Our party is gripped by political timidity. At a time when new parties are gaining traction on the left and the right, we appear to be afraid to explore our historic radicalism. We even seem to be afraid to even engage with the major political arguments of our day.
For an example of our political timidity, look at our responses to three of Labour’s flag ship pieces of legislation: the Employment Rights Bill, Great British Energy and taking the railways into public ownership. On each of these pieces of legislation, the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons abstained on them. Why? I gather we attempted to amend each of them, but how? I could not tell any voter whether the Lib Dems supported or opposed Labour’s landmark legislation on employment, energy or transport, because I genuinely have no idea. If the party has a more nuanced position, I don’t know what that is either. Why has the party chosen to be so apathetic towards legislation that for better or worse will impact the lives of millions of people?
Look at our stance on the European Union for another example of our political timidity. Our current policy is to negotiate a new bespoke customs union between the UK and the EU. That is the minimum any pro-European party should be demanding. We don’t even want to rejoin the old customs union, but negotiate a completely new customs union. We may want to rejoin the European Single Market too, but only once we eventually clear certain policy hurdles in a four-stage process that most activists can’t remember, let alone ordinary voters. Is this really the best we can offer as Britain’s main pro-European party?
Where does the party stand on nationalisation and privatisation? What role do co-operatives and mutuals have in a Liberal Democrat vision of ownership? If our party is pro-worker (and pro-business) how would a Liberal Democrat approach to workers’ rights differ from Labour’s Employment Rights Bill? Since we oppose Labour’s “Family Farms Tax” does that mean that we think that no post-feudal landed estates should be subject to any inheritance tax? How does our party intend to respond to Andy Burnham’s municipal social democracy and his critique of Thatcherite economics? Do we agree with recent calls from Sadiq Khan, Nick Clegg and Wes Streeting to commit to the UK rejoining the EU? If not, why not?
It is impossible to address these questions in a short blog article, but they illustrate the giant holes in our political analysis and our policy platform. Is our response to all these questions going to be nothing more than unimaginative soft Tory rhetoric? Such a response would be disastrous. It would alienate most progressive-leaning voters and many within our own party. We need the courage of our convictions to develop our own distinctive radical liberal responses to these questions. We must never become a complacent John Major-inspired party that is exclusively geared towards attracting soft Tories, predominantly in the most affluent parts of the rural South of England.
Liberalism is not an ideology of rural affluence nor of urban poverty. Neither is it an ideology solely for the class interests of capital or labour. Liberals seek to bridge social and economic divides across society, not exploit them for divisive populist ends. Always and everywhere, we should challenge unjustified privilege, advance social harmony and seek to liberate anyone enslaved by poverty, ignorance, conformity and any other form of social hardship. We must treat everyone with kindness, empathy and dignity. This is especially the case for the most marginalised members of our society, such as people living in poverty, disabled people, trans people, the elderly, children, refugees and many others.
Liberalism should be as relevant to the lives of people living in Blackpool, Brecon, Birmingham, the Highlands, Hull or Hackney as it is to the lives of people living in Surrey, Somerset or St Albans. It must strive to place wealth, power, opportunity and ownership into everyone’s hands. It must seek to empower individuals within the communities where they live, work and socialise. Liberals take pride in place while not being fearful of the world that lies beyond their local communities.
From Europe to public ownership, the party needs to develop clear policies and political responses that are rooted in our radical liberal principles. Our party must be unflinching in its commitment to individual freedom and social justice. We need to demonstrate through compelling political storytelling how liberalism has the answers to solve the country’s problems. The policy platform that accompanies this vision must be comprehensive, cohesive and holistic. Every area of policy should be interwoven with our liberal values. Policy areas must never be hived off; they are pieces of a much bigger interconnected political whole. We should be able to demonstrate effortlessly how our policies, in whichever policy area, would help us to achieve our ultimate objective of building a liberal society.
There is a lot for our party to think about moving forwards. Let’s rediscover the courage of our radical convictions. Let’s demonstrate to people across our country from all social backgrounds, how liberalism is relevant to them and their lives. And let’s deliver the meaningful hope and the material change that Britain so desperately needs.
