It’s that time on the day after an election where you know it’s not long until you can go to sleep. Your feet ache. Your eyelids feel like they are about to slam shut any second and there’s nothing you can do about it. When I’ve finished writing this, I’m going to have a glass of wine, something to eat and go to bed.
We would have liked Rallings and Thrasher’s predication of gains to be right. After all these years of traumatic election nights during the Coalition years, we just wanted to catch a break. We didn’t want to be losing people. For every one of the seats that we lost, a team has been working its backside off for months and has seen its dreams shattered. The number we’ve lost is relatively small, certainly compared to previous years, but every one is painful. It equally hurts when you come close to making a gain but don’t pull it off. Spare a thought for poor Daniel Coleman who lost out in the Strathmartine ward in Dundee by just 9 votes. Behind every result is a long series of nights door-knocking in the freezing cold, of weekends given up to leafletting, of all your free time being taken up with casework.
Now, though, there is a lot of good news. We have had some great results that bode well for our short term objective of a decent performance in the General Election. On the basis of today’s results, at least 6 seats in Scotland are most definitely in play – and then you look at places south of the border like St Albans, Lewes, Eastbourne, Eastleigh, Bath, Cheltenham. There is direct, recent evidence that we are the main challengers in these seats. In Edinburgh West, North East Fife, Argyll and Bute, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, Ross Skye and Lochaber and East Dunbartonshire, we can confidently say that we are the main challengers to the SNP.
One of the advantages, if you can call it that, is that Theresa May can’t pretend any more that there is the slightest possibility of Jeremy Corbyn hanging pictures of Che Guevara all over Number 10. We all know she is going to be the PM on 9th June. We just need to make sure that Parliament has the chance to exercise its authority and stop her from doing things that are clearly not in the national interest like drag us out of the single market. There needs to be some sort of safety mechanism that can get out out of their hard brexit once it becomes obvious what a disaster it is going to be. The people must be allowed to vote on the deal and remain if they so wish.
A national vote share of 18% is not to be sneezed at, either. If that is our base at the beginning of the campaign, and we go up during it, we could do pretty well – as long as we discipline ourselves on the targeting front.
The best thing our 101,000 strong army can do is mobilise itself in the places that we are fighting to win. You don’t have to physically go there, but do phone or send money. If you can go, though. you will have great fun.
The next five weeks of my life will be about getting Christine Jardine elected in Edinburgh West – with the occasional foray into East Dunbartonshire for Jo Swinson or Ross, Skye and Lochaber for Jean Davis. Where will you be going?
The #libdemfightback is very much on based on today’s results, even if it is patchy in places.
It’s also not just about winning. For the first time in ten years, the newly reformed West Lothian Liberal Democrats stood a candidate in each ward. None of us got elected, but we took 1600 votes and my vote doubled from last time. We put in some respectable performances given the resources available to us. We delivered leaflets, we took part in hustings (and were praised for our contributions) and submitted articles in the local press so people knew what we stood for. I was so proud of our team. This is a small step forward. Now we must work out how to put ourselves in a winning position in the next election. It feels good to have an enthusiastic team of people locally.
And as a reminder that most people you find in politics are there for the right reasons, I was particularly moved by a local Labour councillor, a modest man, who hadn’t expected re-election, speak very eloquently and sincerely about how much it meant to him to represent the people in the place he grew up, and talk about his aunt who had been there when he had been first elected 5 years ago. She died last September.
Elections are about human beings. It’s not just numbers on a bar chart. The more we remember that, the better the atmosphere in our politics will be and that will come across to the people.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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68 Comments
Thanks Caron. It is really good to hear stories such as your West Lothian scenario. It would be so good to hear about more such stories from around the country, I am sure there are many similar narratives to tell. Re-sowing seeds in land that we have left fallow for a long time ,is a significant part of the journey too, not least because it encourages others to do the same.
We been nearly destroyed Northants, so trying to see a reason to be cheerful
@Caron “The people must be allowed to vote on the deal and remain if they so wish.”
No absolutely not. That is having a rerun which is unacceptable. A vote to accept the deal or leave without one is fine. But to have another vote which could overturn the first one would be saying that a vote that was supposed to be final and settle the issue is not final after all, that’s an affront to democracy and will damage the party at the general election.
More positive than negative. We lost seats, but we’re not the main story – Labour and UKIP are. 18% is very promising – if we got that in the general it’d be great. There are enough ‘micro-victories’ in important places to suggest that we can make some gains all around the country. The South-West is an issue, but at least we now have a good argument for Labour and sensible Tories: you can’t afford not to vote for us. The ‘Vote Tory get UKIP’ argument could be effective. I think 20-30 seats would be a good result – not as good as we might dream of, but we’ve got to think in terms of a two election strategy; get the credibility and the air-time first, use that as a base for 2023.
