We must quickly learn to cope with the new reality, and respond imaginatively, rationally and practically. I applaud Tim Farron for doing so, and doing it well.
With a trickle of enquiries about whether Tim is acting ultra vires, party members will need reassurance that approved constitutional arrangements for policy making in emergency situations are being scrupulously observed. Federal Policy Committee should quickly provide reassurance, and should also circulate its plans to organise and channel the party membership’s central role in policy making during the crisis.
Meanwhile, back at the inferno, many established aspects of UK governance are under challenge, with new challenges arising constantly. Liberal Democrats need to seize the hour, to strongly re-emphasise the party’s radical political and constitutional reform agenda, developed over many decades, but corroded by the 2010 coalition agreement, and then undermined by the frustrating processes and unsatisfactory outcomes of the 2012-13 policy working group (of which I was a member).
The media context for Liberal Democrats is hostile. Our proposals will largely disappear, or be shot down if they gain any kind of traction anywhere. The party needs outstanding communications experts, who are able to mediate a liberal democrat agenda with ease and panache. These people don’t come cheap. Providing the means to employ some would therefore be an act of enlightened self-interest by wealthy people and organisations who subscribe to our aims. Seeking such donors should be a priority. Almost certainly it already is. It is axiomatic to be honest, frank and transparent about any such financial support.
Finally, we need to find an appealing strategy, entirely consistent with Liberal Democrat values and principles, respecting the outcome of the Referendum, respecting the people who voted ‘Leave’, focusing on resolving the consequent global crisis, urgently advancing effective proposals for tackling the most egregious social and economic factors that partly explain the Referendum result, and for reforming the EU explicitly for the benefit of its citizens.
I think this requires
1) An election in the late summer, because the principal mandate of the current 2/3 pro-Remain Parliament is broken; it was not constituted for coping with Brexit;
2) A new Parliament that truly represents the spectrum of British political beliefs, concerns, and personal preferences on election day. First past the post cannot meet those requirements. Only using the single transferable vote in large, geographically well defined, multi-member constituencies of 6-10 members would fulfill the criteria (e.g. Cambridgeshire County + Peterborough UA), but excepting the handful of small outlying populations (e.g. Orkney and Shetland)
3) The newly elected parliament to deliberate and decide within 4 weeks the UK’s negotiating path with the rest of the EU, eg: trigger clause 50 and leave the single market; or trigger clause 50 and seek to stay in the single Market; or do not trigger Clause 50.
To me this existential crisis carries echoes of the terrible summer of 1940. The successful outcome of the Battle of Britain was followed by two more years of blood, toil, sweat and tears, before ‘the end of the beginning’ was proclaimed. This in turn was followed by three more years of the same. In the midst of these dark days of unending awfulness, the wartime coalition commissioned the sometime Liberal MP William Beveridge to conduct his landmark enquiry. Labour voted against his subsequent Report! But in due course, as the war drew to a close, the British people were better able to contemplate the prospect of yet more years of austerity, when an incoming Labour government embraced and implemented Beveridge’s plans.
During these dark days of 2016, we can best pay homage to William Beveridge’s achievements by applying our liberal values, humanity, imagination and creative practicality to today’s massive economic and social challenges as effectively as Beveridge did in his time.
* Spencer Hagard is a long time Liberal/Liberal Democrat activist, Chair of Cambridge Lib Dems 2013-15, and chair of Cambridgeshire County Co-ordinating Committee.
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22 Comments
Very interesting. This feels like it could be an incredibly powerful and savvy move, were interests to align. Turkeys could then vote to avoid Christmas after all.
I wonder if anyone in Lib Dem policy is working up a ready-to-roll piece of legislation just in case. Although it would surely need a sell-by date?
So you want the current parliament to immediately deliver electoral reform? Their apparent response at the moment for involving voters more is to run a referendum where one side lies, and then when it admits it lied, say the result must stand anyway.
Where in this situation is any suggestion any MP wants to give voters more say? The only conclusion you could reasonably draw is that parliament reserves the right to lie to voters and manipulate results.
if there is a new election, how will the main parties offer a re-run of the referendum? All parties contain people on both sides. The only logical conclusion is a free vote of MPs on all EU matters, but then the pro EU majority would throw out the referendum result, which parliament has pledged itself it will not do. Yet it has to, because the economy is dying as we speak on just the news of brexit about to happen. At least the 2008 world recession was caused by some people trying to make a living. This one was caused by people clinging to power. yes, a proportional electoral system could have avoided this mess, but Mps will not allow it.
