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Tag Archives: party strategy

Actually, this Summer of Strategy could be quite good…

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 14th June 2026 - 12:28 pm

Party President Josh Babarinde wrote to all members and on this site this week inviting us to share our views on the development of the party strategy which will be debated at our Brighton Conference in September.

The consultation process involves a Typeform which has to be completed by this Thursday and 3 online consultation sessions over this weekend. The final one is tomorrow night at 5:30pm and I can promise you that if you go to it, you will retain your will to live and will feel that your time has been well spent.

This is not usually the case with party consultations, I’ll be honest. I have come out of many before wanting to pull off my own toenails because they involved some party luminary talking at you and power-pointing you within an inch of your life.

I went to this morning’s one tired and hungover after the football and not expecting much. In fact, I was cursing Josh for organising it 5.5 hours after the match ended. However, it was actually very good. Even some of our grumpier members thought so, too.

Josh set the scene for 20 minutes or so and then there were two breakout sessions on what our party is for and organisational priorities. We were put in breakout rooms of 4-5 people with a series of questions to answer and feed back. There were some really useful discussions with a lot of common themes, particularly about developing an emotional message which connects with people. “Stop the word salad” was my contribution to that – we need to show our sincere trust in people, our ambition for everyone to be able to live the best life they choose and show a hopeful vision where we fix things together not do nothing and turn on each other like Farage wants.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured and josh babarinde | 2 Comments

Josh Babarinde writes…The Lib Dem Summer of Strategy

By Josh Babarinde | Tue 9th June 2026 - 8:16 pm

The May local elections have shown us we’re at a critical point for this party, and we need to decide where to go next.

There were some great results to celebrate. We gained three councils, 153 councillors, and hit double figures in Scotland. We knocked on over three million doors, and had more than a million conversations on the doorstep. Our canvassing was up 25% on four years ago. Our polling day activity was so strong, it was nearly at General Election levels! Our members, activists, councillors, staff and parliamentarians pulled out all the stops. It was an incredible effort and I am so so proud to be a part of it.

But I know that only tells part of the story. We didn’t make enough gains across key parts of the country, particularly in the North, the Midlands and urban areas. As someone who once stood for Parliament in Tower Hamlets, I mean it when I say that liberalism should be a key offer to our inner cities.

Ever since I became Party President, I have been clear that I want us to go further than places we are comfortable. It is time to be ambitious. We cannot afford to abandon parts of the country because they may be difficult for us to reach. Politics is crying out for a serious, positive, liberal message, and we leave no stone unturned.

There were brilliant candidates who gave everything to campaigns and didn’t get what they deserved. I campaigned (to name a few) in Cardiff, Hull, Southwark, Birmingham, Sheffield and Cambridge. Watching some of them lose to Reform or Green candidates who put in a fraction of the effort we did was utterly gutting.

With all that said, with populism and nationalism on the rise, and with a crowded multi-party system intensifying, we need a new party strategy to meet this new moment.

A party strategy built by members

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured | 5 Comments

What’s going on with party strategy?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 6th June 2026 - 12:19 pm

Once per Parliament, the Federal Board is obliged to put before Conference a party strategy. Article 5.1 of the Federal Constitution states:

The Federal Board shall have the responsibility periodically, and at least onceper Parliament, for preparing a document outlining the Party’s strategy, inconjunction with the Leader’s political strategy, for submission for debate and
agreement by Conference.

The Board’s plan is to bring a strategy to Autumn Conference. If the anger following the local elections is anything to go by, members will be looking for a commitment to developing a nationally relevant message to re-establish us as a viable national alternative. Ed Davey’s comments about wanting us to be “the party of Middle England” have sparked huge concern in the party. There is a feeling that we are being too timid for fear of upsetting the Daily Mail at a time when the country is screaming out for a liberal alternative to the populist parties of right and left. Imagine that, a party that fixes stuff, stands up for liberal values and really resonates with people who are, to use a good Scottish word, scunnered with politics.

PoliticsHome has an article this weekend titled “Inside the Lib Dem strategy rethink.” Several MPs are quoted, including Tom Gordon, Layla Moran, Daisy Cooper along with some who are un-named.

