Alexander Green

Seizing the centre: the road ahead

By Alexander Green | Fri 16th June 2017 - 2:30 pm

Tim Farron’s unexpected resignation ends another chapter in a tumultuous period of politics. With the wave of populism that carried Jeremy Corbyn to a triumphant defeat and shook the Conservatives, how should the next chapter begin for the Liberal Democrats? The next leader should strike out for the centre ground, and it is the Liberal Democrats economic credentials that should take centre stage over our unimpeachable social liberalism.

To begin with another exit, the loss of Nick Clegg perhaps signals the chance to rehabilitate the Coalition government. In too many ways the contribution of the Liberal Democrats has gone unnoticed; the pupil premium has been a lifeline for many schools struggling with constrained budgets, whilst the British Business Bank is one of the most recognised achievements of the happily re-elected Vince Cable.

We ought to champion such successes, and link them to our future strategy. Between state-led nationalisation and short-term cuts lies our own path. Targeted investment, support and stimulation of local enterprise, and recognition of the changing nature of the British economy and its vibrant tech sector (albeit a sector beset by the authoritarian proclivities of the current government). Now more then ever, it is vital that all corners of the United Kingdom see that the government’s economic strategy works for them, and we have been too coy about the benefits that liberalism can bring.

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Jenny Marr

Reprise: Where is the love?

By Jenny Marr | Fri 16th June 2017 - 1:30 pm

This article first appeared on 15 June 2016, in the wake of the Orlando massacre. It’s worth reading again today after another week full of avoidable tragedy.

One of the first things I tell people about myself, really as a warning, is that I cry a lot. At good news, bad news, RSPA appeals. Even a particularly nostalgic Hovis advert will do it.

Since Orlando, I’ve cried on public transport. In the office. In a car park. At home. In response to eye witness accounts, doctor’s stories, and politician’s reactions. I suppose like many I’ve been grieving. But what with it this time is a physical reaction. A need to reach out my arms and hug the relatives, the police, the victims. To run and be there, as if that would somehow help. A need to shout out that I’m a human too, that I get it, that though I’m from the other side of the planet we feel it just the same.

Of course that’s probably no use at all, I don’t know. But on a practical level, what can we do? There are crowd funder pages to help the victims families, we could attend vigils, continue to live our lives.

Though for me, when I’m sitting on a train trying desperately not to hug the stranger sitting next to me, I need to do more.

My mind wandered to the mindset of the shooter, and all those committing these atrocities. And I thought, have they ever been in love? Sometimes when my mind wanders I think about what would happen if the person I love fell under a bus. Though not likely but they are incredibly clumsy. And that single thought will make me cry every time. I’m so lucky to feel this, but many people don’t know what that’s like.

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Caron Lindsay

Alistair Carmichael is to be the Lib Dem Chief Whip

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 16th June 2017 - 12:30 pm

In an interview with his local paper The Orcadian, Alistair Carmichael ruled himself out of standing for the leadership, saying:

“It is difficult enough juggling the demands of having a family in Orkney and living between there, London and Shetland, without making it more complication.

“I think there are other things that I can do that add value to the party’s efforts, rather than be leader.

He revealed what that would involve, too. He’s going to go back to the role he had during the early Coalition years – as Chief Whip.

That role will be very different now. Then, he had to …

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Chris Fauske

The sudden death of Liberal England

By Chris Fauske | Fri 16th June 2017 - 11:30 am

I joined the Liberal Party the day of Margaret Thatcher’s first victory. I will be leaving its successor party the day after I return a spoiled ballot in the election for the next party leader.

As a party we have had our fights, our disagreements, and our debates. We have also proven that the strength of our shared commitments and ideals has been of a power that protects the very essence of what it means to be liberal and democratic.

One of my first committee appointments in the party offered the opportunity to work closely with Richard Wainwright, a devout Quaker. His faith guided him. At times, it made him uncomfortable. But, more often than not, his faith, which so few of us shared, offered him the impetus, the strength and, yes, the courage, to expect more of us than we often thought possible.

I worked in Liverpool on occasion with a Liberal city council that was helping re-shape that city. I was there the day of the Toxteth riots. Very soon thereafter, David Alton, our first MP from that city in so many years, and Eric Heffer, MP, sat down with Michael Heseltine and shape the only action plan I know of that caused Thatcher to have to admit that there was such a thing as society. Two of those men, Heffer and Alton, shared little. But they did share a faith and that faith shaped both of them in years of service that made the lives of so very many people so much better than it would otherwise have been.

