Liberalism seems to be going through an identity crisis. Within a few months, three very different thinkers have published books asking the same question: what has happened to Liberalism, and what would make it relevant again?
Adrian Wooldridge has given us Centrists of the World Unite!, David Howarth Being Liberal, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu What Happened to Liberal Democracy?
We are halfway through this parliament, barring Andy Burnham calling an early election. So it’s a good time to search our collective Liberal soul in a quest for clarity of purpose.
We have 72 MPs, our largest parliamentary party in a century, yet remarkably little influence over the national conversation. If people still struggle to say what Liberal Democrats are for, perhaps we haven’t told a sufficiently compelling story.
I approached Wooldridge’s Centrists with some scepticism. To me, “centrists” implies the mushy middle between left and right, administered by nice people who want to be everybody’s friend/tactical voting choice.
Fortunately, that isn’t Wooldridge’s Liberalism. His is restless and insurgent. Historically, Liberals challenged aristocratic privilege, monopolies and inherited hierarchies. His complaint is that this bold tradition became associated instead with a cautious, managerial establishment.
His challenge is worth hearing. We are good at being reasonable, evidence-led and practical. But competence is not a destination. Liberalism should feel radical.
David Howarth’s Being Liberal explores the Liberal disposition: open-minded, suspicious of abuses of power, uncomfortable with hierarchy, treating people as individuals rather than categories, and accepting that reasonable people can disagree.
It captures something policy programmes miss. Liberalism isn’t only about what government does. It is about how we treat other people – and how we behave when given power ourselves.
Daron Acemoglu starts with people’s economic lives. Liberal democracy prospered when political freedom went alongside rising living standards, decent jobs, public services and increasing political voice. That bargain has broken down as wealth and power have concentrated.
His answer is “working-class Liberalism”: good jobs, stronger communities, functioning public services and meaningful power for ordinary people.
As it turns out, I had been wrestling with many of the same questions over the summer recess. I have been writing an essay about Liberalism for the 21st century, shortly to be published by Compass.
My starting point was power.
As Wooldridge points out, Liberals have always been suspicious of too much power in too few hands. The gross imbalance of power vs powerlessness in this country is as bad as it’s ever been, and the far right is finding rich pickings amongst the powerless.
Look at Britain and you see everywhere the consequences of lack of power where it is needed. Decisions move upwards and away from the people affected by them. Wealth drains out of communities. Councils are told what to deliver without the money or freedom to do it. People are “consulted” after important decisions have effectively been made.
The Liberal answer should be clear: disperse power.
Put more of it into the hands of people and communities. If a community wants to save its pub, generate its own energy, restore its river, build the homes local families need or decide how public money is spent, government should help it happen, not make people fight through a maze of permissions.
Give councils freedom to solve local problems. Give workers more say in their workplaces. Take on monopolies that leave customers with no real choice. And make sure poorer communities get the money and support to exercise power too.
That doesn’t mean a weak state. National government must guarantee decent healthcare, education and security wherever you live, and stand up to corporate power that no community could confront alone.
Protect people nationally. Trust them locally.
And Liberals should fight for the freedom of those who come after us. People flourish in communities; communities flourish in places; and all depend on a healthy natural world. A generation that exhausts soils, destabilises the climate and destroys nature is exercising enormous power over people who have no vote in the matter.
This crop of books reminds us that almost every great political struggle of our age comes back to the same question: who has power, and who doesn’t?
Wooldridge asks us to rediscover Liberalism’s radicalism. Howarth its humanity. Acemoglu its commitment to putting power back into ordinary people’s hands.
I agree with all three. But I would go further.
The populist’s offer is seductive: give me power and I will protect you.
The Liberal offer is fundamentally different: people with more power over their lives, their work and the places they call home. The power to challenge an institution that isn’t listening, protect a place they love, or join with their neighbours and change things for the better.
Our promise should be:
We don’t want power so we can run your life. We want power in order to give it back to you.
That is not the mushy middle. It is a direct challenge to a country in which too much power has been held by too few people for too long.
