I am absolutely not feeling cheerful. I am gutted that my party has once again been drubbed at the ballot box, and the loss of Jo just 5 months into her leadership feels like a kick in the teeth. Watching her in this campaign I always felt that although it wasn’t her moment just yet, her moment would undoubtedly come. Now I just despair at the senselessness of it.
And Boris Johnson! There is a woman in an Iranian gaol because of his carelessness! What is it about this man and his continuous affairs and in-numerate children that the British public find so appealing? Now our post-trust PM has a government in his own image, having purged the party of people whose crime was to follow his own rebellious lead, only with principles.
But I want to be positive, and I do believe there are reasons to be positive. Even as a Liberal Democrat.
We can, and many people have, been hugely positive about our vote share. I think we forget that the post-coalition collapse in our vote happened only 4 years ago. That’s shorter than most parliaments.
Becoming the party of the 48% was a tantalizing prospect, a short cut back to the levels of support that we all longed for. But remain was a crowded market place and remainers proved fickle, and demographically difficult to translate into seats.
4% vote growth, fewer deposits lost, new close second places – all good things and hopefully signs of a longer term trend and recovery.
My next reason may well raise eyebrows, but hear me out. I am convinced that leaving the European Union is the best of the current options for the pro-European movement in this country.
Think back to 2014. There was no pro-European movement in this country. No European flags, no collective buy-in to the hugely successful peace project that we built together, only a distant, alien “them”. Five years later, there is almost a whole generation of enthusiastic European Brits who know that working together to solve big, big problems is an essential and excellent thing.
British Euroscepticism is 30 years in the brewing and deeply engrained. To frustrate Brexit now is to ensure it grows as the narrative of betrayal, of the big, bad, anti-democratic establishment continues to gather momentum. To leave and allow people to see either the pointlessness of a soft Brexit or the painfulness of a hard Brexit will see the potency of the nation’s Farages whither and hopefully withdraw. In the absence of the convenient Brussels-based bogeyman the pro-European teenagers will grow up unsullied, and we’ll be rejoining a reinvigorated EU in 20 years’ time.
Well, that’s where I am at the moment. Sad, filled with a sense of loss, but not without hope. If I haven’t lost all credibility in your eyes, dear reader, let me conclude with a quick plea of a party that is down but not out.
Please can we talk more about voting reform. Really put it front and center. One of the biggest drivers of Brexit was a feeling of disenfranchisement among those who don’t see themselves benefiting from immigration and globalisation. Let’s re-enfranchise them! Let’s see an end to tactical voting. Let’s never see a future Liberal leader dismissed for suggesting that he/she could be Prime Minister.
Don’t you see that without voting reform, we might as well just all go home? Let’s spend the next five years solidly, purposefully building a coalition for fair votes. Let’s speak to those whose votes didn’t count in this election. Let’s speak to all of those people who had to vote with their hands on their noses and a bad taste in their mouths. Let’s make a concrete plan, with concrete steps, and charismatic figureheads. Seeing this would really make me feel cheerful.
* Stephen Tilson is a Liberal Democrat member, currently living in Broxtowe.
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20 Comments
Please don’t let’s start talking about voting reform. We’ve banged on about that for the best part of a hundred years, and when we had the chance with the AV referendum we blew it. Political reform is part of what we are, but it is not something that is going to win back the support we have lost. We need to establish ourselves as the party for the environment; the party that fights for the least well off, in our society and in the rest of the world; the party that is truly democratic, as Revoke wasn’t; and the party that is moral and honest.
A party for the people ( and when you gain any power insist on reform not chauffeur driven cars ).
Revoke was sensible but it was sold wrong. It should have been mentioned quietly with peoples vote on top priority.We do have to talk about being a FUTURE Govnt,we are just in waiting. Aim for that and talk about it as a future plan. In the meantime still campaign for STV BUT get ALL opposition parties to UNIFY for it. Labour have lost 4 elections in a row.Do they wish to loose more? By unifying with others for STV they could be the largest party of a coalition. Before people moan about the’ C’ word remember that it is well used in Europe
Jo Swinson’s demise was ultimately mostly her own doing. The grasping at and giving to Johnson the GE which he wanted was suicidal. I don’t think she was a convincing leader and whilst I’m sorry she lost her seat – I hope we elect a more solid and less light weight figure in her place.
Jo just didn’t have time to learn the ropes, one of which is it’s sometimes better to do nothing. She was too eager less than 6 months into her leadership. But she has terrific ability and I hope she’s not lost to the party. The organised baying at her for Austerity by the Labour Party was truly pathetic. It was 9 years ago and she was part of the Coalition and had to accept it.
Tbh every time I try and be cheerful and move on, I involuntarily remember election night, then I’m disquieted again.
Another piece of good news is that we do seem to have been on an underlying, rising trend in the Polls for nearly 30 Months now. The downside is that its a very gentle rise, around 1% every 5 Months or 2.5% a Year. Its probable that the next General Election is 4 Years away or more.
The gains we made after May have now faded completely, as was always probable. Back in the 1980s we used to get excited about the Polling gains we got after Byelection Victories but they always faded too.