Richard Wainwright and David Alton were not alone, but I worked with them well enough, and knew them well enough, to write what I did above with confidence.

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Eddie Sammon

Grenfell Tower fire: Answers, accountability and help are needed

By Eddie Sammon | Fri 16th June 2017 - 10:25 am

At approximately 00:54 on Wednesday morning an horrific fire was reported at Grenfell Tower in north Kensington, London. Within half an hour the flames were reported to have engulfed an entire side of the building, leaving many people trapped inside. We need answers and to do whatever we can to help the victims and ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.

Firstly, The Guardian has are some questions that need to be answered:

  • How did the fire start?
  • Why did the fire spread so quickly? Was the recently fitted new cladding at fault?
  • Did the new gas pipes, which were

…

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Chris Whiting

The choice for Lib Dems – embrace radicalism or die

By Chris Whiting | Fri 16th June 2017 - 8:55 am

I’m not going to mince my words or toe the centre-line in my summary of the Liberal Democrats’ election result for reasons that will become clearer the further you read.

Our result on the 8th June was embarrassing, demoralising, and worst of all, irrelevant. 7.4% of the vote was all that our party could accrue; 40,000 votes fewer than our 2015 performance which we naively thought was our floor. When the country was crying out for a party of the centre with both Labour and the Conservatives lurching to the extremes, we didn’t answer the call.

Whilst our swelling membership and activist base can feel rightly proud of their efforts in the campaign which saw an increase in Lib Dem MPs, they should also feel aggrieved at the lack of support our national message gave to them.

As a party we have failed to broaden our support, something that would have seen unthinkable in the wake of the 2015 election or even just a few weeks ago. We must address why we are primarily appealing to the white middle-classes and not other groups. As per Lord Ashcroft’s exit poll, just 6% of BME voters lent their support to the Liberal Democrats in this election, compared to 9% of white voters.

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What lessons can we learn from the election?

By A Liberal in Leeds | Thu 15th June 2017 - 7:40 pm

Overall I think Thursday night was very positive for the Liberal Democrats. We made four net gains, taking us up to twelve seats. This was in the face of a race to Number 10 where more than eighty per cent of voters backed the two main parties. We’ve had some excellent ‘big beasts’ like Jo, Vince, Stephen and Ed returned to Parliament, as well as fantastic new faces like Layla Moran and Christine Jardine. This article is going to focus on the lessons to be learnt, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that this was a result which did us credit.

Sadly we lost our only seat in Wales, and Sarah Olney lost out narrowly in Richmond Park. However, from my experience campaigning in Yorkshire I’d like to put forward some ideas about what went wrong in Labour-facing seats.

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How do the Lib Dems survive a stronger than ever two-party system?

By Mark Henderson | Thu 15th June 2017 - 6:08 pm

During this General Election campaign I spent my time helping my local party and in the last week, helping in a target seat. It became clear that this election wasn’t a Brexit election but instead a clear battle between Corbyn and May, Red vs Blue.

The policies of the Lib Dems didn’t seem to resonate nationally even though they were clearly sensible and credible, which lead to our party’s vote share declining by 0.5% compared to 2015. From this it’s clear to see that tactical voting damaged the party in nine target seats leading to deposits been lost in the most extreme circumstances. With the two main parties obtaining a collective 82.4% of the vote, higher than any election since 1970, we need to focus on surviving in a two party system now more than ever.

While our vote share did decline, we did however make net gains but also losing some of the party’s best talent like Nick Clegg on the way. The fact that the party could still make gains in such a tough political climate for third parties is a demonstration for future survival. Targeting the right seats with a mass amount of resources from the central party and the nearby local parties shows how, as a party, we can still stand toe-to-toe with the two larger parties.

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Jim Hodgson

Evangelical Christianity and liberalism: the compatibility question

By Jim Hodgson | Thu 15th June 2017 - 4:24 pm

 

In an election supposedly predicated on the issue of Brexit, few Liberal Democrats expected the issues of gay sex and abortion to dominate the headlines for the Uk’s most unequivocally pro-European party in 2017. Tim Farron’s repeated refusal to answer the question as to whether gay sex was a sin during an interview in April resulted in exceptional news coverage of the Lib Dems, but for the wrong reasons. Having led the party to a succession of impressive by-election victories and surpassing his own target to reach 100’000 members 3 years early, it was – up until that point – going so well. Farron was forced to clarify his position in Parliament the following day, exclaiming “I do not” (think gay sex is a sin). Unfortunately for the Liberal Democrats, the costs of Farron’s 24-hour inertia were colossal.