* Paul Hindley is a Liberal Democrat activist and a supporter of the Radical Association from Blackpool. He is the co-editor of When We Speak of Freedom: Radical Liberalism in an Age of Crisis, which was published earlier this year.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Should Labour reconsider the Brexit red lines?
Raising a flap about letterboxes
Arriving at one of East Finchley's ghost platforms
Restrained
Chase Park fair photos
Peter Davies
Nigel Jones
16 Comments
“Surrey, Somerset and St Albans”. Despite its popular image as a rural idyll, Somerset is not a wealthy county and has almost nothing in common with the blue wall.
Four cheers for Paul. We project the image of being nicer than the Tories and not as dangerous as Labour. We seem to be more afraid of frightening people off that we do of attracting voters and, in particular, activists in our derelict areas, ,who are prepared to FIGHT FOR LIBERAL DEMOCRACY, which is in danger in the country, the US (almost gone) and many other parts of the world.
When are spokespersons are on BBC Question time or Any Questions they useally get well cheered. Our leadership should try to generate similar enthusiasm and clarity or all the progressive energy will go to the the Greens, who have some essential policies to preserve life on the planet, but are not necessarily Liberal.
Paul, you are clearly a very dangerous man. You want the party to start thinking seriously about policy, about the kind oc country we want to build. You do know that the whole point of our existance is to win seats and that clear policies are a nuisance because some voters might disagree with them. Next you’ll be suggesting local parties having open policy meetings. Radical nonsense,
The most encouraging thing I have seen from the Liberal Democrats recently is the series of posts on this forum recognising that this timidity is getting us nowhere.
On page 218 of your book, Paul, Gordon Lishman says the ability to make “choices” is more important than”learning” of facts. One of those facts is citizens’ unawareness that they are being swindled. They cannot make the choice between being swindled, and not being swindled, because the latter is not on offer. It is not on offer for the same reason that the butcher would not have offered Adam Smith his dinner if his business had been the result of the policy of every official without exception (of all parties) “Well, somebody’s got to decide–we can’t have decisions being made by some disembodied non-official at the public’s whim”.
We need a New Leader!
I sincerely hope that the tsunami of concerns about our timidity and poor national messaging is getting through to our HQ and leadership. I wasn’t going to stand in the local elections due to advancing age, but did so “to help the cause”. I stood in a ‘strong’ Labour ward which hadn’t had a Lib Dem candidate for 16 years. I got 5,000 A4 colour leaflets printed, and with help covered the whole ward. Reform had a national A5 delivered, but saw nothing from the Tories (never one of their target wards) or Greens. My leaflet emphasised LD values where everyone is made to feel welcome and can live without fear. It said Labour had let us down and Reform would do the same! From a standing start Reform got 1,607, Lab 583, Local Cons 395, Greens 318, Lib Dem 144. Without a much higher national profile, we are not going to make progress in the West Midlands and elsewhere. Wake up Ed Davey and give up stunts !!
As someone who is currently, and temporarily I hope., outside the Party this article says to me exactly where the LibDems are. The collapse in membership and the huge growth of The Greens must send a message that the current “be timid and aim for disaffected middle of the road Tory voters” is not doing the Party any favours. It’s really hard to work out what the current leadership really believes in.
Sacking Christine Jardine from the front bench for actually behaving like a Liberal Democrat really upset.
We need the Party to be a real voice of Liberalism and tell the public what a liberal approach is to some of Labour’s Policies.
Starmer and co and particularly the Home Secretary seem to want to follow Reform down a right wing rabbit hole.
I’m hosting a Ukrainian refugee under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Current Labour Policy means she will never be able to settle here and take British Citizenship! Lib Dems should be fighting for Human Rights and for a multi ethnic multi faith society. We need a radical Liberal Party not a “ don’t upset nicer Tories” Party!