Politics Home says the party is looking at changing direction:

To that end, the party is undergoing a strategy and policy overhaul, with key areas of discussion including the economy, welfare, and, as the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum approaches, a bolder stance on the European Union.

Tom Gordon confirmed the rethink:

I don’t think it was necessarily the wrong approach, but just given the nature and the timeline of where we’re at in this parliament and the political events and that fragmentation, I think there is now a rethinking of what we do, what we offer, how we’re more punchy, how we’re bolder, and what the offer from us is.

A senior MP hinted at an approach that to me sounds too managerial:

The MP said the party is “starting to think about the economy in a much more structural manner”, and the frontbench team had been “set a task of properly scrutinising departmental budgets, where money is being spent”.

They added that the party needs to “make sure we are economically credible”, with there being more appetite from figures at the top of the party towards thinking about what the Lib Dem offering would be in a potential future coalition.

Layla Moran sounded optimistic about what was coming:

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged daisy cooper, featured, layla moran and tom gordon | 16 Comments

The far-right nightmare looms. What are we doing about it?

By David Vigar | Mon 11th May 2026 - 9:02 am

Am I alone in thinking our response to the local election results is a little too self-congratulatory? Of course we should broadcast our success in increasing our councillor count yet again and congratulate everyone who worked hard to make it happen.

But for me, the main message of the elections is that Britain now faces the nightmare prospect of a far-right totalitarian government. William Hill now has Reform 11-10 on to win the most seats in 2029. The next takeaway is that we, the Liberal Democrats, have a critical role in stopping it.

Almost exactly a year ago, Lib Dem Voice ran a piece that I wrote after the 2025 local elections when I was part of a winning team in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, beating Reform into second place in six out of seven divisions.

There, we developed an anti-Reform playbook based on our doorstep experiences. It included some rebuttal of Reform claims – to make people pause for thought – but more importantly, it offered a positive alternative in the shape of strong candidates and their vision for the town. Reform appealed to the worst instincts of voters. We appealed to the best.

Reform also appeal to the heart rather than the mind, so the response has to be directed to the same place. Logic doesn’t work – no more than it does with someone who’s fallen in love with a rat.

Last year I wrote that this needed a proper strategy, “a solid and well-researched plan for the rest of this Parliament”. I sent that blog to senior party members and I was told that action was underway. We even had a “Reform Watch” group. Anyone heard of it? It seems to be a self-help group for councillors, anything but a national campaign.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged reform uk | 14 Comments

Another stream of consciousness on the election results – England this time

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th May 2026 - 12:33 pm

So we’re up 155 councillors in England. We can give ourselves a big pat on the back, right?

Well, maybe not.

Let’s look at London. A tale of two cities in one if ever there was one.

In the leafy southern areas, our heartlands, our results were, to be honest, unhealthily good. While it is a testament to how well our councils in Richmond, Sutton and Kingston are doing and are regarded by local people, holding virtually all the seats just isn’t conducive to good, inclusive government. Even though it would disadvantage us, perhaps we should really be pushing for PR for local government as much as national.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing in that neck of the woods. In Merton, we had hoped to do much better against a dreadful Labour Council, but our gains were modest and Labour easily held control, gaining a seat from the Conservatives in the process.

It was a completely different story in inner London where the Green vote rocketed up.

Voters looked to them, not our well established Council groups, to defeat Labour and several councils, including Southwark, Haringey and Lambeth went to no overall control as the Greens surged. In Islington, where we once ran the Council, we didn’t make the breakthrough we had hoped and I was very sad that talented people like Rebecca Jones didn’t get elected despite spirited campaigns. In Haringey, voters again looked to the Greens and another disappointment was that Shamim Muhammad missed out. She spoke in the global women’s rights debate we had at Federal Conference and would have been a powerful voice for women’s rights on the Council.

We ran full, locally relevant campaigns in those areas and worked our socks off. The Greens did next to nothing on the ground but yet hoovered up hundreds of Council seats.

Why?

Everyone knows what the Greens stand for. They are speaking to people’s concerns about the divisive rhetoric we see from Reform and other socially conservative sources, about inequality, about poverty, about housing, about the international situation. And our lack of a cohesive national message is holding us back. People do not feel that we get it, that we are on their side.