I won’t hesitate to disclose that the unfolding of this story was somewhat uncomfortable for me, worsened by Farron failing to distance himself from a statement that “…abortion is wrong”, made in 2007. Whilst many of my compatriots dismissed these stories as irrelevant, citing Tim’s positive voting record on LGBT rights, I was initially less willing to swat it aside. As a former member of the Labour Party, I have borne witness to the absurd realities of blinkered party-political tribalism, and believe it to be a dangerous trait. From disposing our future prosperity through continued support of hard Brexit, through to dodging his ostensible links to the IRA, for some folk it’s clear that Jeremy Corbyn is incapable of wrongdoing. The obstinance of Corbyn’s loyalists are reminiscent of a cult. Liberal Democracy necessitates divergence from this configuration; the Liberal Democrats are the party of evidence-based policy.

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Luke Jeffery

Radical Centrism: Why it’s time for the Lib Dems to be bolder

By Luke Jeffery | Thu 15th June 2017 - 2:57 pm

 

Radical centrism is often thought to be an oxymoron since Centrists rarely appear to want to tear up the current order and replace it with something new. However, given the significant challenges facing UK (and other countries throughout the world) is it not time to be bold in what we propose? For what has been shown across the world in the past year, most notably in France and the US and recently in the UK elections, is that a policy of more of the same will not win you an election.

Theresa May, while deviating from traditional Conservative policy, represented the supposedly “strong and stable” status quo and Corbyn represented something newer and bolder, while the Lib Dems were certainly separate from these two they did not offer anything ground-breaking. The result of the election was a reward for Labour for daring to dream of something new and different, despite the fact that many of their policies only existed in an economic dreamland.

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Isabelle Parasram

We’ve already won – in so many ways

By Isabelle Parasram | Thu 15th June 2017 - 1:15 pm

Our candidate in Walsall North, Isabelle Parasram, has written this letter to her supporters and we are pleased to share it with you.

Hello!

I’m writing to thank you for supporting me in my first campaign to stand for Parliament on behalf of the Liberal Democrats.

Though I didn’t win a seat in Walsall North this time ‘round, my campaign wasn’t all about gaining a seat for myself. Of course I gave it everything I had, but I wanted to see others win too.

My heart goes out to those candidates whom I campaigned for in one way or another, but who didn’t gain a seat: Ade Adeyemo (Solihull), Daisy Cooper (St Albans), Amna Ahmad (Sutton and Cheam), Ben Sims (Leyton/Wanstead) and Sarah Olney (Richmond).

Their constituencies have missed out on having a great MP…

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Tony Greaves

Lord Tony Greaves writes…Where now for the Liberal Democrats? Part 2: What we do about it

By Tony Greaves | Thu 15th June 2017 - 11:55 am

Yesterday, I laid out the issues facing the party. Here is my analysis of what we should do about them.

I suggest there are four or five things that should now be priorities for the party as an organisation and a movement. They may look rather different from each other but I suggest that they gel together more than may be immediately obvious. This is not an order of importance – I think they are all equally important.

First, in view of the election result we need to insure against the threat of another General Election in the next 12 months or two years. The very survival of the party requires a presence in the House of Commons. That means making sure that the 12 seats we held will be held again – no more carelessness or complacency. It means a similar level of intensive continuous work and campaigning in the 25 or so seats that are realistic targets for gains in an early poll. And those seats need to build up their local organisation to a level where they do not depend on support from lots of people in the surrounding areas and beyond when the election comes.

Second, from a longer term perspective, we need to rebuild and recreate the party as a campaigning organisation and movement. Campaigning in recent years has been diminished to mean just election campaigning, and a lot of that is now done in an arid “painting by numbers” fashion. The campaigning that gives political activity its interest, its excitement, its achievements, and its fun (and who is going to do it for year after year if it’s not fun?) is campaigning on issues, on projects, on protests, on getting things done. Community politics. It’s something the party almost abandoned during the Coalition. And campaigning of this kind is not just about elections – they are part of it but only a part. It’s much, much more, and genuinely all the year round stuff.

