Perhaps you want the UK to pull out of the European Union, and maybe you’d like the UK to switch to the old American healthcare system, where the uninsured poor would have minimal treatment. Perhaps you think the solution to youth crime is, not rehabilitation, but locking them away for as long as possible.
If so, you probably wouldn’t be very happy in the Liberal Democrats.
But maybe you are a Conservative supporter who wants Britain to make a contribution to the EU, not by pulling out, but with reforms that make it more accountable and help it do the things it should be doing: like removing barriers to trade and championing the fight against climate change.
Perhaps you believe in the NHS, and the only reforms you want are those that provide it with a more sustainable foundation, and help it to keep its mandate of providing the best possible care to the whole population, free at the point of use. Maybe you believe in rehabilitation, because it is more humane, and because, in the long run, it reduces criminality.
If so, have you ever wondered if you are in the right party?
There are good people in all the parties. There have always been progressive Tories, from the pre-Liberal days of Gladstone all the way through to the present. Some seek to become Conservative MPs in order to fight to make the party more compassionate, and if that is your aim, good luck to you.
But, be realistic. Most party members don’t become MPs, and even those who do will struggle to influence the direction of their party.
You probably know better than I that, away from the cameras, the current Conservative parliamentary party is far harsher in its attitudes than its publicly portrayed image. And that if they get a majority in 2015, that government will be very different indeed from the coalition.
But there is an alternative.
In the past the Liberal Democrats have been ridiculed as lacking the courage to deal with difficult decisions in government. But now we’re at the sharp end of handling the worst peacetime deficit in the country’s history.
Some have been put off membership of the Liberal Democrats, thinking we are all uncritical Euro-fanatics. The party is positive about our membership of the EU, but we also believe in the need for reform, for example of the CAP and the need to close the wasteful Strasbourg Parliament. And we are a broad church, with a wide range of opinion.
Some have called us naïve fundamentalist Liberals, dreaming of a world that can never be. But we’ve never been narrow ideologues. Our constitution’s first sentence says “we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community”.
We have a broad heritage, of economic liberals, social liberals and social democrats, which means our identity is rooted in the tension between those values. We know that with frail human beings a perfect society is unattainable, and that we should never make perfection the enemy of the good.
Admittedly, joining the Liberal Democrats is not a wise career move. Your chances of becoming an MP are limited. And funding the party is always a struggle, without the big financial backers of the other main parties.
But, if you share our values, there are compensations. If you contribute money, you know it’ll go further than for a party which can rely on big cheques from big business or the trades unions. And if you contribute time, you’ll be giving to a cause, not to support vested interest groups.
You don’t have to join us to help. Some donate money or give practical help to the party, without taking out membership.
But I would encourage you to join. This is both a time of crisis and of opportunity for the party. For the first time in most of our lives, we became part of a peacetime government. When that happened, we lost many of the votes we had built up in our role as an opposition party.
However, based on the foundations of our experience, not just in government, but of running excellent local councils, like where I live in Cambridge, we have the potential to build support that is more deep-rooted.
And, as we take that opportunity, we need to grow. To bring in those who are both hard-headed and compassionate. And we need to welcome them from both Labour and the Conservatives.
So think about it. No one could accuse you of taking the easy route, but, if you do join, know that you’ll be very welcome.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Knaptoft: The very heart of England
We do have a two-tier policing system but it is not what our homegrown racists think it is.
From Norman settlement to a civic square
Tom Arms
Ruth Bright
Tom Bailey
Alex Macfie
30 Comments
Sadly this clever article expresses the only avenue left for the survival of the party – get wet tories to come over to us. We have lost some of our key supporters –
any left leaning liberal – the coalition with the ‘aulde’ enemy dealt with that – either they vote left leaning but authoritarian labour or just stay at home
young people (and their parents!) who liked out anti-war and our opposition to tuition fees – libya and taking the blame for increasing tuition fees stopped that
public sector workers – not liking the attack on their pensions – that seems to be led by Danny Alexander in his speeches when he is sucking up to the tories
So what other group is left – centralist Conservatives! George I think you have the answer – scary isn’t it?