The challenge for us is that the Greens is that they are going full throttle with an emotionally resonant message that connects with people and we are not. We sound technocratic. We lack passion. We don’t respond with suitable levels of outrage when the Prime Minister comes out with Reform lite garbage on immigration. In fact we come out with nonsense that sounds like we’re pandering to it only to put out a slightly better thing a few days later. It’s mixed messaging that makes us look untrustworthy.

We don’t have to promise everyone a free puppy, as the Greens frequently come close to doing, but we do need to wear our liberal values on our sleeve. It is simply not good enough to slightly shamefacedly and timidly put out something saying we are against division without actually taking on the arguments advanced by those who are stoking the division.

Our job as a liberal party is to bring people together and protect marginalised communities from attack and we need to be much better and clearer about it.

We look very much at the moment that we are here to serve the home counties and “blue wall” seats when we should be a voice for the north and our cities too.

So much of what we say seems to be moderated by timidity. We fear upsetting those in those seats more than we fear failing those in the rest of the country. Our liberal values are universal and we need to apply them and be relevant in every setting.

I understand that some key councillors across the country were warning that we needed to up our game against the Greens a long time ago and were ignored. The results this week show that we will lose out in the future if we fail to do that. In places like Oxfordshire we need to keep all progressive voters onside if we are going to continue to win. If we don’t, and at some point in the future the Tories and Reform merge and unite the right block vote, we will be in peril.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged 2026 local elections, featured, greens and labour | 44 Comments

Exclusive: Lib Dems to ditch yellow – and party name – in secret rebrand

By Tom Reeve | Wed 1st April 2026 - 11:27 am

The Liberal Democrats are planning to abandon the iconic yellow colour scheme in favour of mauve, following a review by a boutique consultancy to “help the party live its best life”.

The party is also thinking of changing its name to something more “on trend”. A spokesperson denied rumours that the party was suffering a midlife crisis.

A slide deck, marked “Secret – but we’ll have to tell them eventually”, recommends a phased transition to a “trust-forward colour ecosystem”.

“Yellow, in stakeholder sentiment analysis, was described by participants as ‘loud,’ ‘a bit much,’ and ‘like being shouted at by a lemon’,” the report states. “Net Promoter Score for yellow among C2 swing voters in target marginals: minus 14. Recommendation: discontinue.”

It identifies a “colour equity gap” between the party’s current visual identity and its desired positioning as a “calm, competent alternative in a fragmented political landscape”.

A slide headed “Emotional Resonance Mapping,” states: “Mauve occupies a unique position in the colour spectrum. Neither red nor blue, it simultaneously gestures toward both.” A footnote on the slide adds: “In a fragmented political landscape, this ambiguity is not a weakness. It is the brand.”

Focus group participants described mauve as “quite pleasant”, “inoffensive” and “the colour of my nan’s bathroom”. The report notes: “These are strong trust indicators.”

The document recommends a three-phase transition: digital and social assets first, then print and physical materials, and ‌what the report calls “the lived clothing experience of members”, which it concedes “may require sensitive change management support”.

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Posted in Op-eds | 10 Comments

The Davey Dilemma

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 1st April 2026 - 9:49 am

Party strategists are pondering an offer from the BBC which could have a serious impact on our party’s fortunes.

Ed Davey has been invited to appear on this year’s Strictly Come Dancing.

Those in favour of the move argue that appearing on the programme could boost Ed’s popularity and, with it, the party’s electoral success as well as cheering up the nation.

It’s ten years since his namesake, former Labour Cabinet Minister Ed Balls, achieved national treasure status after his hilarious efforts on the show, performing Gangnam Style with great aplomb.

It’s just over fifteen years since our then Deputy Leader Vince Cable performed a stunning foxtrot in the Strictly Christmas special with professional dancer Erin Boag. At the time, Euan Ferguson wrote in the Guardian:

Vince was the man who made sense of the downturn: had warned, had made even more sense of it than Robert Peston. A Liberal Democrat with cojones and charisma, and a fine line in ballroom dancing. His appearance on the special should have been a coronation, a culmination: the most astounding year in living memory for his party and then a foxy foxtrot with Erin Boag.

The BBC hope that Ed’s appearance could help revive the show, retaining and increasing its audience after a time of instability following negative media stories and the departure of popular hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly. The surprise news that several audience favourite professional dancers including Karen Hauer and Nadiya Bychkova are leaving also poses another threat to the show.