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The Voice

LibLink: Recalling Michael Gove is an act of environmental vandalism – Ed Davey

By The Voice | Thu 15th June 2017 - 9:10 am

In an article in The Guardian Ed Davey writes:

Perhaps Theresa May has a sense of mischief after all. Putting Michael Gove in charge of the Department of the Environment is much like putting a wolf in charge of the chicken coop. To say that the Gove pulse is unlikely to race too much faster over environmental concerns would, from my experience of working with him, be an understatement. He probably regards global warming as an excuse to reduce winter fuel payments.

May bringing in her old enemy demonstrates her crippling weakness. This desperate attempt to buy off those who might bring her down may help her own survival for another few months. Sadly, it will do nothing to help the survival of the planet.

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Caron Lindsay

+++BREAKING: Tim Farron resigns

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 14th June 2017 - 6:39 pm

Tim Farron has stepped down as Liberal Democrat leader. In a searing speech, he said:

The text is below:

This last two years have seen the Liberal Democrats recover since the devastation of the 2015 election.

That recovery was never inevitable but we have seen the doubling of our party membership, growth in council elections, our first parliamentary by-election win for more than a decade, and most recently our growth at the 2017 general election.

Most importantly the Liberal Democrats have established ourselves with a significant and distinctive role – passionate about Europe, free trade, strong well-funded public services underpinned by a growing market economy.

No one else occupies that space.  Against all the odds, the Liberal Democrats matter again.

We can be proud of the progress we have made together, although there is much more we need to do.

From the very first day of my leadership, I have faced questions about my Christian faith.  I’ve tried to answer with grace and patience.  Sometimes my answers could have been wiser.

At the start of this election, I found myself under scrutiny again – asked about matters to do with my faith.  I felt guilty that this focus was distracting attention from our campaign, obscuring our message.

Journalists have every right to ask what they see fit.  The consequences of the focus on my faith is that I have found myself torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader.

A better, wiser person than me may have been able to deal with this more successfully, to have remained faithful to Christ while leading a political party in the current environment.

To be a political leader – especially of a progressive, liberal party in 2017 – and to live as a committed Christian, to hold faithfully to the Bible’s teaching, has felt impossible for me.

I’m a liberal to my finger tips, and that liberalism means that I am passionate about defending the rights and liberties of people who believe different things to me.

There are Christians in politics who take the view that they should impose the tenets of faith on society, but I have not taken that approach because I disagree with it – it’s not liberal and it is counterproductive when it comes to advancing the gospel.

Even so, I seem to be the subject of suspicion because of what I believe and who my faith is in.

In which case we are kidding ourselves if we think we yet live in a tolerant, liberal society.

That’s why I have chosen to step down as leader of the Liberal Democrats.

I intend to serve until the parliamentary recess begins next month, at which point there will be a leadership election according to the party’s rules.

This is a historic time in British politics. What happens in the next months and years will shape our country for generations.

My successor will inherit a party that is needed now more than ever before. Our future as an open, tolerant and united country is at stake.

The cause of British liberalism has never been needed more. People who will fight for a Britain that is confident, generous and compassionate are needed more than ever before.

That is the challenge our party and my successor faces and the opportunity I am certain that they will rise to.

I want to say one more thing: I joined our party when I was 16, it is in my blood, I love our history, our people, I thoroughly love my party.

Imagine how proud I am to lead this party.  And then imagine what would lead me to voluntarily relinquish that honour.

In the words of Isaac Watts it would have to be something ‘so amazing, so divine, (it) demands my heart, my life, my all’.

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Caron Lindsay

Brian Paddick resigns as Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 14th June 2017 - 5:30 pm

Lib Dem Peer Brian Paddick has resigned from his position as Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary. Brian, a former Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has always been a credible and authoritative voice on matters pertaining to crime, terrorism and civil liberties. The party owes him a debt of gratitude for his work in the role.

It’s the fashion these days to use Twitter to make announcements. In a tweet this afternoon, Brian said:

He doesn’t specify what particular views, but speculation centres around the issues around gay sex and abortion. Tim’s voting record on these issues is pretty clear and he’s made it plain that he is 100% in favour of LGBT equality. This matters to too many people I love so I certainly couldn’t support a leader I didn’t trust to do the right thing on these issues. In any event, I don’t think Tim’s views or record had changed since Brian had accepted the role, so I am perplexed by the timing. Unless…

I may be completely wrong here, but I’m starting to suspect that some things which have happened over the past few weeks have not been entirely random. There’s always been a sense that those few in the party who don’t like Tim have been biding their time. I’m hearing reports of conversations being initiated during the election campaign by a few people who did not support Tim last time. Those conversations were spookily similar, as if they were sticking to a script, covering a few key points that people wanted to get across. Indeed, I had more than one person say them to me.