The populists want people to look upwards for a saviour. Liberals should ask them to look around – at each other, their communities, and what they could achieve with the power to act.
Now that is a Liberalism worth getting excited about.
* Roz Savage is the Liberal Democrat MP for South Cotswolds. She spoke in Westminster Hall on first-past-the-post on 24 June 2026, and is working on a paper for Compass with a working title of "Power Back to the People: The Future of Liberalism in the Twenty-First Century (2026)".
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30 Comments
“Liberals have always been suspicious of too much power in too few hands.”
*looks at direction of travel of internal party mechanisms the last five years *
*looks meaningfully at camera *
Yes, internal mechanisms of the party has to SELL RADICAL Liberalism to, 1st the party, and then the people.One way could be to get rid of both central planning AND the new Mayors having the power to build houses THAT SUITS THE DEVELOPERS AND NOT THE NEEDS OF THE COMMUNITY. It is the people at ground level that KNOW what is needed most. The internal mechanisms of the party have to change to show we are not just another party controlled at the centre of its organisation.
This is very good indeed. Excellent thinking to promote proper liberalism.
“ The Liberal offer is fundamentally different: people with more power over their lives, their work and the places they call home”
I agree with this but, in itself, it is insufficient.
For example, if the government wishes to house 1000 young male asylum seekers in a former military barracks beside a village of just 300 people, do we really believe the villagers should have the power to decide that the proposal should not go ahead? If not, any words about giving people power over their lives and the places they call home is empty rhetoric.
We have to be able to show that we would genuinely give power to people over their lives and the places they live by being able to illustrate with practical examples of how those powers could be exercised in practice. That will be a credible position.
Excellent article. The line “That doesn’t mean a weak state.” could usefully be fleshed out a little more in a future article. Exactly which powers should be exercised internationally, nationally and locally and why? Subsidiarity anyone?
Liberalism hasn’t changed. Sadly too many who purport to be liberal have become illiberal.
The challenge of empowering local communities/councils etc is not that this will allow the house building or wind farms or railway lines that we need – they will be even harder to build. I don’t see many local councils demanding the power to build more houses or more power generation infrastructure I see them seeking the powers to stop them. How many Focus leaflets campaign for ‘more housing in my ward please’ This is the fundamental conundrum of localism – how we stop that becoming nimbyism in the name of conservation and adhering to the (nearly always oppositional) results of local consultation.
Roz, I can’t think of anything you ever write that I don’t heartily agree with, frequently in letter and always in spirit. We’ve started (literally just started) putting things up on North Tyneside LD social media called ‘I’m a liberal because….’. Each post is a picture of a local party member with a few of their own words about why they are a Liberal Democrat. We are hoping that it connects voters, perhaps slowly, with who we are philosophically in an accessible way
@jennie ““Liberals have always been suspicious of too much power in too few hands.”
*looks at direction of travel of internal party mechanisms the last five years *
*looks meaningfully at camera *”
72 MPs, highest number for 100 years. You seem to be making the case for more centralisation ( which I am not sure there has been anyway)
This is the clearest statement of the case I have read in a while, and “competence is not a destination” is the line worth repeating.
One worked example from behind the counter: after rent, a shopkeeper’s biggest cost is business rates, set by a national formula, on a national timetable, with reliefs announced in a Budget they hear about on the news. The answer is not shopkeepers setting their own taxes, but giving the lever to the local council, which actually wants its high street to prosper, the empty units filled and life brought back to the town centre. Give councils a real stake in their high streets doing well and dispersing power stops being abstract.
Well said:
“David Howarth’s Being Liberal explores the Liberal disposition: open-minded, suspicious of abuses of power, uncomfortable with hierarchy, treating people as individuals rather than categories, and accepting that reasonable people can disagree.”
The party only needs to look to its south west London strongholds to see why liberalism is failing in the UK
British politics since the 2008 crash has been a contest between establishment Governments and insurgent opponents. The Tory and Labour establishment parties have accepted the status quo, tinkered around its edges, and presided over national decline. The insurgents – first the Brexiteers, now Reform and the Greens – have promised radical change, and won a lot of support, but have embraced fantasy economic policies which will never work.