Here in Montgomeryshire we gained one and lost one. The worst moment was missing a gain in Welshpool by 17 votes. A day off tomorrow for some, but not all, of us then a campaign team meeting on Sunday. More deliveries and canvassing next week.
Very fine little piece of encouragement from Caron.
A fight back is gradual. This one needs to include a belief in more than fighting Brexit.
We have been far too slow at presenting policies related to all those issues on which we are very strong.
Tim needs to lead in the way and direction he can.
The path of reason and moderation , but also of exciting solutions to bigger problems than Brexit.
As someone who really doesn’t want to see the Tories win a landslide I do wonder if Labour and the Lib Dems should bury the hatchet for this one election and run on a temporary anti Brexit ticket. Not to create a coalition of Labour and the Lib Dems at the end but to ensure as many Lib Dem and Labour politicians get elected as possible. Imagine waking up the night after the GE to see the Tories struggle to get a majority and the Lib Dems return 50+ MPs? Would a temporary alliance be sooo bad?
Alliance won’t happen and shouldn’t really.
1 corbyn and his followers can’t do it.
2 it feeds the coalition of chaos narrative
3 we need labour votes.
Ultimately if labour and lib dems are even in number the Tories win every time in fptp. We should not be here for an alliance, we need to delete labour and replace them.
Also for the first time for a long time we have room to breath in the centre. We must IMO not feed into the left right narrative and instead we need to get people to buy into the left right and centre. We can be our own thing rather than reasonable Tory or moderate labour.
As for the fight back, I too would love and will fight for a lib surge come June 8 the but if it has to be a fight back over several cycles so be it. Most important thing is we move forward as much as we can and keep rebuilding.
I am more hopeful now than this morning 🙂
The party lost a net 41 seats.
Since the Lib Dem share of the vote went up, where Lib Dems were against Conservatives, the Conservative vote must have gone up more than the Lib Dems for the Lib Dems to have so many loses rather than the anticipated gains.
Anyone got some analysis of this?
David Evershed: UKIP voters coming back home. We’ll struggle in former strongholds where UKIP were strong, but not elsewhere
David – yes the Tory vote went up because of the transfer from UKIP. In some places that simply meant bigger Tory majorities. In some places it meant we lost seats.
Mrs May’s upcoming election victory is dependent upon voters who previously supported UKIP, and she will undoubtedly look to pursue an agenda that will be UKIP-voter friendly to keep them onboard. A case of “UKIP is dead – long live UKIP”. The Lib Dems might gain some electoral traction by presenting a vote for the Lib Dems as a vote for an authentic voice in opposition to an illiberal “UKIP-lite” government.
Then Libdem need some radical, innovative policies to support their pro-EU stance.
For example, when talking about building 300k houses a year, Libdem should also declare that “we will push for the use of prefabrication technology and modular housing construction to speed up the progress”. Frankly, prefab tech, which is very popular in Europe, could make the 300k target a joke.
Next, for NHS, you must agree that NHS is overemployed in various tasks (5th largest employer in the world) and underemployed in others. So, besides investments in medical technology and core healthcare, Libdem could also promise to invest in IT and automation technology to increase efficiency, by having peripheral tasks such as paperwork, data processing, cleaning and sterilizing automated.
Sorry, but I can’t see anything positive in the result….
Our main (Only) strategy seemed to have been, “Labour are useless, give us your vote”..Well that didn’t work out too well, did it?
Even in Labour strongholds the only winners were the Tory party…It is no use using the ‘UKIP voters switched’ as an excuse…ex UKIP voters will NEVER vote for a pro EU party…
In 5 weeks time I believe that our current MPs may well be safe but finding even 10 extra seats will be a challenge (my forecast is 14 total)…May is, as they say, “On a roll” (aided by LibDems who were ‘proud’ not to indicate a second preference)…
In 1997 the Blair landslide was a forgone conclusion; so is this…
Really disappointed about Cornwall, perhaps its healthy to have a reality check. It makes me root even more for Andrew George in St Ives, but I’m in no doubt as to the task ahead. Shame the websites for LibDems in Cornwall are out of date – this is the 21st century – we need to reach out electronically more, younger voters are almost certainly looking for a fresh message.
@ “David Evershed 6th May ’17 – 3:18am
The party lost a net 41 seats.
Since the Lib Dem share of the vote went up, where Lib Dems were against Conservatives, the Conservative vote must have gone up more than the Lib Dems for the Lib Dems to have so many loses rather than the anticipated gains.