Yesterday, Lib Dem Peer Liz Barker retweeted an article calling on Tim to go:

And today, the Twitter account of the Political Office of Lord Anthony Lester said this in response to Brian’s tweet:

So far, this activity appears to be confined to people who have never been Tim’s biggest fans. Certainly, I am hearing from sources close to Tim that they are “unfazed” by what’s happening. Let’s hope that this is an end to it and that we don’t spend the next few months turning in on ourselves.  That would not be a good look. 

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Jane Reed

The nature of predictions

By Jane Reed | Wed 14th June 2017 - 4:30 pm

This General Election campaign has given me pause for thought about the nature of prediction. When we make a political prediction we use information that is available to us such as polls, statistical calculations based on data such as turnout and past performance and what we hear on the doorstep when campaigning. But we also use our past experience of such matters and our hopes. Computing all of this we come up with a prediction of likely outcome. Our predictions are important to us personally as they reflect the quality of our judgement, an aspect of our being that we hold dear, as it relates to our sense of competence and thus strongly relates to our sense of self. Because of this we can become over attached to our predictions which can lead to negative effects.

If our prediction is positive such attachment can lead us to be overconfident and unresponsive to the reality of what is going on around us, as possibly happened to Theresa May at the start of her campaign.

If the prediction is negative such attachment can lead us to becoming despondent in our campaigning, playing down our message when talking to people, not bothering to campaign so vigorously for example not delivering that extra round of leaflets and demotivating our fellow campaigners. Such negative responses can contribute to our negative prediction becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. To avoid such negativity we need to develop equanimity in relation to our prediction always having the humility to say, at the back of our minds, “but I might be wrong”. With this balanced approach, in spite of whatever prediction we make, we will continue to campaign in a positive constructive way. During campaigning obviously the results of polls are useful in deciding the sensible direction of the campaign but we should always take them with a pinch of salt and not allow them to make us negative in our approach.

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Tony Greaves

Lord Tony Greaves writes… Where now for the Liberal Democrats? Part 1: Where we are

By Tony Greaves | Wed 14th June 2017 - 2:55 pm

The morning after another disastrous General Election for the Liberal Democrats, the party’s press office issued a statement which started with the breath-taking words: “It has been a good night for the Liberal Democrats.”

It went on to say: “We hoped to hold our ground but instead we have increased our number of MPs by 50%. We welcome back big hitters to our ranks in Jo Swinson, Vince Cable and Ed Davey, who all regained their seats with emphatic majorities. We have won stunning victories in Eastbourne, Bath, Edinburgh West, Caithness and Oxford West & Abingdon.”

Well yes, and I cheered every one of them. But we lost five of the nine seats we were defending including four which had been held at the calamitous election in 2015. Many more seats that we recently held or which were strong targets fell back badly so that the number of possible winnable seats has shrunk to levels not seen for decades. We lost 375 deposits and it was clear that the basic Liberal Democrat vote in large parts of the country was still close to zero and that the much-vaunted fight-back in many areas had simply not happened at the Westminster level.

So let’s start again. It was a disastrous night for the Liberal Democrats. The best that can be said is that in an election when the very presence of the party in the House of Commons was in danger, we survived. The increase from eight seats in 2015 to 12 this time is welcome but only gets us back to the position in 1966. The truth is that over much of the country hardly anyone voted for us. The countrywide core vote we had been building up in the first decade of the 2000s has gone and shows no signs of coming back.

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Martin Thomas

Lord Martin Thomas writes…The House of Lords has the right to say “no” to Conservative/DUP Bills

By Martin Thomas | Wed 14th June 2017 - 1:30 pm

In early 1868, Mr Disraeli became the Prime Minister of a minority Conservative government. Mr Gladstone, leading the Opposition, took his opportunity and thrust a Bill to disestablish the Irish Church through the House of Commons. The then Marquess of Salisbury advised his fellow peers that:

“when the opinion of your countrymen has declared itself, and you see that their convictions – their firm, deliberate and sustained convictions – are in favour of any course, I do not for a moment deny that it is your duty to yield. But there is an enormous step between that and being the mere …

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The Voice

Party to elect a Deputy Leader

By The Voice | Wed 14th June 2017 - 12:59 pm

Tim Farron has announced that the Parliamentary Party in the House of Commons, to give our group of MPs its Sunday name, will be electing a Deputy Leader from among its number.