There are three things that come to mind when I consider supporting the Lib Dems and quickly make me disregard the notion:
Lib Dem euro-formism seems to be skin deep, the repatriation/localisation of powers is opposed and the adoption of new powers by the EU is supported. If reform of the EU is important why not put the breaks on the EU until the reforms are made?
The Lib Dems were stupid enough to sign pledges to vote against tuition fees and then renege on them. I support tuition fees and still think that was disgraceful. It should have been a non-negotiable in coalition talks, and we know that senior Lib Dems had planned months beforehand to drop the pledge.
Chris Huhne.
Great article George.
It is highly unfortunate that, directly following WWII in Europe, the UK didn’t use its position of power to greater effect and oversee the creation of a democratic European Union, instead we sat on the sidelines and now have an undemocratic and unaccountable polical monster, over which the UK has effectively no control over whatsoever and UK politicians practically fallover backwards to appease.
I therefore do not understand why the Lib-Dems even consider the current political EU as a good thing as it doesn’t hold to Lib-Dem principles and has shown all the signs of becoming a tyrant rather than a prodical son.
To my mine we should be doing all we can to speed the reform of the current political EU by hastening its fall and be ready to jump in with both feet and raise the phoenix from the ashes. The opportunity is there, to create a truely democratic and enlightened European Union that is fit for the 21st century, we only need to grasp it.
Roland – the UK has approx 1/8th of the EU by population. As such while “the UK has effectively no control over whatsoever” over the EU, that’s probably as things should be – just as (say) the West Midlands should not be able to dictate to Westminster.
Thanks for your comments, everyone.
@Charles “”Lib Dem euro-formism seems to be skin deep”
From what the see in the media, that’s probably what most of the electorate think. In my opinion, we’ve not done enough to talk about what we want to change in the EU, and we should be pushing much harder for democratic reform.
Unfortunately, what we have said/done on this, hasn’t received much coverage.
To his credit, Nick Clegg has talked about this a lot. His media image is that he is an uncritical Europhile, but he’s been talking about localising certain powers for a long time. The media are beginning to cover this, but inevitably they are saying things like “even the europhile Lib Dems are now talking about localising powers” – even though they are in our manifesto.
But we shouldn’t complain. It’s our job to deal with this coverage, and make the best we can of the limited sound bites we can get on the news.
Personally, I don’t think we’ve done anything like enough on the democratic deficit. I’m planning an LDV article specifically on this issue.
Regarding the tuition fees debacle, I’ve made comments about this over the months. But, frankly, while there are reasons why this debacle played out how it did, all that explanation does is reapportion the blame to different people/groups within the party. The blame still rests with us.
Out of interest, you said “when I consider supporting the Lib Dems”, which implies there are positive things that make you think of supporting us. Would you be willing to say what they are?
@mpg
Thanks
@Roland
My political philosophy is that a steady evolution of institutions is often better than a revolution. So I believe in democratic reform of the EU, rather than letting the thing collapse, and then trying to rebuild from scratch.
And there are ways we could improve the democracy of the EU. The obvious way is to significantly transfer power from the unelected Commission to the EU parliament, and to make the Commission responsible to the elected EU parliament, rather than the appointed council of ministers, with its opaque decision making processes.
More on that later.
So when you say “The opportunity is there, to create a truely democratic and enlightened European Union that is fit for the 21st century, we only need to grasp it”, I entirely agree. But I think allowing the EU to be destroyed by the current crisis would do severe damage to business and consumer confidence, and have many unforeseen, and probably bad consequences.
@Jen
True. But to be fair to Roland, I think he accepts that. His criticisms of EU democracy are valid. Much that is wrong is the fault of the council of ministers, but the institutional setup of the EU allows them to pass off the blame to the Commission and the EU parliament.
The irony is that the most fervent opponents of democratic reform of the EU are eurosceptics. Secretly, they don’t want a democratic EU, because that might give it legitimacy. We should call their bluff.
What this article seems to be saying is that the Liberal Democrats have a future as holding to the politics which used to be that of the Conservative Party, leaving the Conservative Party to be the party of those who used to be their extreme fringe. Sorry, but if I’d wanted to be in a 1970s/1980s style Tory Party, I’d have joined the Tory Party back in those days.