Anyone got some analysis of this?”
I’ve got an analysis for you, it’s the same as I wrote on the open thread. Supporting a referendum that could overturn the results of the first one will possibly increase your share of the vote and spread your support out more evenly and hence lose you seats.
Here is the rationale simplified supposing every constituency voted 52/48 to leave. Now suppose that a third of the previous lib dem vote was people who voted leave and a quarter of previous lib dem voters find asking the question again to be unacceptable. Also suppose that the policy to have a second referendum adds 4% to the lib dem vote nationally.
Nationally you lose a quarter of 8% and gain 4% so your share of the vote goes up, or (8% / 0.75) + 4% = 10%. But in an area where you guys were strong you lose seats for example (40% / 0.75) + 4% = 34%. So a seat that would probably be won becomes a seat that is probably lost under FPTP.
The percentages are hypothetical but the gist of what I’m saying is:
1. Campaigning for another referendum is gaining you europhile votes and losing you previous lib dem voters who voted leave.
2. Previous lib dem votes are spread way less evenly than remain in the EU votes (there are constituencies where > 30% voted lib dem and constituencies that voted < 3% lib dem so there difference between the distribution of lib dem votes is greater than 10 to 1. But the difference between the most pro eu and pro Brexit constituencies is probably about 4 to 1). Under FPTP a party with a large share of the vote wants that spread fairly evenly and they will win almost everywhere. But under FPTP a party with a small share of the vote needs that spread unevenly or they won't win anywhere.
A 100,000 plus members, a political infrastructure much weakened since 2010 but still a force to be reckoned with, a way of campaigning on the ground that remains very effective, a leader who is refreshingly able to relate to ordinary people, and one public figure who the public think is wise and who they are willing to listen to. And another who ha a reputation for caring.
OK, so what do we do with this ‘force’? There is only one issue? the vast majority of the electorate want out of the EU or want Parliament to deliver the will of the public as expressed in the referendum (however narrow its result).
What then is the key aspect of that issue for us? Explaining that there is a safe way of leaving and a dangerous way of leaving.
Explaining the dangers, suggesting the opportunities and the safe way through the maze.
no more mention of a second referendum. no more Clegg. Bring on Cable and perhaps Lamb to join the folksiness of Farron. give them the platform to describe Brexit within the single market, within the community, the economic community of Europe that belonging to the EEA affords. Economic and not political union.
Be serious. That is what Cable can provide. Be careful, that is what Lamb represents. Be a neighbour, that is what Tim is, that is what all our candidates are. Neighbours you can rely on in a pinch. And people whose advice you listen to.
We need to make this election very technical, very practical. We have to talk about the big step the country is about to make – not to argue that we shouldn’t make the step, but to get people really to think about its difficulties.
People have confidence in May but I am not sure that applies to her colleagues. They look lunes. We need to beef up her team with some really good Lib Dems. That is not beefing up the Tories, but it is providing skills, competences, safe hands in the public interest as we set off on this very dangerous but vital path.
Opposition is not what people want. It is the wrong message. People want reassurance , that there are some good people in Parliament contributing positively to public safety.
There are just two lessons to learn. Making gains off the Tories is difficult when their vote goes up by more than ours. And there aren’t (yet) enough people wanting to stop Brexit to top the poll in very many seats.
Consequently we need to start taking about something else. Top marks for today’s NHS policy launch, which shows up Labour for being all talk and no action (or money) when it comes to delivering on health.
And we need to re-target towards seats where Labour is vulnerable.
@David Pocock
‘2 it feeds the coalition of chaos narrative’
Is the fact that the Tories are flagging this issue maybe an indication that this is what they fear the most.
I’d like to concur with the final point, that behind every election are real people. I would further that behind every constituency is a real community. Increasing our share of the vote by and large but losing individual seats is what happened in 2010 on the back of Clegg-mania. We need to be a lot smarter if we are to translate a gain in the share of the vote to more seats, so long as representation isn’t proportional.
Great a major policy announcement today, income tax, whether you agree or you do not it is something simple to understand, people will recognise it, again whether or not they agree or disagree with it. If we had made this statement 2 weeks ago it may have impacted, it may not. Anyway that is history. More of these sort of announcement this week please, one a day would be great. Seizes the headlines, that is what we need,
@Bill le Breton
‘OK, so what do we do with this ‘force’?’
Rough figures!
2 voters per household.
One LibDem face per patch of 250 households. Delivering, Chatting. Engaging. Understanding. Liaising. Informing. Influencing.
20 faces per ward.
7 wards per constituency.
650 Constituencies.
Total 91000
We just need to engage. Person to person.
