage to the economy than leaving the single market will. If we still had the normal Labour Party – under Wilson or Kinnock or Blair or Brown or Yvette Cooper or Ed Balls – it would be different, but Labour has been taken over by socialists from the 1970s who are as baffled by the modern world as UKIP are afraid of it. Most of the voters know this and even Labour MPs will admit it. The last thing we Liberal Democrats need is any taint of association with the Labour Party under Corbyn.
Labour and Tory supporters – hard Brexiters aside perhaps – should recognise that we are better than the other lot, and vote accordingly where we are the challengers. Their parties would, if pragmatic, (and I never expect this to happen) detarget and/or stand down for us, but there is never the same case for us standing down for either of them: our vote would just split. This asymmetry makes deals difficult and punishes those who attempt them. May says we would support a coalition with Corbyn, though she knows it is not true, precisely because she knows it is bad for us and good for her if people believe it.
Many many good, moderate and reasonable people are planning to vote Conservative – today an extremist and reckless party – because of Jeremy Corbyn. They may even feel they don’t have a choice – in the name of taking back control and reasserting parliamentary democracy, May will tell them, with no sense of irony or shame, that there is no choice.
But good moderate and reasonable people, whether they are naturally Liberal Democrats, or pro-coalition Conservatives, or supporters of what the Labour Party stood for 5, 15 or 30 years ago, need to see that the Liberal Democrats will represent them far better than either of the others, and that a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote for the Liberal Democrats.
* Joe Otten was the candidate for Sheffield Heeley in June 2017 and Doncaster North in December 2019 and is a councillor in Sheffield.
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13 Comments
Joe writes about a very important subject.
But it isn’t really about deals/no deals or about the greens.
It is about the campaign’s attitude to Labour.
Signal how anti-Labour we are and court those ‘pro-coalition Conservatives’ as Joe terms them or worry about winning back Labour voters in Tory facing marginals (in all those seats we held almost since 1997, but no longer hold).
It seems like we have chosen Joe’s route to the 8th June.
I have always thought it chasing unicorns. I remember just how hard it was trying to persuade Conservatives to vote for us in 1983, even when all the talk was of Conservative landslides and I was trying to get people to support a person with a fantastic record as a ‘local hero of an MP’ with a a decade’s record of action and service.
But perhaps Joe is right. That we burnt our bridges in 2010-15. At least we can dream of unicorns.
“Brexit” hasn’t happen yet and is not due before 2019 at earliest. So better to say e.g. post-referendum than “post-Brexit” as above. Thanks for considering.
Could we please have some detail of the “worse than Brexit” economic policies put forward by the Labour Party led by Mr Corbyn?
In which ways can Mr Blair’s leadership of his party and our Nation into the Gulf War 2 be considered “normal”?
Are those who excercise their democratic right of choice by supporting Mr Corbyn, to be considered as people who are not “good”?
I agree that basically all talk of a progressive alliance whilst Corbyn is leader of the Labour Party is toxic. Even on a local party level.
The progressive alliance was always meant to be about the centre-left, not helping the ascendancy of the communist sympathising part of the far left.
Joe writes well , and here talks sense, good to see recognition of lots in common with good moderate and progressive Labour members and mps still acknowledged.
Steve, consider John Marxdonell as Chancellor ?!
The first thing about Labour is that Corbyn repeatedly refused to say wethher, after having supported launching Article 50, he will pursue a Brexit course to its conclusion in the (very unilkely) case he’ll win the elections (BBC News, monday). He didn’t mention anything about a (second) referendum, having been given the opportunity by the BBC repeating its question about clarity. That alone creates even more uncertainty than the “unwinding from the EU” process Whitehall is now fully engaged in. And it makes it irresponsible for any party, either pro-Leave or pro-Remain, to consider doing national (or even local) deals with them, with him.
Then there are the scary similarities between the thinking and policies of the “Monumentum” Labour hard core around Corbyn, and the Spanish hard-left Podemos party now marginalizing the PSOE (the traditional Socialist party). Many Podemos leaders worked for- and continue to believe in Hugo Chavez, whose policies are ripping Venezuela apart. Our new sister party Ciudadános is fighting Podemos even harder than they do the PSOE; we should follow that example and fight Monumentum-Labour.
Podemos is supported by IU (Spanish old-leftists, ex-communists); Monumentum Labour by (former?) Trotskyite Kate Hoey….
The Tories’ intakes of new MP’s (2005, 2010, 2015) are more anti-EU every time, so they’re not a useful source of moderate allies; especially now that May is out-“kippering” the moribund UKIP, and Central Office is watching the step of every candidate.
But if a moderate Tory slips through, why not talk to that individual?
I agree with Joe. Labour under Corbyn would truly wreck the economy. It’s difficult to know where to start with their policies, a lengthy wish list of hugely expensive commitments with no clear idea of how they are to be paid for. While Theresa May is trying hard to avoid any difficult scrutiny of her hard Brexit plans, lest people start thinking twice about how damaging they will be, Labour are falling apart when anyone starts to question them about how their plans are to be paid for, for the simple reason that they don’t have a clue. Under Miliband, Labour would often double-count savings that would somehow pay for their spending commitments but Corbyn takes this to another level entirely. As Lib Dems we need to be doing more to distance ourselves from Labour who are utterly toxic at the moment. May would not be using her “coalition of chaos” line without a good reason – she knows that if there’s any hint that we might prop up a Corbyn government it will hurt us. At the moment we’re firing at Labour with pea shooters when we should be using nukes.
Good article Joe.
I simply don’t accept Bill Le Breton’s choice which is essentially the 2017version of ‘are we anti-Labour or anti-Tory?’ One thing we do need to do though is find a way to get some distinctive visibility on a positive issue such as education or the environment.
The Conservatives putting party before country caused Brexit. And you and Labour putting party before country will deliver it.
We all know that Jeremy Corbyn is hugely unpopular and cannot be included in a progressive alliance for now. Quite how bad his economic policies are… well I am not sure they are worse than the Tories, which if you recall included austerity measures that led to welfare cuts making the poorest people destitute and ruining their lives.
What I think is disastrous about the Tories is that they do not accept the science behind global warming, which is destroying this planet for future generations, including many young people already here. We also know that the Tories will not tackle inequality and will not attempt to reduce poverty with it. They believe in top down management, whether through centralising power in Westminster, or safeguarding the default setting of free market capitalism in which companies are also managed that way.
If there was anything worth achieving with the Conservatives – increasing overseas aid for example – it was done in the Coalition. Today there is nothing left to do in a right wing coalition.
So I guess I sympathise with Tim when he ruled out of going into Coalition. It seems wrong – we want to get into power again. But the other parties are too extreme .
The Tories were wrong to accuse either Miliband of Marxism, being aware of it is different from following it. The Labour leader and Labour’s shadow chancellor are fair game. Marx has been dead for more than a century, since when there have been substantial changes in society. Economists and econometric forecasters should follow the latest data.
@ Richard Underhill,
The current political debate is so debased that it is about character assassination rather than a debate on policies.
@ Richard Underhill,
Marx has been dead for over a century, as may I add, has John Stuart Mill.