I have met Tories I regard as nice and Tories I regard as nasty. But even those Tories I find to be very pleasant people I find also to be people I am glad I do not share a party with.
Dear Moderate Tory, precisely what is it that bothers you?
If it’s Europe, then perhaps George has a point. Joining the Lib Dems would be an effective way to oppose the far-right links which Cameron has cultivated in the European Parliament.
If it’s crime and punishment, please stay where you are. Give Ken Clarke your support. He needs it and deserves it.
If it’s the NHS, joining the Lib Dems won’t be effective. Shirley Williams is doing her best, but most Lib Dems have either thrown in the towel or else always agreed with Lansley anyway. Stay where you are, and make trouble when you see Lansley’s plans go pear-shaped.
Or perhaps it’s naked ambition? Perhaps you’d like to think that a natural Conservative might make a good leader for the Lib Dems? Sorry, that post’s taken already!
maybe you’d like the UK to switch to the old American healthcare system
What if I’d like something similar to, say, the French healthcare system? Or the Swedish one? Or the Australian one? Why does a party of Liberals insist that everything must be run from the top down, and that anyone who disagrees is evil?
@ad if you want the advantages of the french health system, which is slightly less cost effective than the nhs but still decent, you also need french style social security. This would be incompatible with current Coalition policy…
@Matthew Huntbach “seems to be saying is that the Liberal Democrats have a future as holding to the politics which used to be that of the Conservative Party”
I am saying nothing of the sort. This article is a companion piece that I wrote encouraging Labour members to join us: those who not only believe in good public services but in being responsible with the country’s finances.
https://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-why-labour-members-should-defect-to-the-liberal-democrats-23752.html
In the last century, the Liberal party self-destructed, and many who would otherwise have been Liberals, who felt the Liberal party had no future, became members of either the Conservative or Labour parties. If we want the Liberal Democrats to grow to fully challenge the two big parties, we need to reverse this, and draw back the kind of people who might have joined us in different circumstances.
To do that, we need be a broad church; which isn’t difficult, because we already are. But we also need to communicate that fact. Some outside the party don’t know much about the Liberal Democrats. Some get most of what they read from the vociferous minority who dominate the comments pages of the internet. These articles are an attempt to communicate what the party is really like. And invite those who would be happy in the party to join us.
@ad “What if I’d like something similar to, say, the French healthcare system? Or the Swedish one? Or the Australian one? Why does a party of Liberals insist that everything must be run from the top down, and that anyone who disagrees is evil?”
This is a good point. There is a range of opinion within the Liberal Democrats over what our health policy should be. And we probably need to reflect more on whether a centralised NHS is the best way to deliver good care. We are, after all, a party who believe in devolution of power to the locality.
For myself, I’m not a health expert, so I’m reluctant to come to a firm conclusion on what the Lansley proposals, and particularly the modified Lansley proposals, would mean. But I do think they have been presented in an extremely clumsy way.
Like you, I dislike political tribalism, which portrays those who disgree as evil.
In the article I was very deliberate in my words. I condemned the pre-Obama US health care system, and Daniel Hannan for his call to the Americans to continue with that system. But I accept that there are many other models than the old American system.
I believe that the only reforms we should have are those which “provide it with a more sustainable foundation, and help it to keep its mandate of providing the best possible care to the whole population, free at the point of use.”
I think most Lib Dems would agree with this. But, within those words, there is room for a wide ranging debate about how the NHS should be reformed.
I vote Tory, but I have a great deal of respect for the Lib Dems for doing the right thing last year over the popular thing. I do believe great things have come out of the coalition: Pupil premium, more focus on restorative justice, taking the poorest out of tax. However, I do feel a lot more connected to the Conservatives because they seem a lot more sensible with tax payers money and I worry that if the Lib Dems got with Labour in a coalition then spending would soar again and the same problems would be repeated.
Sorry to be predictable but it’s the first time I’ve seen anyone, seriously, trying to persuade rats to join a sinking ship.