Agree great policy move today we need more of this.
But why does Libdem put 1 penny tax on all people? Progressive taxation would be better, wouldn’t it?
Caron’s article is soothing but very realistic – just what was needed. I also like Samuel’s solace of “micro-victories” in a few places where they are really required for June 8.
Personally I feel like I am in some kind of hideous 1980s’ time warp. My ten year old is obsessed with snooker and listening to Madness and some satanic political power is making me relive the 1983 election campaign in real time.
Help!
P.J. sure. But the message – what is the message? At the moment the message is “deep down we think you made a stupid decision, were so dim you were tricked by cha** latans.”
So maybe 1 in 13 of those we engage with slap us on the back, the rest we insult.
If we don’t change the message we shall keep getting the same numerical support but in an election with a 65-70% turn out.
Ruth you want to be soothed??? It is far worse than 1983 . I think your son should turn up the volume – it is obviously not LOUD enough
Bill – Well of course I was a mere child (!) in 1983 so perhaps I have it wrong. All is not lost yet and the solution is certainly not to “boost” Tim with too many appearances from some of our less charismatic MPs.
Charisma? Oh no … have you read this very good piece from Harvard https://hbr.org/2017/04/if-humble-people-make-the-best-leaders-why-do-we-fall-for-charismatic-narcissists
I really am not sure that we are fully understanding the psychology of what is happening ‘out there’ and you can’t win campaigns without getting inside people’s heads.
We have to accept that our comms strategy to date has not worked. Do we just plough on? But shout it louder?
(You once told me the dates you were at LSE, I seem to remember)
What has not been mentioned (or, perhaps, I missed it) is the fact that during the coalition years we lost not only MPs and MEPs but hundreds of hard working, visible local councillors….Their loss may have had a knock-on effect for Thursday’s result but, to actually end up with even fewer councillors?????
Here in Yeovil parliamentary constituency we won 6/11 wards on Thursday getting slightly more votes overall than the Tories.
We obviously need to try a lot harder to reverse the trend, expats. Lib Dem vote shares are going up, but the Tories vote share is going up faster.
Mike did you have a better GOTV than the Tories?
@Bill le Breton
The massage is that we are real people who have time for them. Not just politicians ‘in it for themselves’ We don’t just disappear after election day. The message very much dependent on who you are talking to and the empathy you have manged to establish. It depends on the constituency make up. It depends on the amount of time they are prepared to give you. If I get a chance, my message to a certain patch these day is about not trusting the Tories. ‘They’ll lead us up the the garden path, get what they want and leave us with the bill.’ If I get a chance I’ll explain the logic of letting them have a say when all the facts are known. Many people do not like the Tories and they themselves have tried to airbrush the party out of their pitch, preferring to get people to vote for T.M. We remind them (subtly) that they are voting for the Tories or if they don’t vote it will be the Tories who gain. Some people you cannot reach but it is not 82% or whatever figure you want to put on it. You can thank them for their time. Pleasure talking to you. Have a nice weekend. Communicate. Behind every face is a complex life. You never know quite how your chat may effect it. People vote from the heart and if they like you and trust you, you stand a good chance. Did you know that a cucumber on the garden keeps the cats away. Learned that last night. Get on the doorstep people.
Bill
‘no more mention of a second referendum. no more Clegg. ‘
Spot on, no point fighting yesterday’s lost causes & absolutely agree keep Clegg away he’s toxic.
P.J. do let me know if anyone tells you how to keep rabbits away from the garden.
I have become a bit of a McGregor as regards my plants.
Right John, we could use Clegg to scare the rabbits away. Good idea 😉
Bill
I agree with you these days regularly, on here especially, in ways sometimes I did not before.
If you read my recent posts they say very strong things about us seeming far to oriented to opposing everything May does , saying three cheers to the EU , a disaster if that’s the pitch or perceived as such.
Yet there is no need to keep advocating for every one of our spokespeople bar Nick Clegg! He is more measured than Tim ! And as he has been in the coalition, he is less oppositional.
We need all hands on deck, but navigating on the boat, not crashing us to the rocks or standing on the shore missing the boat !!!
Remainers like Clegg and our initial boost after the 2015 election defeat was a lot to do with his resignation speech. So keeping him as our EU spokesman seems like a good idea to me even though I’m not a great fan.
There will be a lot more emphasis on tactical voting from people other than Lib Dems in the GE campaign so this should help us in our target seats. However trying to get them to do more than voting will be difficult.
I’m quite encouraged by the fact that the BBC reported our percentage vote. I am deeply suspicious that pressure is being put on them from the Tories, perhaps using the license fee as a lever?