However, Ed’s dancing at Spring Conference in York came in for criticism amongst a small but vocal minority of party members, so our version of the Tories’ “men in grey suits” are concerned that they could become a distraction and there could even be an attempt by critics to submit an emergency motion calling for his withdrawal at his Party’s Autumn Conference which would be launching at the same time as the rally.

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Posted in News | Also tagged ed davey | 13 Comments

The Green Threat

By Thomas Worth | Wed 18th March 2026 - 8:55 am

A post on X from Luke Tryl, the UK Director of More in Common, the other day changed how I viewed the rise of the Green Party. The post was in response to the latest polling from Ipsos, which had us sitting on just 9%, the lowest we’ve polled since the 2024 General Election.

In the post he said, ‘If the Lib Dems go into May with the Greens eating at their progressive flank it could well limit their gains in e.g. the new East and West Surrey councils, Sussex and other south east districts’. As a longstanding member in Sussex this obviously concerned me, so I set about trying to disprove his notion.

Unfortunately, I now believe he may be correct. Firstly, while we often think of the rise of the Greens eating away at the Labour vote, which it most certainly is, our polling is not untouched. According to YouGov, those who voted Lib Dem at the 2024 election, and say they will again, stood at 80% in May 2025 but now sit at only 68%. While this is better than most other parties, only 44% of 2024 Labour voters say they’ll vote for the party again; it is a notable shift in our polling. Almost all of this change has been caused by the Greens, with only 3% of 2024 Lib Dems saying they’d vote for the Greens in May 2025 to now, when the figure stands at 17%.

The steady march of the Greens amongst 2024 Lib Dems is likely to pose real problems in the local elections. While it isn’t likely the Greens will take seats from us, it is possible they will prevent us from making gains by splitting our vote and allowing Reform or a wounded Conservative Party to slip through the middle. In Sussex, signs of this happening were occurring even before Zack Polanski took over the Greens. At Horsham District Council’s Denne by-election in November 2024, a strong showing from the Greens meant that a safe Lib Dem ward was gained by the Tories. A similar story occurred at Arun District Council’s Marine by-election, where Reform gained the seat, with us placing a close second due to the Greens standing a candidate for the first time.

With the Greens now having a stronger base of voters, they are more likely to cause us damage in places like Sussex, where we need to be making gains to consolidate our General Election wins.

Other polling also paints a difficult picture. While Ed Davey has remained one of the most popular party leaders, he has now been overtaken by Zack Polanski in an important metric, those who say they ‘don’t know’. According to Ipsos, 36% of voters don’t know their opinion on Ed Davey, while 33% don’t know about Zack Polanski. While this isn’t a major difference, Ed Davey has been party leader for 6 years and still has over a third of people not holding an opinion on him. In comparison, Zack Polanski has only been the Green leader for just over 6 months and has already overtaken Sir Ed.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged greens | 42 Comments

Power shared, not hoarded: finishing the argument

By Tanya Park | Wed 4th March 2026 - 9:50 am

Roz Savage’s piece earlier this week, and Jack Meredith’s response to it, have done something worth building on. This is an attempt to follow the logic a few steps further, because I think it leads somewhere important.

The strongest thing in Savage’s piece is the power axis. “Power hoarded versus power shared” is not just better messaging than left versus right. It’s a more honest description of what’s actually happening in Britain. Decisions that shape people’s lives are made in places they can’t reach, by institutions they didn’t choose, in processes they can’t scrutinise. That’s a liberal problem, not just a left-wing one.

Meredith picks this up thoughtfully. He’s right that different liberal traditions notice different concentrations of power. Social liberals see material inequality. Market liberals see monopoly and cartel behaviour. Civil libertarians see the state. Bring them into the same room, and they converge, even if they arrive from different directions.

But there’s a step still to take.

If dispersing power is the organising principle, it can’t stop at constitutional reform. Democratic reform is necessary, but formal political power gets hollowed out when economic power remains sufficiently concentrated. In theory, everyone gets one vote. In practice, sufficient accumulation of wealth means your money votes for you in ways the ballot box never could: through political donations, through media ownership, through the ability to fund strategic litigation, through the simple fact that governments worry about the confidence of capital in ways they never worry about the confidence of people on a zero-hours contract. The dispersal of political power and the dispersal of economic power are the same argument. You can’t complete one without the other.

