It is eleven days after the election, and the wounds are still very much present. We have lost great fighters in our parliamentary party: visionaries, firebrands, wholehearted devotees to the Liberal vision for our country.
Though this loss has been devastating for our party and our morale internally, it has been even more debilitating for the country as a whole. Now, for the first time in 23 years, there is a Conservative majority government at our nation’s helm, and we are already seeing their vision for our country: snooping on our own citizens, denying us our human rights, and using the veil of extremism to obliterate free speech and crush religious groups who don’t agree with them.
This election has been the biggest disaster for Liberalism in the history of our country, and it is for that reason that this is not the time to sit back and lick our wounds – this is the time to stand up, brush ourselves off, and fightback.
We’re the only truly Liberal party in the United Kingdom. Whilst the Tories swing wildly to the right to appease the UKIP-loving, Leave it to Beaver-esque section of the party, and Labour flounder somewhere in the left-wing abyss, clutching at straws and battling unions everytime the leadership wants to breathe, the Liberal Democrats are the only party who can bash through the wall of right-left partisanship and occupy that specific place in politics that is liberal, compassionate, economically sound, and fiercely defensive of citizens’ rights.
Though the statistics in parliament for us are not great, we can take great comfort in over 12,000 new members, and we should use them as the starting pistol for our fightback. Our party’s history is in the grassroots, in standing up for local people against the tide of political point-scoring and radical lurches either way, and we can embrace this once again.
On issues like Europe, the Snoopers Charter, Extremism Laws, the Human Rights Act – we can and should be first out of the gate. While the other parties are floundering around looking for a cosy soundbite, we should be hitting the streets, knocking on doors and telling the frank and honest truth about the government’s illiberal agenda. While the other parties litmus-test and focus-group their policy to the most middle-England, carefully worded writing possible, we should be actively engaging our members in policy-making, calling up special policy conferences, and encouraging our 12,000 new voices to shout about their own liberal vision, and to hell with party lines. While Labour lose themselves in the wilderness and the SNP use their position to push for another referendum, we are and can be the effective Opposition to this government that our country so strongly needs.
It is no good to sit back, lick our wounds, and go to sleep until the next election. It is no good to think that we cannot be a loud voice up and down this country. I know our members are determined. I know we are passionate liberals and we are not up for going down without a fight. Let us now harness this determination, hit the streets, counter every policy, kickstart every campaign, seek out every opinion, and champion every voice. Let us not be afraid of issues, but place them front and center. Let our liberal voice ring through our streets, our universities, our town halls, Holyrood, and Westminster. Let us never take no for an answer, never let our free speech be compromised, and let us keep the flame of liberalism burning for eternity.
We are down but not out. We are Liberals, we are proud, we are determined: and our fightback most definitely starts here.
* Michael Wilson is the Liberal Youth Non-Portfolio Officer and a local campaigner.
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15 Comments
It is great news for the Lib Dems that they are adding so many members but, in reality, aren’t most of them likely to be ex-members who resigned when Clegg went into coalition with the tories and who are returning now he has resigned?
If the membership is now 58,000 what was it going into the 2010 election before the Coalition?
Passionate. cogent stuff Michael: “… the Liberal Democrats are the only party who can bash through the wall of right-left partisanship and occupy that specific place in politics that is liberal, compassionate, economically sound, and fiercely defensive of citizens’ rights.” So let’s not forget our social democratic as well as our Liberal roots!
@OllyT
“It is great news for the Lib Dems that they are adding so many members but, in reality, aren’t most of them likely to be ex-members who resigned when Clegg went into coalition with the tories and who are returning now he has resigned? ”
That doesn’t appear to be the case – a large proportion appear to be first time members
When I was on the Federal Executive and Scottish Party Executives in 2010 we had over 64,000, so the addition of new members is good, but we have some way to go to get back to where we were in 2010.
Labour have apparent;y had a post-election membership increase of over 20,000, so it makes sense to look at more than the number of new members as we did when the part put out press released saying how well things were going when we had an increase of 300 members in one quarter due to a range of incentives offered to local parties, while ignoring the 20,000 who had left. .
It is always good to see enthusiastic posts like this one, but immediately after a near wipe out of our MPs, describing the statistics in Parliament as “not great” does not do justice to those who have sweated blood for many years, only to lose their seats, around 200 staff will have lost their jobs and over 300 candidates who lost their deposits deserve more.
Calling for those new members to say to hell with party lines and to go knocking on doors extolling the virtues of the Human Rights Act and Europe would be like sending troops out of the trenches in WW1 to be slaughtered, but this time on the doorsteps. We have had many lions led by donkeys in this election. We should learn from our mistakes and not repeat the exercise.
One thing we should do immediately is to make all new members welcome and to involve them in political discussion, not just leaflet delivery. This will encourage them the help rebuild the party which is now needed more than ever.
While the issues mentioned in the post are no doubt important, if we are to rebuild the party locally and nationally, and we have less than twelve months before we face the electorate again in Scottish, Welsh and other elections next year, we must do so in a much more effective and thoughtful way than we have done in the recent past.