Please can the party pay special attention to our Newbies who haven’t seen it all before. We also need to explain that we have to target because we’re such a small party so people don’t get put off by our lack of presence in their own constituency.
I’m glad we have done something about the NHS so soon after the locals and got publicity for it though I haven’t seen it myself. The problem as I see it is that Labour have been crying wolf about the NHS for so long that they aren’t really believable any more.
It’s good that so many people are carrying on the fight. Thank you.
Someone tell Libdem leadership to promise to tackle the PFI mess? The public must be very happy to hear this.
Even with UKIP’s vote going to the Tories, it is very welcome to see the end of that organisation within mainstream politics.
It is an understatement that UKIP have brought the general discourse down and while Farrage once gave Le Pen and Wilders a wide berth, once they looked like maybe getting a sniff of power ( also Trump), he was there like a rat up a drainpipe.
The lowest point in British politics for decades, must have been that poster misrepresenting people in the Balkans fleeing from war, as economic migrants to the UK and likely triggering a political killing.
Concerning analysis of the results, the main redistribution of results concerned a transfer from UKIP to the Conservatives. It is highly unlikely that the LD received any of these. The increase in the share of LD votes would have come from disgruntled Conservative Remainers or perhaps Labour supporters fed up with Corbyn and opposed to Brexit.
The big question is whether more voters follow at the General Election or whether the local election represents the high water mark. Local elections are more likely to contain protest votes so elation about increased votes may be short lived.
If all of the above is correct, then it questions the long term strategy. Two years is a long time in politics and maintaining a pro-EU position during an emotionally charged and difficult international negotiation is always going to be a high risk strategy.
@Sue Sutherland “our initial boost after the 2015 election defeat was a lot to do with his resignation speech”
Or perhaps, “our initial boost after the 2015 election defeat was a lot to do with his resignation”.
These local election results and the reaction to them make it clear why May wanted a new election when she did. There was a real risk for the Conservatives (particularly if Gorton had fallen) that they would lose their prime asset, that of Corbyn as opposition ‘leader’. Despite calls within Labour for Corbyn to go, this cannot really happen.
Whether Corbyn would have gone or even whether he will resign in the wake of June 8 is very moot, but certainly a possibility.
Sue
‘Remainers like Clegg and our initial boost after the 2015 election defeat was a lot to do with his resignation speech. So keeping him as our EU spokesman seems like a good idea to me even though I’m not a great fan.’
Problem is that it’s only a matter of time before he says €100bn is a reasonable Brexit divorce payment.
What are the benefits of not cutting the £13.3bn foreign aid to £10bn? Besides, I believe that the aid should be in the form of ODA to support British exporters, like Japan is doing.
Our average polling figure must still be approximately 10.5% this morning. If anything it has dwindled slightly over this Phase One of the campaign. I don’t buy the attention given to the supposed national vote share.
In the 2015 campaign the polls had us nearer right than wrong, but we just didn’t believe them (because we conducted private polling that was push polling.
This time we should base our campaign on the polls and accept that our positioning in this campaign is not gaining traction and is delivering a steady 10%.
This Sunday morning after the TV shows there will be a meeting of the Leader and the top 3 in the General Election Team to review the situation.
Do they continue with the positioning (on Brexit)? Do they continue with the same messages? Do they continue with the same distribution of TV and Radio opportunities?
Successful parties are willing to change when the polls and in some cases the voting evidence points to the need for change.
The Tories changed their campaign savagely in mid April 2015 when they were sailing towards another Coalition and won over all control.
The Tories are serious campaigners. Once we were.
I agree very much with Bill on this. In the 2 days since Thursdays elections we have had two excellent policy announcements on the NHS and Pensions. But these should have been given equal national billing with our views on Hard Brexit, not just throughout the last month’s elections but over the last year or more.
Instead we have portrayed ourselves as a fixated single issue Party (much like a Pressure Group interested in lobbying instead of fighting and winning elections) rather than a Party addressing all the major issues that concern the electorate. It is a long established truism of First Past the Post electoral systems that you cannot win by playing only to your Core Vote. Labour discovered that in 1983, their worst General Election result since the 1930’s and are about to discover it again on June 8th 2017.
As Bill says we used to be good campaigners. Between 2010-2015 we lost that and preferred to believe our internal echo chamber instead of looking at electoral reality. Are we still in a similar mindset?