He said:

In the last parliament we didn’t have any women in our parliamentary party and we didn’t feel it was right to elect a deputy in those circumstances. But I wanted to revive the role as it gives the party another powerful voice and has helped give prominence to many of our notable MPs, including Ming Campbell, Simon Hughes and Vince Cable.

Now a third of our parliamentary party is female and we have our most diverse group of MPs ever, I feel our MPs form a more representative group to elect a deputy leader. There is still much more work needed to make ourselves more like the nation we seek to represent, but this is a really positive time for our party after increasing our number of MPs by 50%.

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Nick Hopkinson

May’s hard Brexit is dead. Now let’s bury Brexit

By Nick Hopkinson | Wed 14th June 2017 - 11:55 am

Brexiters claim that 82% of voters supporting the Tories and Labour validated Brexit in last week’s General Election. This has a grain of truth in it. However subsequent polls found issues such as health, the economy, and security were more important to voters. Furthermore, the election marked a return to two party politics in which smaller parties, including ours, were squeezed. A vote for Labour was not necessarily a vote for its ambiguous Brexit stance, but arguably one for hope and an end to Tory austerity.

Shielded from many by her two former advisers and campaign managers, yet at the same time vulnerable to Tory ideological Europhobes, May’s closet premiership progressed an empty Hard Brexit. Instead of trying to unite a divided country after the 2016 referendum by reaching out to the 48% voting remain, May divided the country further by progressing a Hard Brexit which few voted for. Fully aware that half of voters wanted to stay in the Single Market and Customs Union as do most businesses, she seemed unbothered about harming the economy for the sake of meeting unrealistic immigration targets which were consistently missed when she was Home Secretary. Businesses could only engage with Government Ministers if they were enthusiastic about Brexit’s (unknown) opportunities. Her General Election bid for a personal blank cheque on Brexit (and seemingly everything else), possibly along the lines of the Canada-EU deal, left the electorate cold. So last week the people called time on her ‘bunker’ Brexit. So too it appears has business, her Cabinet, and parliamentarians.

A weakened May is now in discussion with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to prop up her minority Government. Meanwhile her Brexit secretary makes contradictory statements saying last Friday that the Government has lost its mandate for leaving the Single Market and Customs Union whilst implying the opposite on Radio 4’s Today. However, the DUP wants to avoid a hard Irish border, a demand which appears incompatible with the Tory manifesto pledge to leave the EU customs union. Similarly, the Scottish Conservatives want an ‘open’ Brexit, which appears to conflict with the Tory manifesto pledge to leave the EU Single Market. The two, with 10 and 13 seats respectively, effectively could each veto a Hard Brexit. But let us not forget the newly emboldened, but hitherto pusillanimous, pro-European Tories. Under the new parliamentary arithmetic, a handful of them could also frustrate Hard Brexit.

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David Boyle

A Brexit thriller

By David Boyle | Wed 14th June 2017 - 10:25 am

Brexit may indeed mean Brexit, though that looks a little less certain these days. But what else does it mean?

To answer the question of meaning, you have to delve back into history, especially in a nation where Brussels assumed the peculiar position of Rome in the English psyche in centuries gone by.

But there are some truths that are not really communicable in the usual think-tank reports with an executive summary. Sometimes you have to fall back on fiction to help people understand parallels that are actually a good deal stranger. So I have.

I have become obsessed with understanding the significance of Brexit in this way, especially the parallels with the 1530s – when England went through a sudden withdrawal from mainstream Europe and a parallel selling off of the public service infrastructure (in this case, the monasteries) to the new rich.

I have always said that this was likely to be repeated – first as tragedy and then as farce, as they say – but had not expected it so soon, nor predicted the strange alliance of May and the hardline Ulster protestants who would seek to bring it about.