The Lib Dem “identity crisis” is that the LDs can’t decide whether to be an establishment party or an insurgent party. Emotionally they would like to be insurgents, pragmatically they are an establishment party (and to be fair, their refusal to embrace fantasy economics is part of the rationale for that). The public see the LDs as part of the establishment, and probably as a particularly unimaginative party.
“Giving power back to people” is not going to change that, unless and until it can be turned into practical proposals that people can believe in. Does it mean nimbyism, with local people everywhere demanding that asylum seekers, housing developments and datacentres are put somewhere else? Or does it mean taming our oppressors – taxing Amazon, stopping the tech companies harming their users, and keeping sewage out of rivers? If so, it doesn’t mean more local democracy. It means a stronger State.
The way the party runs itself is hardly an exemplar for putting our values into practice, is it? Nor evidence that senior people in the party have much interest in or inclination to do so. Devolving power, trusting people to do the right thing, and treating everyone as an individual rather than a category can be difficult stuff to achieve – if we can’t achieve it inside the party (we even categorise people for our internal elections as a precursor to discriminating based on those same categories) then I see very little hope that our MPs are going to achieve much change at Westminster whether we get 172 MPs next time or just 7.
While I agree with every word, I am at the same time, more than a little discombobulated. If we believe all this fine “power to the people” stuff, then isn’t it time we started acting ot out ? “Too much power in too few hands “, perhaps we could discourgae LD councillors from sitting on 5 councils (County, Borough and 3 Parish) at the same time ? Sounds like a concentration of power to me.
“stopping the tech companies harming their users” which should mean regulating the tech companies not the users, i.e. forcing the companies to change their business model. It means enforcing existing data protection law, compelling transparency of algorithms and compelling interoperability between platforms. Not user bans backed up by state-mandated age verification systems.
Don’t be distracted by the performative opposition of Big Tech to social media bans. The snake-oil online age verification systems that enforce the bans (and which governments seem reluctant to regulate) are also part of Big Tech. The tech companies are good at playing both sides and are jumping at the opportunities that this mandated online surveillance law gives to collect even more data about users, of all ages.
Incidentally France’s supreme court has blocked its proposed under-15 social media ban because it infringes fundamental rights.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/14/french-court-blocks-macron-social-media-ban-under-15s
I expect other courts in free countries (and the ECtHR) would follow similar reasoning. This is something that lawmakers are rushing to do without thinking through the consequences, because it “feels like” it’s doing something, but will have the opposite effect to that which is intended.
@David Allen
Absolutely agreed. Incremental changes, fully-costed policies, a focus on “competence” as opposed to “ideology”. It’s not necessarily a bad offer – at other times in Britain’s history it would likely have worked well – but it can only ever appeal to the people who think things are going fairly well already and don’t need a massive shakeup … and there are fewer of those about than there used to be.
But if you identify the entrenched power of major corporations (big tech, privatised monopolies, etc.) as the real problem for personal freedoms (and I think you’re generally correct!) … you’re then competing directly on the Green’s ground, and you need to explain *very* well – and without the LD tendency to hedge and say it’s complicated and so lower expectations before you even start – how you’ll tame major corporations without engaging in the “fantasy economics” of abolishing capitalism itself.
Good article, I very much agree on the headings. Thus, I also believe we are not mushy thinkers. We are poor, mushy communicators?
That elusive slogan that will say, who, what we are. “Giving power back to people”?? Or has it been used before?
Abolishing capitalism is a non-starter. That doesn’t stop us from campaigning against the follies and oppressions of unacceptable forms of capitalism and learning from countries who have found better ways of balancing the interests of people, governments and economic goals.
@cim
Good post. I guess what we’re both identifying is that neither an “establishment” nor an “insurgent” position is good enough. The trick must be to produce proposals for a better Britain that are radical enough to enthuse the discontented public, but also financially and administratively sound enough to gain endorsement from respected “establishment” bodies such as IFS and Resolution Foundation.