Dear Spencer,
I agree that “Liberal Democrats need to seize the hour” and I am actively considering re-joining you in the Cambridge party. However, the last time I commented on this site was five years ago when I expressed my fury about the actions of the coalition. I wrote then
“The party I joined, voted for, and was lied to by, at the last election has collaborated in the destruction of the British university system, in the end of all possibility of electoral reform, and in the destruction of the National Health Service. . . . I am utterly ashamed of my folly in giving them my support.”
In despair at the result of the referendum, I am now re-considering. But there is one major stumbling block:
I believe that Nick Clegg was directly and personally responsible for the referendum result. He more than anyone else destroyed the Lib Dem vote. He alienated the young, who otherwise would have taken leadership from the party and worked with it in the referendum campaign in far greater numbers than actually they did. His destruction of the Lib Dem vote meant that the BBC felt no need to include Liberal Democrats as speakers during the campaign. He normalised the breaking of pledges. Why not say there is 350 million a week for the NHS? Pledges mean nothing.
I haven’t decided what I will do, but if Mr Clegg announces that he intends not to seek re-election and will take no further part in politics then I will certainly re-join the party and I expect many others will as well.
@Solip1
The party is much bigger than one person, 8 MPs or even a former leader.
Nick Clegg was elected in his constituency and the views of someone far away in Cambridge shouldn’t influence them.
You weren’t lied to… but the party had to compromise. Let’s not rehash all of the difficult decisions of the coalition government.
Please make your peace with that if you can, and give your local party the support it needs to help ensure there’s a liberal voice in the country… which as you recognise isn’t loud enough.
One of the things that heartens me about this well-argued post is the open acknowledgement that ‘The media context for Liberal Democrats is hostile. Our proposals will largely disappear, or be shot down if they gain any kind of traction anywhere’, and the subsequent acknowledgement that resolving this – put bluntly – requires money. That’s a welcome dose of realism in an often febrile post-referendum debate climate.
However, there’s one part of the post that’s clearly (if perhaps regrettably) unrealistic: the call for implementation of STV in multi-member constituencies prior to a late summer General Election. Even if Labour recovers enough from its current bloodletting to institute a new leadership that’s sympathetic towards electoral reform, there’s absolutely no way that the new more right of centre Conservative Party leadership will agree to this – and the Tories have an overall majority in the Commons. I’m as much an electoral reform junkie as the next LibDem member, but this is simply a non-starter. Points 1 & 3, in contrast, strike me as both achievable and reasonable.
On the issue of Tim Farron’s declaration over Europe, I initially had misgivings about this, but am gradually being won over. If nothing else, the preamble to the Party constitution is written from the assumption that the United Kingdom will be part of the European Union (‘Within the European Community we affirm the values of federalism and integration and work for unity based on these principles’), and participation in European institutions and maximising LibDem representation to those institutions is written into the body of the constitution. So I’m willing to accept that his statement is little more than an rephrased reiteration – in light of new circumstances – of what the Party constitution already commits us to rather than a fundamentally new policy. It’s either argue to stay in/return to the EU or amend the 20 direct constitutional references to Europe and European institutions.
We missed our chance to ‘seize the hour’. As I wrote here back in April 23rd. We should have advocated an EEA-like solution. Now more and more people are coming to this conclusion.
Listen to Gus O’Donnel on Today Programme this morning at approx 8.50 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07h69n7#play
“In” always ignored the genuine Liberal concern for sovereignty.
We have a chance now to create a Europe of two groups. The first able and willing to have a single currency and to go full speed to political union, and a second group that will belong to either the EEA or an EEA-like grouping outside the EMU but in favour of the single market.
So, there is a very real chance that in the medium term (say 6months) there is an agreement for the UK to have an EEA/Norway like relationship with the EU, that other EU members will join that grouping, and that the PM who negotiates that : May or Johnson or whoever, will go to the country or have another referendum seeking ratification of that solution.
ie a EEA v Out campaign, that will in effect be the great battle to defeat the UKIPers and their fellow travelers.