At first I was encouraged by the collapse of UKIP as an effective political force, then I realised that effectively the Tory party by absorbing virtually the whole of UKIP had turned itself into huge and much more effective version of UKIP and that the whole party originally more remainer than not had swallowed the UKIP line. A sort of reverse takeover if you like. Okay, here and there a few Tory remainers are coming over to us but not in sufficient numbers to make a great deal of difference. Of course we keep up the pressure on the issue of Brexit, partly because that is a matter of conviction, but also because it gives us that USP we badly need. But yes we need to widen our platform both in terms of personalities and issues. The NHS issue is a good one to press, but I worry that the headline becomes “Lib Dems raise income tax” rather than “Lib Dems will fund NHS properly”. And yes absolutely we have to be really hard nosed about our targetting strategy in these last few weeks. It is not enough to target hard. We have to get the targets right – the worst scenario of all is to hard target the wrong places.
If only Bill Le Breton was running our political messaging – he has been spot on for so long now. Like Paul Holmes – another who understood early on where things were going wrong – I despair at how this Party, that was once on the slow but sure (even strong and stable), course to significant gains and eventually the exercise of largest party, or even majority political power, blew it under the previous leader’s disasterous strategy and political decision positioning. My only problem with what Bill and Paul are cautioning is that it is probably too late to make a difference in June. I fear we have to concentrate on the seats we are most likely to win – remain seats – and hope that a greater emphasis from the leadership on health, education, pensions and reform, will see better results elsewhere than can currently be expected on our opinion poll rating. Brexit is happening and sadly Brexit means Brexit to the majority of those likely to vote and of those who voted remain not all are fervently in favour of the EU, many just want us to get on with it and get the best deal. Our support for the EU is based in our internationalist values and those internationlist values should not mean support for the EU as currently constituted. Allowing our internationalism to be judged in terms of the EU is the problem we have to overcome in leave seats, and the current strategy isn’t helping that.
“…ex UKIP voters will NEVER vote for a pro EU party…” Stats on UKIP Remainers were on Peston on Sunday (ITV). So was Nigel Farage MEP, saying that Theresa May is copying his lines. “Dougla Carswell is trying to rewrite history” but “The Conservatives would not have him back”. “Marine Le Pen is the real deal” “She is not an extremist”!! “She has cleaned up her act” in terms of alcohol consumption and would not now drink Nigel Farage under the table.
Jeremy Corbyn has not resigned, but neither Andrew Marr nor Robert Peston asked whether Tom Watson would be a better leader at this point.
In 1983 Michael Foot led the Labour Party to a defeat including the loss of their deposits in 109 constituencies (we lost none) but said he would not resign. He went to the Durham Miners’ rally first and resigned after that.
Lorenzo, I’m not at all sure how you can say Nick is more measured than Tim. In coalition, Nick didn’t like the measures the polls and the public were providing, so instead he had the party hierarchy produce lots of internal polling which made us, and him, seem to be massively more successful than we were. As a result, we lost nearly 90% of our MPs under his leadership.
Sure Nick can deliver a finely crafted speech to liberals saying what a tragedy things have become, but he couldn’t deliver liberalism and he caused the tragedy.
Bill le Breton, Adrian Saunders and possibly Paul Holmes want the Liberal Democrat Party to fence sit on Brexit even though the greatest threat to the NHS and pensions is the economic and social damage of a brutal Brexit.
From the noises Bill le Breton made before the referendum, I am not at all sure that he even voted to remain, so I admit to being Bill-sceptic. Who on earth do they think would switch to Lib Dems on the grounds that the party is going wobbly on the EU?
The LD Party has an opportunity (admittedly restricted by poor media coverage) to spell out how May’s Brexit threatens immediate concerns for people’s lives.
Martin, non-u Sanders wants the Party to major on the issues that matter to people who voted both leave and remain in order to unite people behind Liberal Democrat candidates. The gentleman who confronted Tim in the street last week spoke for millions of leave voters who think we are calling them stupid or racist and cannot vote for us as a consequence. We have to find a way that allows leave voters to save face and not view themselves as being under attack by the Liberal Democrats.
We can keep our past support and win over new voters by campaigning on the issues like health and social care, pensions and inflation that hit them hard and the Tories will make worse. That’s not sitting on the fence. It’s accepting the reality of where the political compass is pointing and choosing the correct Liberal route to where we wish to be.
Alternatively, we can be a Party that represents a tiny number of similar constituencies with well educated, high achieving, high earning constituents, while abandoning any pretence of being a national party that really believes none shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance and conformity.
Our Dutch experience with D66 is that after having lost seats while in (coalition) government, and then getting inundated with new members after a spell in opposition, it is always difficult to deploy those new members to optimal use (on such short notice) in a local or national election campaign, especially in decimated ward constituencies (Wales).
