As one of the newly-joined members of the party it might be presumptuous of me to offer advice to our new leader, whoever he turns out to be. Then again one of the great attractions of the Lib Dems is that each member is invited to contribute to policy making. So, here are a few ideas for Tim Farron or Norman Lamb to consider.
Make the fullest use of your defeated opponent
I’ve been impressed by both Norman and Tim as leadership candidates. Whichever one loses it will be a waste if he simply slides back into the relative anonymity of the Westminster backbenches. The winner should find a way of making sure the loser remains prominent as a party spokesman and as a galvaniser of the party membership.
Don’t underestimate the Tories
Our optimism and positivity is both one of our greatest strengths and a potential weakness (which is why we just didn’t expect to do as badly as we did in the general election). Yes, the Conservatives will often be divided over the next five years and plenty of things will eat into their popularity by the next election. But it’s hard to see Labour sorting itself out by 2020 to challenge them seriously and the prospect of a new leader will enable the Tories to present themselves as a new government. So the Lib Dems need to play a long game – 2020 may well offer only modest gains, with 2025 the big target.
Embrace the right choices, not just the popular ones
Taking a longer-term view makes it easier for us to present ourselves as the party that offers what’s good for the UK rather than simply chasing votes with short-term populist policies. The fallout from the tuition fees pledge of 2010 will be etched onto every Lib Dem soul for years to come. Let’s think issues through and take a principled, not an opportunistic stance. It’ll pay off in the long run.
Start the fight for voting reform with local government
We all know electoral reform is going to be massively difficult to achieve for Westminster elections. We should begin our fight for fair votes by campaigning for change at the local government level, where the existence of so many one-party states in old Labour areas and the Tory leafy shires should make people more amenable to the idea of a new system.
Put the Lib Dems at the fore of a campaign to reshape the EU
We are too easily dismissed as uncritically supportive of the EU. But it is precisely because we see the EU as a great and necessary project that we need to fight for it to undergo root and branch reform. In many ways the EU as it operates today is the very antithesis of a liberal institution, in both the political and economic sense. Let’s join with our sister liberal parties like Venstre (who have just taken power in Denmark) to work out plans for a truly democratic, competitive EU and campaign for their implementation. This is too important to leave to the incompetent and divided Tories.
* Peter Jones is a member in Cardiff and the Vale, and previously a journalist at BBC Monitoring and an analyst at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Joy of Six 1537
Lessons from 1936 and 2026 for the Liberal Democrats (LDN#211)
Recipe for a real change of direction
Day 9304: So Farewell Then, Kier Starmer
David Raw
paul barker
Matt (Bristol)
Rif Winfield
12 Comments
Well said. One could add that the Tories also have the advantage of more money than any other party.
I agree both leadership contenders are excellent and compliment one another .good politics is maximising your human resources .A fresh deputy leader in the commons and a dynamic leader in the country seems to be the way forward to best utilize those resources.
PR in local government is practical and deliverable .
Leading the EU reform debate by making it more democratic, accountable and cost effective and less supranational should be a liberal mission.
Hi Peter – great piece. I agree with every point, especially on the continued public presence of both candidates. I’d caveat only that there are some issues to campaign on that are both important and potentially popular. At a time of re-building, we should ensure that we include some such issues. I’m thinking of the likes of housing, wages, tax evasion, plus more ‘peripheral’ ones like assisted dying.
Thanks Jim. Of course I’m not saying the issues we campaign on must never be popular! I agree on all those you mention, and I think one of the real positives to have emerged from this leadership contest has been Tim Farron’s focus on housing and Norman Lamb’s highlighting assisted dying.
Welcome Peter, 5 good points & I would add a 6th _ lets not overestimate Labour. Older members will complain that I have been predicting the Death of Labour since the dawn of time but I would reccomend keeping an eye on The Polls. The Great Polling enquiry is set to run & run so current polling is done on a pre-election basis & is presumably still overestimating Labour support by 2-3%. The latest poll, last week gave Labour 27%, suggesting a real level of around 25%.
As to how quickly we will recover, if at all, theres just no useful data yet.
paul barker
“Older members will complain that I have been predicting the Death of Labour since the dawn of time”
The fact that an objection has been foreseen does not invalidate it. I don’t know about “the dawn of time”, but you have certainly spent the last five years proclaiming the imminent collapse of Labour and our triumphant replacement of them. Fiddling with 2 or 3% adjustments on fairly meaningless polls in the immediate aftermath of a general election, with the next election 4.8 years away, is the very epitome of pointlessness, and suggests that you still look at polls and see only what you want to see.
Make the fullest use of your defeated opponent”
Yes, but this applies at every level.
As new members join make sure they are given rein to express themselves and take responsible positions, but do not lose the others, one objective is to make the party larger .
Absolutely, and also make our specifically liberal vision of the EU the focus of our next Euro election campaign., which needs to be led by our MEP and focus on what she, as well as MEPs from our sister parties in other EU countries, have done as liberals to make the EU work better for its citizens. We need to drive home the point that EU elections are for deciding who makes EU law and policy in much the same way as UK elections are for deciding who makes UK law and policy.
Very well put – I would add that under “Embrace the right choices” we should not despair about not being “in power”. As UKIP have demonstrated it is certainbly possible to change government policy through powerful arguments (even when not the right choice!).
A very good piece.
As well as using the former opponent, it is important to use not only our whole Parliamentary team, but as many of possible of our members across all the countries . There are people from whom he can be offered advice who have experience. The advice need not always be taken, but listening to the widest possible membership could be helpful.
Both candidates have given us a good campaign.
Advising both candidates to look outside London may not be necessary but is a gentle reminder.
Thank you. A very good piece.
All good stuff – many thanks, Peter. I’d add that one thing Tim said just after winning had me thinking “YES!”. It was that we must rebuild the party from the bottom up. Even while we were prospering at Westminster, our base in local councils, local campaigning and local parties was in decline. That must be reversed. The surge of new members offers a big opportunity.
That picture of Nick Clegg! Surely he’s saying, “So you actually think we shouldn’t have reneged on that student finance pledge, then?”