That was really all quite obvious right at the start of the campaign that we would either be an irrelevance on a losing side or we had the chance to prepare the ground for the real battle against the bigots.
So – would you still say we should argue against the EEA option and in favour of EU membership at that time?????
Lib Dems have been behind the curve on this all along. We needed to show we understood all the British public (and not to just 48% of it!).
Oh – and the best communicators are not those working for £100,000 + . They are genuine Lib Dem campaigners. Many who work for very little if not for free – for Liberal causes. Paying big bucks for West End marketing types has lost us 50 MPs and a referendum.
The question is how we best move forward in the light of the referendum result. Leave didn’t expect to win and their offer is contradictory. The Conservatives are likely to hold a snap election in the Autumn.
We should be clear that article 50 should not be implemented until after that election. A huge number of remainers will hold the Conservative party in complete contempt, if they give notice and then call a snap election, if we leave the EU given the lack of planning and contradictory statements from Leave. Article 50 is implemented collectively we’re screwed.
The Conservatives will go into that election promising to implement Article 50. They will also have to explain what they will do in the negotiation, which means they will have to explain whether they want free movement or access to the single market,. promising Article 50 this will attract a lot of support from their base. They can hardly do otherwise and will say the people have spoken once, why do it again?
42% of Conservative supporters voted Remain in the referendum, the opposition parties will need to offer a second referendum to attract these voters. Nigel Farage will say it isn’t two out of three as will the right wing of the Conservative Party. Nigel would have been pressing for a re-run if he’d lost 52/48 so I think we can ignore that.
There are two challenges here, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have to be willing to campaign for a second referendum, by the autumn there will be a lot of regret from leave voters, but some Labour figures have ruled out a referendum. That needs to change.
Assuming the Conservatives lose the election, currently a big assumption. winning a second referendum will be difficult, because Brussels won’ t renegotiate again and who would blame them.
Therefore the second referendum should ideally be structured between staying in on the status quo and a specific leave proposition. Leave won by promising things, that are contradictory, and glossing that over. If remain loses then so be it. If it wins then it will have won two of three, the election and the second referendum. We can move forward from there.
Spencer, you argue : “I think this requires 1) An election in the late summer, because the principal mandate of the current 2/3 pro-Remain Parliament is broken; it was not constituted for coping with Brexit;”
Frankly, the party needs a Westminster election in the autumn like it needs a hole in the head. To believe you’ll get any form of PR for such an election is more Oxford Lewis Carroll than Cambridge rationalism.
So far as England is concerned it needs Tim to spend the next couple of years building up a radical profile and getting our local government power base back.
In Scotland where I live, we already have PR and the possibility of radical left of centre government – especially should there be a new Scottish referendum to enable continuing Scottish membership of the EU. Our task will be to minimise any nonsense on the border with England and to maximise free trade arrangements with England. This should be a shared task with the English Liberal Democrats. It may be Northern Ireland could be part of such an arrangement, and Tim needs to focus – and be seen to focus – on both these border issues at Westminster.
We need clear heads in these post Brexit referendum times in order to maximise real liberal (and Liberal) values. The Scottish and English Liberal Democrats should focus on minimising the damage done by Brexit to our mutual benefit.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36649733
Steffan – thank you. During the last edit, I unintentionally cut out needing a sunset clause in an emergency Single Transferable Vote Bill. The purpose of such a clause – consistent with broader Party principles – would be to demonstrate that STV/LMMC (Large Multi Member Constituencies) is intended only to resolve a crisis, not to casually change the Westminster electoral system, in the more and more disjointed constitutional tinkering fashion that has become the norm, and which needs comprehensive, root and branch review.
Solip 1 – thank you. If you’d like to contact me via the Cambridge LP website, I’d be delighted to meet for a chat.
Danny, Alasdair, David – thank you all.
In my opinion, it would be consistent with Party’s values and principles to say over and again that it considers the mandate of the 2015 Parliament to have been ended by Cameron’s resignation over Brexit, coupled with his failure to invoke Clause 50, two massive broken promises for the price of one, but thank goodness, and to go on to argue the STV case in the interests of the electorate, not the Party, and therefore to be prepared to take the consequences – perhaps derision over STV, and humiliation at the polls (if held before 2020).