It is worth adding that the SNP membership now tops 105,000.
In my own area of Edinburgh West, where the SNP won the seat from the Liberal Democrats, their membership topped 1,200, which is part of the reason the advanced from fourth place at the 2010 election to winning the seat in 2015.
Many other factors were more important than that increase, but to succeed nationally we do not only need to increase our membership and activist base, we also need a clear national strategy and vision for the future that those activists, the new leader and party spokesmen in the media can clearly articulate and one that will connect with members of the public.
On membership, we are closing in on our pre-2010 low point of 58768 in 2009, and still adding more than 300 per day.
I can still remember when we had over 100,000 though, so there is plenty of room for improvement
35 to go until we reach 13000 new members. Wht cant we have the new member counter on LDV permanently?
I don’t think Labour are “floundering in the left wing abyss”. Given the reported statements and views of the leadership contenders they are all to the right of John Major!
Tony Greaves
I understand people are still feeling pretty sore about the election but retreating into silly tribal politics, while it might make you feel better, isn’t going to advance liberalism. It’s time to dial down a tad on the self-regard and recognise you won’t achieve anything unless you are willing to work with Labour, the SNP and rebel Tories.
The Labour Party founded in 1900 is dying, the Co-op link was “saved” by a narrow margin but more Unions look likely to drift away. This raises opportunities & dangers for us. A new, social-democratic centrist Party would market themselves as a replacement for us as well as Labour. A more chaotic splintering of Labour would see hundreds of MPs looking for a new home, it would only take 9 Labour MPs to defect to us & they would be a majority of our Parliamentary Party. That could create tensions in the future.
One of the things we need to do in the next few months is to make clear in our own minds just what the difference between Labour & us is.
paul barker 18th May ’15 – 1:39pm
“…A new, social-democratic centrist Party would market themselves as a replacement for us as well as Labour”
Bin there, seen that done , Dr David Owen still has the tee-shirt. He was not a success leading precisely that sort of party after the mainstream SDP merged with The Liberal Party.
Didn’t work then for Dr Owen, won’t work now.
That is why the rightwing piffle coming from the nonentities with the “aspiration” to be Labour leader is so depressing.
Given what they are saying I am surprised they did not cross the floor of the House some time in the last five years and link arms with Nick Clegg to drift endlessly to the right.
David – the new member counter is here: http://www.libdems.org.uk/membership_figures. It now stands at over 13,000.
Are we attempting to rush into the rebuilding of our party without thinking first what we are about and what our priorities are for the nation ?
We need to start immediately with a deep conversation as to what our philosophy is and what values and priorities that implies for the state of our nation and world at the present time (and future as far as we can tell). We can start with the preamble to our constitution, which we have appeared to drift away from in the last 5 years, but that needs to be worked on.
We need also to work with non-members as well as new members and other people who have ‘progressive’ leanings. We also need to work in our communities, since a strong powerful movement depends as much (perhaps more) on what happens in society and among ordinary people than on what happens in Parliament. Parliament can change people’s attitudes and what we say and do there will matter, but that is only part of our task. We must not forget that much of the media is conservative and not progressive, since they speak in a populist way to those they want to keep as their readers; only by a progressive movement among people can we hope to challenge that.
One starting point must be Local Government; here the issues of public health, social care, welfare and education are major areas where our philosophy is needed, putting people at the centre. We should not for example, have to choose between Conservative emphasis on forcing people to develop themselves and Labour emphasis on complicated aid and rule from central government. Local government and the third sector need to be given the resources to get alongside people and help them help themselves.
I find myself talking about a bottom up change in our society and our next leader needs to encourage that.
@ John Barrett
Much there to agree with.
From the viewpoint here in the remote south-east, it seems to me that there is every reason to be optimistic about the LD campaign for next year’s Scottish elections. I trust and hope that as many as possible of our 10 deposed MPs will seek election as MSPs and/or play a major part in the campaign.
Someone has to provide an effective opposition to the SNP and we all know it can’t be Labour.
Michael – the Lib-Dem selections to contest seats in the Scottish elections next year have been completed, so no MPs who lost their seats will be able to contest any of the potentially winnable seats. Our candidates have been in place for a while and the good ones have been out campaigning with (now former)MPs as part of the Lib-Dem team.
At a recent members meeting the possibility of reopening list seat selections was raised, but there are big questions as to whether this is possible, or even desirable. Questions were raised at the time of list selections about delaying them to allow potentially defeated MPs to contest such seats. Hopefully defeated candidates will be able to support those already selected in the same way those candidates supported their sitting MPs. We shall see.
I doubt many of the defeated MPs will want to fight again in 5 years time. The track record of defeated MPs returning at a later date is not good, and with a few exceptions, like Ronnie Fearn, they are normally beaten by a larger majority if they are brave enough to try to regain their seat. Many will be hoping for a seat in the Lords, and no more elections.