@Jason That really isn’t a very productive comment.
@George An interesting read!
@libby “the only avenue left for the survival of the party – get wet tories to come over to us”
… missed your comment previously.
Not so. As I mentioned to @Matthew Huntbach, this is a companion piece to an article entitled “Why Labour members should defect to the Liberal Democrats”.
There are many Labour members who are privately very unhappy. They are keeping their heads down, but privately, they are appalled at Ed Balls’ decision to ditch the Darling plan and claim that you can solve a deficit crisis by cutting taxes and increasing spending.
It is true, as I say in the article, that for the Lib Dems this is a time of crisis, but it is also a time of opportunity.
Polls show that most former Lib Dems could return to the fold, but we shouldn’t be content with appealing to our former supporters. Nor should we just appeal for votes. Key to any party is to bring in new members and active supporters.
@Jason
If that’s the first time you’ve seen Lib Dems try to recruit people in this parliament, you’d have been shocked by the Action Evening a month ago in Cambridge. 17 new people agreed to help us in various ways … in a single evening!
There are people out there who want to join the Lib Dems, but they won’t join us if we don’t ask them.
George, Perhaps I was overcome by the need for a ‘one liner’. However, I was (and stress was) a Liberal activist long before the LibDems existed.
I took a ‘wait and see’ attitude to the coalition. I was against it but hoped that Cameron’s inability to win an election against, perhaps, the most unpopular incumbents ever, meant that LibDems could make a difference. Despite what is written by the party faithful that is not my, nor the country’s, impression.
Instead of a statesmanlike approach from the head of an, albeit junior party, Clegg wallowed in his front bench position. Smiles and ‘in-jokes’ were the order of the day (I fully expected ‘high-fives’ on several occasions).
‘Teflon Dave’ is, to my mind, an opportunist bully who takes credit for success but, whenever a policy he has endorsed becomes unpopular, leaves his juniors, and that includes Clegg, ‘high and dry’. However, LibDem leaders do not help themselves with talk of ‘nuclear options’, etc.
Whyever should ‘moderate Tories’ join the LibDems? You have joined them in everything but name.
@libby
At what point have the Lib Dems ever been ‘anti-war’? Lib Dems were and still are, opposed to the IRAQ war as it we believe it to have been illegal and committed under false pretences. Any other military intervention has quite rightly been judged on its own merits.
@libby: why is it scary that Lib Dems should be targeting wet Tories? It’s what the party has been doing for the past 30 years in the south of England, where most of the seats won or targeted by the Lib Dems would be rock-solid safe Tory if they had been Tory vs Labour battlegrounds. And part of winning the soft Tory vote is distinguishing ourselves from the Tories. If we do not do so, then soft Tories will just decide they might as well vote Tory.
also I never much liked the “left of Labour” positioning, it just came about because of Labour ending up to the right of us. To anyone who supported the Lib Dems as some sort of generic left-wing protest vehicle and has become disillusioned, I say that’s never what we were.
These Conservatives can stay where they are thanks:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5j2CDKEr1vL_GULRunrnefo3msbyQ?docId=N0025021322035195279A
@James Shaddock, @Rebecca T, and @Alex Macfie
Thanks for your comments. Very much agree about targeting wet Tories.
@tom jones
Thanks for your comments. I hope we can change your mind, by showing that we’re extremely careful with tax payers money.
@Alistair
Thanks for that. Made me laugh. I somehow suspect that these young gentlemen wouldn’t touch the Lib Dems with a bargepole. But, as I believe in rehabilitation, if they see the error of their ways, I wouldn’t want to refuse them membership of the Lib Dems for the rest of their lives.
George
the plot thickens
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-15847986
Apparently this group have a track record of burning effigies, including Nelson Mandela and Gordon Brown. Clearly there are “wet” Tories and there are “burning” Tories.
George, this article is very good (as is your Labour one).
I wonder if you think that our problem has been, as is often said, that people simply haven’t paid attention to what we stand for. Our view of the EU, for example, is a good case in point where we are presented as being rabidly pro-EU, when in fact we do support major reform. The media are certainly lazy is their (wilful) misrepresentation of us.