So “Giving power back to people” might be transmuted into “Listen to people, understand their problems, but then engage competent professionals to devise and implement solutions through strong State institutions.”
That makes a start – But it’s still rather waffly and theoretical, and it still begs the question of how do you ensure that the State really listens to people, rather than carry on just cosying up to powerful lobbyists.
Burnham has begun with some good baby steps. Posing as the champion of “power to the people”, and making challenging commitments to live up to, does make a good start. Will it be enough?
Some sort of formal “listening” mechanism would also help – perhaps a randomly selected review chamber to debate contentious issues and then engage with Cabinet. Alongside some practical “quick wins”. Like banning arms for Israel.
Roz: This is exactly what we need to get us all thinking. I would add that we need to rethink our approach to political economy. Liberal democracy is easiest to maintain when companies are small and local (or even cooperatively run) and wealth widely spread. Our global economy (and global financial markets) have left many people working for distant multinationals, finding their employers bought out by private equity, or simply redundant due to rapidly-changing technology (and Chinese export supremacy). So how to we re-establish an equitable and sustainable balance between local communities, state and market in these transformed conditions?
@ William Wallace William, what’s happened to the party’s old policy of partnership and co-ownership ? If I remember correctly, our mutual friend Donald Wade used to be on the board of the John Lewis partnership, and of course the late Theodore Taylor was a pioneer in Batley/Birstall.
Excellent piece. I really like the “I’m a Liberal because…” idea, and will prod my local association along just those lines.
@David Allen
I think the key – for electoral communications, at least – is to skip the description of the process entirely and go straight to the outcome. You’ve listened to people, you’ve understood their problems, you’ve engaged the finest experts you can afford designing a Liberal solution, all good stuff … but up to this point you still haven’t done a single thing which will improve anyone’s life. Do all that – none of which requires legislation or a single elected official – and then campaign directly on the plan it reveals.
If you want actual “power to the people” policies to incorporate, then I think the place to campaign on is not the processes by which people might exercise that power (important, but details in the grand scheme of things, and people will make their own process if there isn’t a pre-built one), but on rebalancing society so that more people (especially of working/caring age) have the capacity to participate effectively without feeling they’re putting their basic livelihood, family or health at risk to do so. (which goes right back to the whole Liberal preamble aim – it just needs taking more literally)
Good article, Roz. I hope that in your essay you will flesh out what you mean by ‘communities’. It’s a neat word for Lib Dems to use, but part of the party’s problem is that a lot of people don’t identify with local councillors and local government any more than they do with national government. My own take on the problem (I published a book on the history of Liberalism last year) is that it’s not enough to favour a dispersal of power in principle. Lib Dems need to be more effective in showing why attacks on particular over-mighty vested interests are feasible and beneficial. They need to find a good cause, a specific target, which can cut through to people and also symbolise their broader philosophy of dispersing power. At the moment their main target is Europe, which is right, but hardly indicates to most people that they are in favour of bringing power nearer to the person in the street.
Actually what is really needed is fearless politicians, unafraid to make difficult decisions. What we have seen over many years is vacillation and u-turns. In this respect annual council elections don’t help. If you have a four year term, then you can get difficult decisions about of the way early and then focus on the nice ones. Many years ago, my council was faced with the need to find money for services. Free transport to school was available for all children whom lived more than 2 miles from the school, but the statutory provision was only for 3 miles. So immediately after the election, knowing we had 2 years until the next one, we made the change that didn’t affect families already in the transport system, but only future ones. By the time of the next election it was all forgotten.
Yes, you need a stronger state, whether local, regional or national, but it will not make any difference at all without powerful politicians who are willing to upset some people for the benefit of the many, instead of avoiding action or backing down in the face of noisy, but generally minority opposition.
@cim
Yes, we’re both struggling to get beyond the waffle, to “do a single thing which will improve anyone’s life”, rather than just theorising about “processes by which people might exercise power”. Set “specific targets” (Jonathan Parry’s phrase), achieved by “fearless politicians” (Mick Taylor’s phrase).