But who dares sometimes wins, ever so slightly more often in politics if they’ve started to re-establish a reputation for trustworthiness. In the end, it will be contextual. An August election, precipitated by deep economic crisis, and with the two big parties badly split, could be preceded by forecasts of disasters for them both, and potentially 150-200 seats each for UKIP and the Lib Dems, on 20-35% each of of the popular vote. In that situation, STV/LMMC, with a sunset clause, might be the only offer that looked both principled and politically attractive.
It all depends….
Spencer Hagard | Mon 27th June 2016 – 7:33 pm
“Liberal Democrats need to seize the hour, to strongly re-emphasise the party’s radical political and constitutional reform agenda, developed over many decades”.
Particularly agree with this Spencer.
With the issues presently afflicting the Labour Party, there will be libertarian (in the progressive sense of the word) social democrats and socialists taking a fresh look at our party and what we have to offer; probably Greens also. It is time to reassert our true Social Liberal Democratic face.
On a similar note, in many quarters we continue to use the completely aliberal (and no-doubt expensive) ‘Stronger Economy, Fairer Society, Opportunity for all’ banner. Besides being a weak representation of the richness of our philosophy and beliefs, it continually runs the risk of reminding people of a ‘misunderstood’ era in our history.
The political landscape is looking more promising for us right now than at any time since 2010. It would be a tragedy for us not to take full and positive advantage of it.
A new slogan, perhaps along the lines of ‘A free, fair, sustainable and outward-looking Britain’, would surely better reflect the values of the party and, importantly, better capture the mood of the moment.
I said above that I was considering re-joining the party in the light of the referendum result, but that I was finding it difficult to do so. Reading Brian Paddick’s piece on the IP bill, I have been convinced of the country’s need for a Liberal voice, and so I have just re-joined the party.
solip1 28th Jun ’16 – 4:58pm
Welcome back! Your Country Needs Radical Liberals!
Wahoooo! @solip1
Stephen – Thank you. I agree, except I’d want to work on the slogan, etc I wouldn’t want to get tied down with one, but prefer an action slogan and a suite of complementary straplines for different purposes, e.g. Oxfam
Slogan: Making Poverty History.
Oxfam shopfront signs: Planting Seeds – Digging Wells – Immunising Children, Educating Girls, etc
Lib Dem Slogan: ……..
Complementary Straplines, e.g: Building Houses; Greening Britain; Saving Libraries; Opening Up Democracy; Promoting Mental Health, etc.
Solip1 – a huge welcome back, hope to meet you soon!
Bill – Thank you
I think there was a case to make on 23 April, as you did, but no hour to seize, as there was no widely perceived crisis to which it would be worth Liberal Democrats offering solutions consistent with the Party’s values and policies. There is now, and we could, but doing so of course depends on whether the sense of crisis persists, and if so how it evolves. The same would apply to your speculative scenarios involving EEA in 6 months time. I agree with you about the 52%, especially its most hard pressed members: see para 5 and final para of my original post. We clearly disagree over communications; my experience of commissioning expert skills for not-for-profit organisations appears to run directly counter to your, experience. It’s worth remembering that what you don’t pay for isn’t necessarily free.
Chris 2001 – Thank you. I consider that a further referendum is no part of the solution. On the contrary, even calling it would lead to strong protest and cries of betrayal from Leave. A General Election under FPTP could worsen the problem, by requiring 650, mainly binary choices to be made, in largely safe seats, and result in a House whose composition would only by chance represent both the votes cast per Party, and the distribution of views about the EU issue. General election outcomes have rarely approximated to the former, and couldn’t achieve the latter. My proposal at 1), 2), 3) would achieve both the above, and be capable of giving rise to a far more diverse and representative house overall. The Tories would only accept this if they feared the ‘wrong’ composition of the House vis a vis the EU decision, or a 1993 Canada-style electoral meltdown, in which FPTP helped them descend from majority Government to two seats in 1993, followed by 13 years in the political wilderness.
“the terrible summer of 1940”
Pilots from defeated countries with combat experience came to help us, without which we would have lost the Battle of Britain. We were able to do nothing for Poland in 1945 and Czechoslovakia fell under communism soon after. We owe these people a debt.