This thread is heartening. As an MDO I’ve been begging for ‘a core message’. Also, we call ourselves a bottom-up party. but we are as top-down as the next. We may not have wealthy backers, and we don’t want to compromise ourselves, but our biggest asset is our loyal supporters. Most of us join the Lib Dems because of the values they espouse, but we’re not seeing it in practice. The leadership need to listen to the members and give them a positive opportunity to contribute (other than by financial donations). We need to raise our profile and get people talking about us.
My husband and I joined from the SDP and I agree with Paul and others about weak policy and messaging.
In particular in Cambs supporters of justice for Palestine, many lifelong Labour, voted tactically for us believing our core belief in human rights would result in action. MPs have of course raised issues in Parliament but this is not well publicised. At a recent national meeting it was stated that the Greens were the first major party to acknowledge the genocide. When corrected several attendees were surprised and said they were unaware of our policies on Palestine. A local also contacted me to ask why our MPs had not done more. She did not know of all the questions asked at PMQs. These voters are turning to the Greens now.
The core mistake some people here seem to get sucked into is what has become the Labour mantra – “Change!” The simple fact Labour omitted to notice is that any fool can change things and anyone can call for change, but what is needed is improvement, and that is much more difficult to achieve, taking time, effort and lots of careful thought.
Starmer, Reeves and Co learned that lesson the hard way once in government, where things went badly from the start, when, they discovered that “We will immediately abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions” Labour Manifesto P79) was not possible. Instead they chose to beat up an easy target like pensioners. They followed by trying to beat up the disabled but even so early in a parliament new Labour MPs discovered that changing those at the top is not an answer to everything. Unless you know what the problem is, and have a real plan to fix it, not merely a soundbite.
We all want the Lib Dems to be successful, but pretending it’s all as easy as to change the man at the top, is just falling into the trap Labour fell into in 2024.
Remember where we were in 2010 when we found there was no money left and we made a quick easy decision that undermined the trust as a party we had spent decades building up.
And most importantly remember “If you want to go there, you really wouldn’t want to start from here”.
Tacking to the left would be foolish. The political space available today is in the centre.
Can someone please explain to me how raising our vote share by (say) 5% where we start with a share of 10% and depressing our vote share by (say 5%) by frightening the horses where we start in second or first will lead to more MPs or councillors.
Do not forget the lesson of 2019, when the vote went up and the number of MPs went down.
Right now a liberal party’s priority must be stopping Farage. That means holding the seats as we have and preventing, so far as we can, Reform and their fellow travellers. the Conservative party, winning others.
Much as people might not like it, that means being a home for those who don’t like Labour or the Greens but are frightened – and rightly frightened – by Farage.
A country run by Reform will not be a liberal country. It is our duty to do everything we can to prevent it.
I am too late to join the “debate”, although all comments are on a similar thread and as someone who resigned from Lib Dems I agree with what you have all been saying, it reflects why I left, and I only hope that those who need to hear, do listen and take on board.
Fran, welcome. I offer my congratulations on your MBE. Likewise upset about Christine Jardine and also Jane Dodds. I bet Claire Brooks would have had something to say. Suzanne, I resigned from the Lib Dems in 1999, but I wish them well.
My attention has been drawn to Peter Hall’s comment about me above. He appears to have taken a general meaning out of context. The relevant context says:
“The concept of ‘consent to be indoctrinated’ is a difficult one for liberals although less so when the victim is a child who doesn’t have the power actively to consent or to discriminate between options. It needs to be addressed throughout life but is most important when young people are learning to navigate their way through a world of multiplying choices. The emphasis on facts and skills is insignificant compared with the central importance of enabling active, autonomous citizens who have the power and ability to make the choices which are right for them”.
I was not saying that learning facts and skills are irrelevant. My point is that they do not in themselves create the crucial ability to assess facts and apply skills.
That is not a question which Smith was addressing in that over-quoted passage. It is relevant to Smith’s “Moral Sentiments”.
Part of the challenge is that we tend to focus on local issues and they of course vary,
We should be more straightforward on issues such as water privatisation and rejoining the eu with the electorate so they know where we stand. We should also be pragmatic if we want to win sufficient votes and qualify some statements leaving wriggle room if circumstances change.