On the other hand, is it that we ourselves are not clear enough about what we believe or think? Our party is good at discussing policies, but it doesn’t seem so good at discussing the values which those policies are intended to flesh out. It seems to me that many of those members who have left since May 2010 thought we were a more-left-than-Labour anti-war party. Perhaps we colluded in that. But it seems to me that we need more of this open discussion of what kind of party we really are, and why that can and should appeal to people in both the other main parties.
@Josh
Thanks.
Part of the problem is unavoidable. A number of the bestselling newspapers will give the Lib Dems no positive coverage at all. They claim we are opportunists who stand for nothing and will say anything to get their support, then accuse us of advocating unpopular policies on Europe, immigration, and crime. Don’t say the rightwing press doesn’t try to have it both ways. Occasionally, there have been TV programmes where a major item of discussion has been us, but the only politicians have been Labour and the Toru MPs slagging us off, and the TV presenters have just agreed with them (take a bow Andrew Neil).
But these are the waters we must navigate, and endless complaints about the media are, I’m afraid, like railing against the wind and the rain. It is, however, important to be aware of these problems, and sympathetic to our leaders, as they try to cope with them.
We used to get limited press, and I fear we didn’t make the best use of it. We sometimes allowed our news coverage at conference to be dominated by issues which most agree would never be anything other than non-party issues. In the limited sound-bites we were given, we were not good at putting across our sound-bites, so we ended up just reinforcing the narrative of our opponents (by, for example, becoming the spokespeople for the EU, rather than EU reform).
But it’s different now. Now, people are interested in what we say. The rightwing press will rail against us, but when we get a chance to say what we stand for, many will pay attention.
And so we are facing a different problem.
Labour and the Tories, whether they like it or not, have a simple identity. Labour is for the unions, the Tories are for big business. Those identities give them a certain percentage who will always support them, and a certain percentage who will always hate them.
Some have argued that we should try to do the same – build up a tribal core of support. I think this is both undesirable and futile. What I like about the party is that we are for the whole country, not tribal parts of it, and we understand that there are often no simple answers. If we lose those qualities, we’d no longer be the party that we are.
But it would also be futile, because the big tribal blocks have already been taken. If we were to look for tribes now to follow us, they’d be very small, and if we tried to create an alliance of small tribes, we’d end up as a patchwork without any coherence.
But we have an advantage.
I think most people in the UK hate tribal politics. Most, including many in the unions and big business, dislike the fact the main parties are so closely tied to their paymasters.
Most people in the UK want a party that is both responsible on the economy, but also passionate about helping the weak and marginalised.
I don’t know his full project, but I suspect that Nick Clegg’s game plan is to earn us a reputation for being responsible on the economy (that’s the phase we are still in), and then reinforce the image of a party that’s passionate about helping the less well off (that phase will be closer to the next election).
If that’s his game plan, I’m behind it 100%.
I recall who said it “Not all Conservatives are stupid but all stupid people vote Conservative”. Any idea who said it?
@roger
Yes, John Stuart Mill did say: “Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”
If it wasn’t said as a friendly joke, I’m afraid it’s exactly the kind of tribalism we should avoid like the plague, even if John Stuart Mill sometimes indulged in it.
@ George Kendall
I’ve probably come to this party late (as is often the case), but I thought I’d comment as some one who is conservative (small c) by nature and your articles are usually thought provoking.
The final few comments again touch on the “what are we” dilema, something that seems to be an ongoing topic of discussion amongst LD folks here. You raise a few points which, as an outsider, I would like to comment on (mainly as I’m one of those people who still don’t understand what you (you = LDP, not you as such) stand for):
“In the limited sound-bites we were given, we were not good at putting across our sound-bites, so we ended up just reinforcing the narrative of our opponents (by, for example, becoming the spokespeople for the EU, rather than EU reform).”
This is true, however have you considered that there actually may be a grain of truth in that narrative? To try and expand a little:
On Lisbon the LDP suddenly adopted an “in/out referendum” as opposed to one on the treaty itself, was this anything other than a cynical ploy as it kicked everything into the long grass and allowed the LDP to vote for a major treaty whilst pretending you had some lofty higher belief.