Richard – thank you. I have long felt the same. The BBC broadcasts from Budapest in October 1956, together with ‘the West’s’ preoccupation with Britain and France’s simultaneous Suez folly, transformed my childhood thinking and my subsequent life. I had thought from 1990 onwards, until last Friday morning, that we were playing a decent role in making amends for the events of the 1940s, and our subsequent failures.
Spencer
share the analysis,but fear it is altogether unrealistic to imagine changing our Westminster parliament electoral system from first past the post to any form of proportional representation ahead of any Autumn 2016 / Spring 2017 general election ; between now and then , our liberal values are going to have to be pursued within the electoral system that we are stuck with.
Inter alia, the leave campaign was very focussed,on sovereignty. “Take back control” . Parliament is sovereign, or the crown in parliament, so a general election is exactly th right way to move forward. Many leave voters obviously wanted access to the single eu market, so would be happy with an eea result. Others wanted an end to immigration and would not. Add in the remain voters, and,there is probably a large majority for some sort of eea deal.
From the article: “[We need to] strongly re-emphasise the party’s radical political and constitutional reform agenda”
Just how radical is it?
For one thing it’s confined to Westminster AFAIK and I suspect support for STV is largely due to the firm belief that it would yield more MPs. Be that as it may, the party neglected to develop reform agendas in two other key areas.
First was the EU and Brexit. Here it was the inability to reform the UE’s undemocratic and technocratic system that precipitated the Leave vote. We should have developed constitutional proposals for reforming the EU along more accountable lines but steadfastly refused to do so instead supporting the status quo at every turn. The party could almost certainly have forced pro-democratic reforms on the EU after the French and Dutch rejected the planned constitution. That led to a crisis because the EU establishment had no ‘Plan B’. We could have jumped in and said, “Here is the ‘Plan B’ you need” but instead we connived to allow them to regroup and repackage materially the same stuff as the Lisbon Treaty. That needed Lib Dem support to get through Parliament and involved the party in all sorts of back-flips to justify reneging on its promises to the electorate.
That makes the Lib Dems about as radical as a turnip.
Second is the party’s governance and policy-making which are as clunky as can be, not nearly nimble enough for government or effective opposition. The approach is deeply dysfunctional as judged by the court of public opinion in national polls over many cycles. Without its superb local activist base the party would have collapsed years ago.
I know the Lib Dem approach is the holiest of Holy Cows (see the constitution on not being enslaved by ‘conformity’) but in reality it’s neither ‘participative’ nor ‘democratic’. It homogenises everything into a formally-approved ’correct’ strategy so it can’t handle rival views, the political equivalent of genetic alleles which are key to fitness and survival at the species level. Also, everything is moulded by committees making their internal politics a big part of the output. Crucially, they can’t make strategy. Effective strategy requires the ability to think outside the box; committees are the finest way ever devised of confining thinking within the box.
Another turnip I’m afraid.
Duncan – Thank you. Yes, of course, unless there is persistent polling evidence that UKIP is heading for 50% of the UK seats for, say 30-35% of the votes, which is not implausible, then I agree: my idea is a complete non-runner. But, since it could actually happen, detailed contingency plans (legislation, proposed boundaries, etc) should be prepared soon, and discussed with the Tories, SNP, Labour and the Greens, and strongly communicated via multiple media channels, and then same again every few months. This is proposed in order to have something practical in hand, before yet another, desperate, “why didn’t we see this coming?” moment.
Jenny – Thank you. Public opinion is likely to have moved on by the time of the next a UK-wide vote. Using STV/MMC will measure pretty well the electorate’s main positions on the EU, at the same time as allowing choice of party preferences, and candidate preferences, and voting across parties. It exists to serve the elector, FPTP to serve the party. That’s why Labour sticks with FPTP.
Gordon – Thank you. I agree – and the party leadership now appears to recognise – that the party machinery, including governance and the policymaking processes, is hopeless, in most of the ways you identify, and a few more. The reforms currently being prepared will be judged by their potential to change all that. But, in the policy areas, you’ve cherry picked: the party has many radical policies (Land Value Taxation, Worker Participation and Control, Climate Change Control, Marijuana legalisation, etc).