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Ben Andrew

Why Lib Dems should be proud

By Ben Andrew | Wed 14th June 2017 - 8:55 am

At Spring Conference last March, Tim Farron set the bar high – calling on us to replace Labour as the official opposition after the next election. With this in mind, I understand why some Lib Dem members may be angered by our performance last Thursday. It’s true that our national campaign failed to get off the ground, and that it added little value to our hard-fought local victories. But despite this, I think the party should be proud of how we fought hard, targeted well, and avoided a disastrous result.

We were never going to become a national force again on the back of a menu of carefully thought through policies on health, education and drug reform. With our Parliamentary team so diminished, we had no choice but to pile our chips against one defining issue, and hope that it would catch on. I think that we were right to make this cause our opposition to Brexit. Brexit is the biggest issue facing our country, our position on it is unique, and it is completely in line with our values as a party. It’s just unfortunate that when this snap election was called, opposing Brexit was not the main issue on voters’ minds. It’s been a year since the referendum, and leaving the EU hasn’t really affected most people’s lives at all. Compared with austerity and the decline of our public services, Brexit seemed like a side show. Corbyn’s vision was much more in line with the public mood – and he gained momentum at our expense.

It’s easy to blame the Lib Dems for not getting Brexit higher on people’s priority list, but there was only so much we could do. Parties with 9 MPs don’t get to shape the agenda. They can only respond to it, and capitalise on the public mood as much as possible to regain popularity. With the effects of Brexit still not being felt, it’s no surprise that most people were primarily concerned with other matters. 

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Beyond tribalism: why we now need a cross-party approach to Brexit

By Gordon Lynch | Tue 13th June 2017 - 7:32 pm

After last week’s General Election, we face arguably the most uncertain period of our post-war political history. As the clock ticks down to our exit from the EU on 29th March 2019, the question of how we conduct these negotiations effectively alongside the profound instability of our domestic politics remains unresolved.

Neither the Conservatives, nor Labour, have the strength to take the lead in this process by themselves. Labour, although performing much better than expected, has won too few seats to be able to act alone, and the Conservatives remain so divided over Europe that even a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP cannot hope to paper over the cracks.

Such is the tribalism of those parties, however, that the leadership of both still wrongly assume that they can only do this alone through some form of single-party minority government. This will not only lack credibility with voters at home and our negotiating partners in Europe, though, but threaten to deepen further the divisions in our country that the EU referendum has already opened up.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 29 Comments
John King

Referendums: an addendum to the conundrum

By John King | Tue 13th June 2017 - 3:40 pm

In my previous post I reviewed some of the problems associated with referendums, in particular the conundrum posed by the “once in a lifetime” proposition. It is no wonder that two of our previous Prime Ministers described them as un-British, and a tool for dictators and demagogues.

Here, as a break from all the election talk, I add a few more criticisms for good measure. But despite the shortcomings that referendums undoubtedly have, my conclusion remains the same: we still need another one. 

Chancy outcomes

Referendums can have perverse and unexpected consequences. To take a rather silly example, suppose the British Medical Association called a vote on whether flower remedies should replace the MMR vaccine. The BMA might think it was a sure win for the vaccine, which does a wonderful job of protecting our children. But in reality it would be an enormous gamble.

The problem here is that, just like the benefits of the EU, the benefits of the vaccine have been taken for granted for years. People have forgotten how serious illnesses like measles, mumps and rubella can be.

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Gove governing Defra is a bad move for the environment

By Andy Boddington | Mon 12th June 2017 - 7:47 pm

Michael Gove now oversees environmental policy, food, farming and fisheries. His arrival in the cabinet is part of Theresa May’s struggle to avert a leadership bid. More than ever, we need an independent government-backed assessor for the environment, biodiversity and wildlife.

Politically, we live in curious times with no certainty that the government will be stable or strong enough to survive the Brexit process. Theresa May has reappointed most of her pre-election cabinet, but she moved Andrea Leadsom from Defra to become Leader of the House of Commons. Michael Gove has been brought back to cabinet as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. We have gone from a barely noticed Defra Secretary to one that will crave attention by swinging a wrecking ball through environmental regulation.

Andrea Leadsom was a climate change sceptic and even asked Defra officials whether climate change is real. Apparently convinced by them that it was, she nevertheless supported shale gas extraction through fracking. She also backed foxhunting and selling off forests.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 16 Comments
Mark Argent

In the world of the Corbyn bounce

By Mark Argent | Mon 12th June 2017 - 6:28 pm

The unexpected is happening. In the wake of the late surge in support for Labour that wiped out Theresa May’s majority (and hit the Liberal Democrat vote), a new poll on 11 June shows Labour six points ahead of the Tories. Labour are reporting 15,000 new members in the first three days after the election.