After the Constitution no vote by France a leading LD MEP made the rather disparaging comment “The French people sent a mixed message that amounts to little more than ‘stop the world I want to get off!'”. After the Dutch no vote, it was all down to the fact that they hadn’t been educated correctly. I don’t think either of the statements do much to dispel the “EU Full Ahead” view of the LDP.
Recently you had an MEP trying to tell people that if only we had signed up to the Euro, things wouldn’t have been as bad. I must admit that it was rather jaw dropping; the belief that the UK could have changed the course of the Euro when we’ve not even managed to alter the course of simpler things like the CFP and CAP seems unbelievable.
On a similar note, as a Party you obviously claim to be all for transparency etc and you even had an entry in your EU Manifesto to publish expenses etc with a binding code of conduct. However, didn’t 2 of your own MEPs actually vote against making such information public? If they did, were they drummed out of the party?
I’ve chosen the above from EU issues as that is the one you mentioned, but there does seem to be a lot of issues where you preach one thing and practice another (i.e. the LDP have become A N Other politicians). Of course, once you become just another bunch of politicians then you are fighting an uphill battle as you’re starting a long way behind the pack. Perhaps greater consistency and being believable are the ways to improve your electoral chances, otherwise any benefits from your time in the Government may be lost.
@chris_sh “I’ve probably come to this party late”
Your points are always worth responding to, however late 🙂
“there does seem to be a lot of issues where you preach one thing and practice another (i.e. the LDP have become A N Other politicians)”
We are a broad church, and we’re made up of flawed individuals, who sometimes say things that are … frankly … jaw-dropping. I don’t think what they say is typical of the party as a whole, but, inevitably, it’s what gets reported. As the press do the same to the other parties, we shouldn’t complain about this too much.
There have been policies which I dearly wish we hadn’t adopted, which I didn’t like at the time. As I’ve been a member, and haven’t actively fought some of them, I share the blame. This is a problem shared by all the parties, and, of course, we make great play of it when our opponents make mistakes, or when some of their members say jaw-droppingly bizarre things. So it’s fair enough to point out when some of our people do the same.
However, I think we’ve made considerable progress. In particular, I think Nick Clegg has been much more realistic on the EU. He has said it’s a very good thing we weren’t in the Euro. He’s criticised overly fussy EU regulation. But said the way to improve matters is not with a megaphone, but by working within the institution.
Being part of the government is going to be a testing time for a number of reasons. One of them is that our policies will be exposed to far greater scrutiny. I welcome that, and I think many in the party do, because it’ll force us to raise our game. And, as we do, we’ll become more attractive to serious politicians from other parties who share our values.
But we will remain a broad church, and we will remain a party made of flawed individuals (as all individuals are). So not all of these issues will go away.
“I don’t think what they say is typical of the party as a whole, but, inevitably, it’s what gets reported”
I’m sure that what you are saying is correct, however you have the obvious problem in that the number of elected politicians you have means that any such statements are bound to be reported regardless of the news outlet. I think the lesson to learn may be that legacy of the huge spin era – message discipline and (perhaps) burying of the ego.
“we make great play of it when our opponents make mistakes, or when some of their members say jaw-droppingly bizarre things”
But of course they have more MPs so they can get away with some pretty bizare things being said by their politicians. They also have an advantage as they have a greater pool to pick from for ministerial posts, so if there is a bad mistake it is easier to replace some one. I somehow think that Vince Cable wouldn’t have survived very long in either of the other parties regardless of whether he was right or wrong – again perhaps there is a need for some LD MPs to reign in the ego to ensure that they don’t become an easy target.
I actually think that the possibilities for the Party are still positive in the main, Nick Clegg has done fairly well with the hand that he was dealt – the message about the EU may take some time to get through due to the history of the Party (as per my previous post), but again it has to be believable (e.g. ministers should no longer gold plate EU regs, certain politicians need to exercise more care etc). I realise that it has been an awful long time since the Party (in it’s old form) has been in power but there is a need to learn lessons a lot faster than seems to be the case at the moment.