No one has ever asked me to devise an idea for Ed Davey’s next stunt. But if I was approached from on high, I might suggest having him wade through a river of treacle.
That’s how it feels trying to spread the Liberal Democrat message in the North of England these days.
It’s been an underwhelming set of elections in our part of the country. Despite some notable and very important exceptions such as Stockport, Preston and Sefton, the Liberal Democrats have failed to cut through with what has been a predominantly nationally motivated electorate.
And we’ve lost some great councillors too. Other campaigners that should have got over the line this time have fallen short.
It’s not for want of trying. Lib Dems across the region have pounded the streets delivering and knocking doors at truly impressive pace. But we have been overtaken by national voices competing on a national battleground that – in our part of the world at least – our party seems all too happy to vacate.
Our party leadership has said that our brand of community politics is the antidote to Reform’s division and I believe that with all my heart. Especially in the diverse metropolitan areas like the one I represent. Where Reform and the Tories seek to divide people based on ethnicity, race and religion for political gain. But we haven’t made our case well enough in northern cities.
Too many people tell me that they see our hard work in the community and they value us. But at a national level, they see the Lib Dems as having nothing to say and no real interest in communities like ours. Like a sort of friendly non-player character.
If people are telling us that our work on things like the potholes, the parks, the drains, the community centres isn’t enough for them in today’s political climate, is it any wonder that many of us feel our party needs to be bolder?
For a start we need to speak to younger generations. We need housing policies with a message that appeal to aspirational young people. We need an international message that tells people loud and clear who we are. Anti-Trump, pro-European and prepared to be far less polite, if needs be, in order to make our point.
And we need our national voices to confront the attacks from Farage and others on the multiculturalism that makes our communities thrive.
Clearly, there is work for us local campaigners to do if we want to change our own fortunes. We need to build capacity and develop messages that win. But the question I am left with after these local elections is this. Will we have to continue to go it alone? Or will the federal party leadership start to show us that they are interested in our fight?
* Shaun Ennis is the Leader of Trafford Liberal Democrats and a councillor in Timperley Central
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14 Comments
What about climate change? We should be saying NO to a third runway at Heathrow, NO to expanding or opening other airports. Why leave environmental issues to the Green party?
Exactly, Shaun.
Great article Shaun,
I think we need to keep the complex, well thought out policy but be prepared to dress it up in our own brand of simplistic ‘populist’ messaging. We’re often too concerned about explaining our genius that the sentiment behind our policies is lost.
Unlock Britain’s economy, Vote Lib Dem to rejoin the EU.
Never mind the intricacies of how difficult this might be to enact. Trump never built a new wall nor did Mexico pay for it but the voters didn’t care, they got the hostility to immigrants they voted for.
Vote Lib Dem to ‘free’ palestine
Never mind what it means to free it, just say it! We have the policies we can point to later down the line.
Nickname reform the brexit party, say that only the Lib Dems are talking about the environment (its true enough)
I’m no marketing guru but can we not be a bit more ruthless?
@Richard your mention of Palestine strikes a chord with me. Just as we failed to do so well in the north as this article suggests, the same can be seen in the Midlands. Although we have very good policies on Palestine – very similar to the Greens – they have done a much better job of communicating them to the public outside Parliament. No surprise then that they have done rather better than us in areas with a substantial Muslim vote or indeed a substantial “educated” Labour vote much of which is desperately unhappy with the moral vacuum on human rights in this present UK government.
Good article Shaun .i would reflect this is how we felt in some parts of the midlands until we started to break through . Please do not devise any further stunts for Davey enough already . What we need to do is refresh the Liberal Democrats , underpin our social liberal values with some new champions from within our under used 72 Liberal Democrat MPs.
get them to champion the different regions and build build build . putting confidence into our membership and a boldness in our stride is something we have not got from southern centric leadership .
@ Shaun Ennis, “No one has ever asked me to devise an idea for Ed Davey’s next stunt.”….. Good.
The stunts long ago have had their day to the point now of embarrassment……..
I appreciate that there will be a minority of people who decide how to vote based on policy on Palestine. I suggest that far more are worried about their household bills and – related to that – would welcome a strong relationship with – or within – the EU. I am a great supporter of “green” policies. This is an area thats been vacated by the current Gteen leader. Maybe a vacuum to be filled by the Lib Dems?
Excellent article; thank you.
Only yesterday I was reflecting that our party’s leadership seems to have sold OUR soul to populism. Sound bites about potholes and “Trump’s war” are just not good enough. It was Netanyahu that pulled Trump’s strings. We have good policies on Palestine but these are often ignored by the leadership and omitted from “central” messages. People want to talk about international affairs on the doorsteps; but without a clear and consistent narrative from the top it’s hard for campaigners to back this up – hence swathes of votes moving to Green Party and Independents last week. Same argument applies to climate and nature.
The work being done by the policy groups has value. It demonstrates that if asked the Lib Dems are getting ready for government. But that “if asked” is doing a lot of work there. At about 10% in the polls we are not being asked. The plan for world domination has a missing step 2.
Another aspect is “earned media”. We do not have any. Zack has some. Reform have a lot. The Tories are reported every day as a Punch & Judy show. The government always are in the news. Nationalists are reported whenever devolution is in the news. But it is as if we are under an omerta.
This has been said before. Does anyone know why this is ?
Peter, the answer to your question surely lies in the comments above. If the Party stopped its sad obsession with wooing Tory/Reform voters and instead spoke out with passion and leadership on rejoining the EU, Palestinian rights/international law and climate issues I’m sure that media coverage would follow.
Well said Judi. Says it all. We need to shout about our policies instead of belly-flopping into another irritating and irrelevant soft sell sound-bite.
The one bit I disagree with you on is housing Sean. We don’t need bold policies, we have them. Because we succeeded in passing an amendment to ensure we do have an ambitious top down housing target and the policies to ensure those houses get built with a LibDem run govt.
It’s just a shame that whenever most of our MP’s talk about housing they ignore the policy we actually passed…
Shaun has put his finger on something many of us are feeling, not only in the North but in urban areas more widely.
Community politics still matters. Local champions, casework, leaflets, canvassing and year-round campaigning remain essential. But they are no longer enough on their own.
That was certainly our experience in Haringey. In Highgate, we did the traditional Lib Dem ground game properly: leaflets, addressed letters, street letters, canvassing and visible local campaigning. The Greens, by contrast, did nothing locally and still won the third seat.
Too much of our national response still seems to imply that if we just work harder locally, deliver more, knock more doors and build better data, the problem will solve itself. In many urban areas, that does not reflect what campaigners have just experienced.
The Greens and Reform benefit from identities that travel. Voters may not know their local candidate, receive much literature or speak to anyone on the doorstep, but they think they know what those parties represent.
By contrast, our identity often has to be hand-delivered locally, leaflet by leaflet and door by door, by exhausted activists.
We need both the ground game and the story. Otherwise local campaigners are being asked to compensate for a national message that is not cutting through where we most need it to.
“Community politics still matters. Local champions, casework, leaflets, canvassing and year-round campaigning remain essential.”
Those things do not in themselves add up to Community Politics. Community Politics is very rarely, if ever practiced in the Lib Dems these days.
From a tactical, campaigning standpoint if you did a lot of door knocking and weren’t pickup in the Green surge in your area as some are suggesting then you were doing something wrong (and I’d actually say quite badly wrong)