Tag Archives: liberal values liberalism vs reform

Of the six recognised pillars of Liberalism – liberty, equality, community, democracy, environment, and internationalism – each can wax and wane in prominence depending on the Zeitgeist. When human rights are under attack, liberty should be highlighted. When Britain’s role in the world is centre-stage, internationalism comes to the fore. All six are always important, but there are times when we need to lean into one pillar more than others.

The most crucial pillar of Liberalism as we gear up for elections in 2026 (and every year up to the next general election) will be community. In saying this, I’m fighting hard not to let the agenda be dictated by the populists, but as Roz Savage beautifully put it in her LDV column on 30 September, we have to be tough on Farage but also tough on the causes of Farage. And the erosion of people’s sense of community is a big cause.

It’s easy to forget that, until about 300 years ago, most people in this country never went more than 50 miles from their place of birth in their entire lifetime. They identified with their locality, they sometimes had to defend it from hostile threats from without, and they may have had rituals that bound them together as a geographical community. Therein lay their sense of security.

The modern era of technology, travel and television has blown all that out of the water. We can go to the other side of the globe for a couple of days, we can ‘see’ life in the Antarctic, we can become ‘friends’ with people we’ve never met, and we can have our stag and hen parties in eastern European cities. That has brought social change, and shifting assumptions about what is acceptable to do and say. Which is fine if we’re all in it, but once you get large numbers of people who feel left behind, what security can they grab hold of? If that has been swept away by the forces of progress, resentment builds up.