But I keep insisting, pointing to recent D66 and Ciudadanos successes in Netherlands and Spain, and Macrons campaign in France, that when you’re very visible and very accessible on the streets, and your canvassers venture into new teritories, that also increases public interest for what you’re putting online.
And I agree, 18% isn’t to be sneezed at. Just hope Corbyn keeps ignoring his elected (Blairite?) metro-mayors when having “Press moments” for the national press! What better proof of campaigning ineptitude. 😉
Martin, there is no Party campaigning for an EEA nonEU option in this election. That is where the British public are really being let down.
By default May is the only person defining Brexit and Brexit will happen possibly, probably with a interim that looks like an EEA non-EU option.
I think it is perfectly possible to communicate that the Party’s first choice was to Remain, we have laid the ground for that, but to say that the battle in this election now urgently needs to be about the type of Brexit we shall be negotiating. A policy that as Adrian wishes unites most leaver and most remainers.
This failure to communicate an alternative and the binary choice that as so far operated plays to May’s advantage – she is not having to respond to ideas about our relationship with the EU in the months to come. I think we have people grandstanding and virtue signaling on this issue instead of being utterly pragmatic.
Talking of an EEA nonEU option is also a wedge issue. We know that many, including senior members of the Tories would make comments that distance themselves from May – just as Pym distanced himself from Thatcher in 1983.
A couple of us took great advantage of this in 1983 and saved two Liberal seats which otherwise would have been lost.
We are now trying to get the agenda away from Brexit – see Hywel’s remarks above about two initiatives in one news cycle. Hywel has a long reputation for winning seats in General Elections.
By all means go on being the purist Party on Europe but a handful of seats is all we can expect in a narrow social enclave (again as Adrian describes) And no post election credit for pointing to a practical, nationally unifying solution that is not Hard Brexit.
Is it disloyal to say this on a public forum? No. What is disloyal is not challenging people who have a record of losing relatively safe LD seats, of supporting a campaign last time that ensured that we only won 8 seats and whose strategy so far is not delivering traction – possibly because most people think it is irrelevant as it tries to ignore (or reverse) a decision that has been made (and which cannot be reversed in the present state of politics).
Adrian Sanders:
Sorry about misspelling. U and non-U – it is a long time since I have heard that expression!
If Brexit were relatively benign, you might have a point, but Brexit is most likely to impinge very negatively upon “health and social care, pensions and inflation” in many ways. Labour have been mealy mouthed on Brexit; it gets them nowhere, they are mired in incoherent irrelevance. For a smaller party to ape Labour, it would be much worse. It seems odd to see those who decried what they said then was ‘austerity’, now ready to embrace much worse.
To defend a position that you do not actually hold is a recipe for humiliation; Lib Dems did that disastrously on AV.
Do you honestly think there was ever the remotest chance that Tim Farron’s accoster might vote Lib Dem? In fact Tim Farron has gone out of his way to make it clear that it is wrong to regard leave voters as racists.
Racism is an issue that must not be ignored; whatever the motivations of voters, a distinction has to be drawn. The leave campaign was self-evidently racist: witness the emphasis on refugees and other migrants from war torn areas such as Syria, Afghanistan and Africa, the emphasis on Islam, on Turkey – issues that had almost nothing to do with the referendum question. The immigrant issue ever conflated non EU immigration with EU freedom of movement and the leave campaign went on about it incessantly. This says there was racism amongst those leading and directing the leave campaign, not that leave voters were racist. This is important because the campaign did give license to racists and damaged community relationships.
@Martin. Not sure what is hard to grasp about “should have been given equal billing with our views on hard Brexit……….” How that can be interpreted as ‘sitting on the fence’ over Brexit I simply don’t understand.
What I do understand is that putting all our eggs in the ‘fighting the last war’ basket is not working.
David
I only mean Nick is measured in his style of reaction and tone .
Both leaders , as with all , have there strengths and weaknesses.
There is much to agree with on here but not the constant denigration of one man , as if the whole party were led by a dictator blindly.
Nick got lots wrong and right, so did others.
Ditto Tim, now or over future period.
Where I think people go wrong is in not recognising a broad party , eve in the centre or centre left, must recognise we can agree and disagree.
What I think s going wrong is the uncritical attitude to beligerant EU leaders, as if because we think May is thus, we like them!
Even Emily Thornbury said Juncker was speaking a load of rubbish,why not from us when he does ?!