We are still in recovery from the Coalition Years & we need Time to get back to challenging the Big Parties.
The 1st step is to stop beating ourselves up.
Leaving the EU seems inevitable….and that may well spark a certain push back if (as seems certain) leaving the EU does not provide the expected benefits. BUT the party needs to be much more than JUST the party of Europhiles. We are probably about to find out life on the outside is NOT all doom and gloom even if it is not the golden future many leavers thought it would be. The EU is not the cause ,or solution of all the problems. Frankly once we are out, I fear a movement to go back because we would not get terms ANYWHERE near as good as we had. And I am not sure I would want to go back on different, worse terms. The EU argument is over…even if the debate goes on. The party needs to find a different USP…..
I share your disquiet, Yousuf, I feel sometimes like I’m grieving for my country as well as for our lost MP’s. Time heals, but this will take a long time.
Talk about voting reform when we have a tremendous campaign and our surge in support is short changed by an unfair system. Don’t bother when we have a risible campaign that fell well short of our hopes and expectations.
Honestly I am tiring of these “be cheerful” articles. If we saw the same from Labour we would be both amused and appalled at their complacency.
Nazanin Zaghani-Ratcliffe is in gaol solely because of the disgraceful behaviour of the Iranian Government. Don’t make cheap political points and let them off the hook.
“The organised baying at her for Austerity by the Labour Party was truly pathetic. It was 9 years ago and she was part of the Coalition and had to accept it.”
Swinson didn’t have to accept austerity. Other LibDem MPs had a backbone: Charles Kennedy, Sarah Teather, to name two. Then again, those who are in politics to improve people’s lives rather than as a career are always going to have a different approach.
GaryJ – Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is in jail LONGER than she would otherwise have been because the selfish, incompetent liar we have as a prime minister. This is not a “cheap political point”, its a fact. The Iranian government was not the UK foreign minister, our lying PM was.
Totally agree. I don’t think we explained our Revoke policy to people, I think we lost the battle for a referendum we could win when we didn’t pass the Kyle/Wilson ammendment. It had come down to a straight choice Revoke or Brexit. We will eventually become a fully integrated member of the EU that is if climate change doesn’t get us first
@nigel hunter “Revoke was sensible but it was sold wrong. It should have been mentioned quietly with peoples vote on top priority.We do have to talk about being a FUTURE Govnt,we are just in waiting.”
No. No. No. Revoke was a terrible policy. And allying it to a LibDem majority government made us look like fantasists as well as anti-democrats. I voted green as a protest against such a moronic policy – the first GE i haven’t voted LD in 22 years. If it lost my vote you can be sure it lost many less committed LD votes too.
We should be talking about voting reform in everything we do and say. If we meekly accept that Johnson has won a majority we are reinforcing the status quo and deserve to be continually side-lined. Johnson did NOT win a majority, (of votes), That needs to be continually thrown in the face of anyone who defends the current system. Of course, if and when Scotland and N Ireland leave the Union, this may become redundant as we in England and Wales will be faced with a perpetual Tory majority. There again, it could be even more important to give non-Tories a fair voice in such a situation.
British Governments recognised this in the past in N Ireland when they allowed Fair Votes or PR for N Irish local elections, and the Welsh Assembly, and European and the Scottish Parliaments.
Why must we have a Unfair Votes for Westminster?
Too many look to the past, blaming failure on past errors. Fatal Approach.. We have to learn from the past but we must look forward. We must seek out allies among the other parties in the area of Voting Reform. FPTF is a totally flawed system but the Tories will never abandon it as it will always be to their advantage. We must take the case for STV to the PUBLIC & clearly explain why it is infinitely better FOR THEM so that their views can be better expressed. Oh, two other things. Extend the Voting Franchise to 16 & 17 year olds & make voting Compulsory.
John Hall – “Why must we have a Unfair Votes for Westminster?” to continue the Tory-Lab duopoly of course, the one that ITV and the BBC loved some much this election.
“And Boris Johnson! There is a woman in an Iranian gaol because of his carelessness! ”
– oh please! That lady is in jail because of the Iranian authorities, so please don’t regurgitate the spin – it’s embarrassing…
“…no collective buy-in to the hugely successful peace project that we built together”
– er… NATO? war and genocide in the Balkans? Ukraine?
“…we built together”
‘we’… crikey, such self-aggrandisement….
When I read such cloying self-righteousness as this I know I can never go back to the libdems!
Strategically a reformed voting system is top priority and I therefore agree that we need to put this at the top of our agenda until achieved. We need to understand the real failure of the coalition; it was a strategic failure in that we went into governmnet when we should have had, what is termed a “confidence and supply agreement”. It may have been a tactical success but it was a strategic FAILURE! We lost a two generation chance to get a reformed voting system; that has now made life infinitely more difficulty, as witnessed on 13 December! Quite simply we should have supported the Tories IF they agreed to remove FPTP first, no ifs and no buts. Policical niavety and a lack of stategic thought has brought us very low indeed. It’s called politics, leverage etc. Wake up!