On the doorsteps on polling day, and with friends since, the sense is that Labour under Corbyn have caught people’s imaginations. What does this mean for us?

My sense is that this is a problem because people’s imaginations have been caught by something unrealistic. If we now had a majority Labour government, disappointment would be around the corner, but for now, hopes are roused. There’s a parallel with Brexit being seen as a bright new future.

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Anna Pitcher

I was never mad at the Lib Dems and you shouldn’t be either

By Anna Pitcher | Mon 12th June 2017 - 5:00 pm

Going through my final exams during a general election was heart breaking. I wanted to canvass and I wanted to write, but the only thing I seemed to have time to get involved in were political debates with friends and family, and it always came back the same comment: If you’re a student, why would you vote for the Lib Dems?

I remember the day that Nick Clegg supposedly betrayed his younger voters well. I was studying for my GCSEs when a BBC news reporter announced that a video of Nick Clegg apologising had gone viral on the internet and, although I was planning on sending off a UCAS application in a couple of years, I wasn’t angry at the Lib Dems. Yet it seems that many still are.

Going to university isn’t a right granted to us when we are born and it would be unfair to expect those who haven’t attended to fund a student’s education, when they themselves could be paying taxes to the government and improve the quality of our public services. Unfortunately, not every career allows people to work their way up and requires a degree, but if that is the type of career we want, then it is fair that we take out a loan to fund ourselves and repay it when we have the funds to do so. The reason for this? Social mobility.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 24 Comments
Joe Otten

It could have been the economy, stupid

By Joe Otten | Mon 12th June 2017 - 3:26 pm

One of the strangest things about this last election was how little the economy featured. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, was unseen. The Conservatives didn’t bother to cost their manifesto. Nobody wanted to talk about the Brexit black hole – not even the Liberal Democrats much, I mean couldn’t we have promised to fund £60bn of spending by not leaving the EU? It would have made the point.

Why? Theresa May and her advisers never really understood the economy, only that it was something that the Conservatives generally get the credit for being sounder on with the larger part of the electorate, and that if you say nothing, you have more freedom of action after you have won your big majority.

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Posted in Op-eds | 11 Comments

The case for a Brexit of the four freedoms

By Contributor 2017 | Mon 12th June 2017 - 1:49 pm

The four freedoms of the EU are quintessentially Liberal in their values. The free movement of goods, capital, services, and labour, are four things that are integral to our diplomatic ties to Europe, our economic prosperity, and our staunchly internationalist principles. They are behind the core concept of the EU, the underlying beliefs of the EU, and the reason that many, even who voted Leave, acknowledge the economic benefits of the EU. They are also the things that I believe we should fight for, before all else.

As someone who lives in, campaigns in, and is quite attached to, my own Leave-voting county, I must admit that my feelings on the second referendum have been mixed throughout the campaign. Put simply, in many rural areas, however much good policy we have, thousands and thousands people who didn’t vote Lib Dem in 2015, and voted Leave, simply won’t consider it. I believe that a not insubstantial part of the reasoning for this is because of the second referendum promise.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 18 Comments
John Pugh

How we lost Southport

By John Pugh | Mon 12th June 2017 - 12:13 pm

Gut wrenching horrible was how it felt to be pushed into third place in a seat we have held for the last twenty years but by way of catharsis I would like to tell you good folks what I think happened.It would be good to have other tales of success and failure here.

The election took us as by surprise.Weeks before the Constituency Chair and I had decided that I would announce my retirement from Westminster after what we assumed would be good set of local election results. The snap election forced my hand. But we had ready a great alternative in Sue McGuire ,our council group leader with considerable profile in the town and a real record of action.

The campaign was much better and more high powered than any Southport campaign I have been previously associated with. Lots of help from outside (some incredible shifts put in), bigger canvassing teams, good literature, armies of stuffers, IT & Connect sophistication, bags of help from the national party and two leader’s visits. The pace was unrelenting; the output impressive. Neither the Labour nor the Tory candidate lived in Southport- a fact we sought to exploit. We lobbied at the school gates on education cuts and throughout the town on the dementia tax. Squeezes and switches galore. Other parties campaigns seemed modest in comparison.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 84 Comments
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