Martin, I don’t diasagree with your analysis of what Brexit means. We warned before the referendum and I, and I suspect many others, have wasted hours and hours fruitlessly debating on line with leave voters along those lines. You cannot convince someone who lacks knowledge that they lack knowledge when what they are doing is reflecting the latest tabloid headline they saw. We are not going to find a way that allows such people, who made up a crucial proportion of those who voted Liberal Democrat at the last election, to save face and find themselves on the same side as ourselves by concentrating on Brexit. But carrying on as we are without a compromise position is simply reinforcing among former Lib Dem voters who backed leave that the Lib Dems are not for them any more, when our health, pensions, social care, housing, transport, education, and other policies are exactly what they need. And describing people as racist and or stupid who do not view themselves that way, is never a good way of campaigning to win elections.
Lorenzo, on this great day for Liberalism in France thoughts back to Clegg’s leadership remind me of the Pierre Bosquet description of the charge of the Light Brigade: C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre: c’est de la folie (“It is magnificent, but it is not war: it is madness”).
Adrian – I think, to be honest, our second-referendum-on-the-deal position was intended as a compromise, and still is, to an extent, but the problem is it was been sold more as a chance for a U-turn, than as a democratic review of how we carry out Brexit. Even then, it is not enough of a compromise for those who feel – even if they were Remainers – we must morally carry on in the direction of the referendum signpost.
Yes, an important battle won. A complex war remains ahead.
It was fascinating to listen on the Today Programme to Jean Pisani-Ferry, the new President’s economic adviser – “no one has an interest in a Hard Brexit”.
As Macron said back in March, “Britain must understand that our interest in the medium to long term is to have clear rules. So if Britain wants to trade with Europe it has to choose a model, such as the Swiss, Norwegian or Canadian.”
Even more interesting therefore to read a paper by Jean Pisani-Ferry proposing for a Brexit solution a “continental partnership would consist in participating in goods, services, capital mobility and some temporary labour mobility as well as in a new system of inter-governmental decision making and enforcement of common rules to protect the homogeneity of the deeply integrated market.”
Complete paper here: http://bruegel.org/2016/08/europe-after-brexit-a-proposal-for-a-continental-partnership/
Who knows perhaps Nick Clegg later today will at last sketch out a Norway/Canada type of continental partnership – sure, it is foolish to throw the baby out with the bath water, but it also fool hardy to keep the baby in the old cold bath water.
@El Sid
“a vote that was supposed to be final and settle the issue”
The whole idea of democracy is that people are allowed to change their minds and to express that change by voting. “Permanent” and unalterable change based on one vote is the tool of a frightened tyranny. I can see why the Brexiters might be feeling nervous as their promises are exposed as fraudulent and a disastrous reality gets ever nearer, but it is ridiculous to try and impose some sort of stasis on the will of the British people as circumstances change. The people have the right to think again – and anyone who denies them this right is acting in a way contrary to centuries of democratic tradition and is neither a good citizen nor a person of good judgment.
No one said the fightback would be easy .We have made a good start .We need to use this general election to grow out roots in every constituency ,every county ,town and borough .We should perhaps after the GE revisit local party rebates and regional structures so that we are more able to fund those random by-elections and cover deposits in black holes where no local party machinery currently exists .
Lorenzo, I know lots of Conservatives, quite a few labour and many other senior executives in business who are measured in style of reaction and tone. As a result Brexit means Brexit, the losses of life in the Iraq war due to inadequate equipment were unfortunate and the destruction of BHS as a business and employer and a pension provider was just a miscalculation.
Under Nick’s leadership we lost 54 MPs, five in 2010 and 49 in 2015,
Under Nick’s leadership we lost nearly 60% of our councillors (down from 4,723 to 1,874),
Under Nick’s leadership we lost all but one of our MEPs,
Under Nick’s leadership we lost all two thirds of our MSPs, and
Under Nick’s area of responsibility in the Coalition government for Constitutional Reform we got the new rules that apparently make it legal to bus activists into an area, put them up in local hotels in order to campaign for the local Conservative candidate to undermine local Lib Dem MPs and it seems it doesn’t have to be counted against that candidate’s local limit.
Oh yes, Nick is measured in style of reaction and tone.
What’s not to like?
David Evans
All you describe is true, all of it shared responsibility.
If you can’t stand the heat , stay out of the kitchen, as a phrase could apply.
The coalition was handled badly by many cooks in the..proverbial kitchen.
Lorenzo,
Nick was leader and it was his leadership decisions – like his selection of the negotiating team; his acceptance of a useless referendum on AV; his accepting the ditching of the tuition fees pledge; his promise of an end to broken promises; his deliberate ignoring of conference on Secret Courts; and his unwillingness to get out of the kitchen in 2014 when it was clear to all what a disaster he was.
There is no shared responsibility of leadership: that is just a convenient fig leaf to hide behind.
As I said “What’s not to like?