If you are Burnham, the upside is that you can quickly improve someone’s life by cutting £1 off their bus fare, a credible quick win. The downside is when people expect you to achieve bigger things, like eradicating rough sleeping or making Amazon pay their taxes, and people then pillory you when you don’t succeed.
If on the other hand you are Ed Davey, you are not going to win much support if you declaim “A Lib Dem vote means £1 off your bus fare!” You will get better headlines if you promise to make Amazon pay their taxes, but you will also face criticism along the lines of “you’re only saying that because you’re not in government, and you don’t have a viable plan that will actually work”.
Difficult, isn’t it?
The best “specific targets” might be termed “toddler steps”! That is to say, targets that are a bit tougher then Burnham’s “baby steps”, but not so tough that they will be dismissed as implausible. (Still hard, of course).
“Suggest some flipping examples, then!” OK, here goes:
Stop arming Israel.
Credible plans for more housing for rent, built for a government body.
Compensate all the subpostmasters.
Renationalise water.
My late wife always held staunchly by the maxim :- In life maintain moderation in all things. Having read the above I feel that is true Liberalism.
@David Allen
“but you will also face criticism along the lines of …”
Yes. The requirement is to ignore that criticism and promise to do it anyway. If you want to fight entrenched power, then supporters of that power are going to criticise your approach as unrealistic, fantasy economics, not practical to implement, etc. etc. whether or not that’s actually true.
The moment you start worrying about whether your Liberal plan to end poverty, ignorance and conformity will be considered “sensible” and “acceptable” by the same established powers which create and benefit from poverty, ignorance and conformity, you’ve constrained yourself massively.
Your specific four examples are good, but “make Amazon pay its taxes” should absolutely be on that list too. Maybe you won’t succeed. Maybe in the end you’ll only get a little bit more tax revenue out of them rather than their actual fair share. But if you’re not even suggesting that you’ll try? Sure, if you try and fail, you’ll get criticism from the people who hoped you’d succeed and voted for you (though not necessarily lose their votes, if you can show you’re still trying and getting somewhere). But if you don’t even suggest you’ll try, they’ll just vote for someone else in the first place.
@cim,
Largely agree. Having an agenda which people will rally behind must come first.
Yes, the Right will always claim that LD plans are fantasy economics. But if the IFS agree with the claims, or if Burnham can say “we share your aims but we’ll do something more practical to solve the problem”, then LDs do risk losing credibility, and hence agency.
There are ways and means to make viable promises, as indeed your final paragraph indicates. Don’t say “We’ll make Amazon pay all its taxes.” Do say “We’ll take action against tax dodgers like Amazon and make them pay a fairer share.” Tax specialists should be able to put flesh on those bones. So you can then show both that you are being realistic, and that you are truly trying your best.
Ultimately, what matters is Mick Taylor’s point about “fearless politicians”. Between us, the OP and the below-the-line commenters have outlined the mechanics of how a social-liberal party can successfully “have a future”. Then, it’s for an effective party leader to pick up the ball and run with it.
Who will do that? Davey? Or might Burnham get there first?
Liberalism as Mission? Fair Votes? Dispersing Power?
Campaigns may be viewed as: Mission, Messages, Media.
Example: Reform UK Ltd will deliver an authoritarian, neo-liberal government in the UK, or plausibly fake an attempt. Key messages will be Immigration, Othering benefit claimants, Empire 2.0, Deregulation, Keeping close to Trump, Net Stupid Zero, They Look Down on You, and Woke Libtards. Media will be mainly funded and includes client media, corporate media, earned media, browbeaten BBC, astro-turf social media, useful idiot social media, Russian amplified memes, Twitter reality distortion field, and any others that come to hand. Competent volunteer media are not required.
It is left as an exercise for the student to work out a Mission, Messages, Media sequence for the Lib Dems. Bonus marks will be awarded for including social democracy.
Josh tripling the social media team is a start. But we are behind the curve.