Concentrated wealth isn’t simply an inequality problem, though it is that too. It’s a power problem. When wealth compounds across generations, when returns to capital consistently outpace returns to labour, when a small number of individuals accumulate resources sufficient to shape political culture and purchase influence over public debate, that is a liberal emergency. Not a socialist one. A liberal one.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, jack meredith, liberalism, messaging and roz savage | 11 Comments

The Greens copied our playbook. We shouldn’t copy theirs.

By Tom Reeve | Sun 1st March 2026 - 12:55 pm

Labour’s old coalition was always a coalition of convenience. On one side: socially conservative, economically anxious working-class voters, whose politics were shaped by trade unions, community, and a deep suspicion of those at the top. On the other: socially progressive, increasingly comfortable metropolitans, whose politics were shaped by universities, public service, and a belief that social liberalism was self-evidently correct.

These two groups shared little except a common enemy: the Conservative Party. That enemy is gone, at least for now. And without it, the coalition is falling apart.

Lib Dem CEO Mike Dixon sent members a thoughtful analysis of what happened in the Gorton and Denton by-election and what it means for us long-term. He said tactical voting was more fluid and more decisive than at any election in living memory, and we are better placed than any other party to receive anti-Reform tactical votes across a wide range of seats.

He concludes that the only barrier to success at the next election is our scale on the ground. Build the teams, recruit the candidates, deliver the leaflets, and the opportunity is ours, he says.

I agree on the value of a good ground game, but I fear that is only half the answer.

Ground operations matter enormously, but they are generally designed to motivate our supporters and those who are prepared to lend us their votes to go to the polls. They do not create supporters from nothing. What creates them is a clear, consistent national message about what voting Lib Dem will actually get you.

In the coming political melee, we need to be clear whose side we are on. That means policies that are worthy of the emotional punch our campaigns can deliver.

The Greens show what happens when you get this wrong. Their politics rest on a false premise: that environmental seriousness requires slower growth, higher costs, and less development. Growth versus nature as a zero-sum game. It sounds principled. It is actually a counsel of despair – and in the middle of a housing crisis, it falls hardest on the people who need the new homes.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged economy, housing and messaging | 27 Comments

Lib Dem takeaways from Gorton and Denton

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 27th February 2026 - 8:46 am

It would be very churlish not to congratulate Hannah Spencer and the Greens this morning. It’s a good feeling to win a by-election. Having another young, progressive woman in Parliament is so much better a result than it could have been.

The Greens did pretty much our playbook and took a seat that, in other times, we would have grabbed and we have to ask ourselves whether the strategy that allowed that to happen is one that we wish to continue.

The result was:

Green Party – 14,980 40.7%. +28%
Reform UK – 10,578 28.7% +15%
Labour Party – 9,364 25.4% -25%
Conservative Party – 706 1.9%. -6%
Liberal Democrats – 653 1.8% -2%
Monster Raving Loony Party – 159
Advance UK – 154
Rejoin EU Party – 98
Libertarian Party – 47
Social Democratic Party – 46
Communist League – 29
The total number of votes cast was 36,814, with a voter turnout of 47.62%.

First up, this is a total and utter failure by Reform. This is the third by-election they were supposed to walk but lost after Hamilton and Caerphilly. They threw the entire contents of the luxury kitchen at it. And of course they are doing the Trump thing by complaining it was “sectarian” and stolen from them by illegal “family voting.” Their blatant racism is unsurprising.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured and gorton and denton by-election | 71 Comments

Ed Davey on Kuenssberg: Lib Dems have a moral obligation to win

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 25th January 2026 - 12:55 pm

Ed Davey did his traditional start of year interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg this morning. The conversation started with Donald Trump backing down on his disgraceful comments about British troops in Afghanistan.

Ed said he was grateful to the King for his intervention but said that this didn’t change his view of Donald Trump who has supported Putin on Ukraine.

They moved on to discuss defence spending. Ed acknowledged that we do need to act.

Liberal Democrats have argued that we need to increase defence spending. We’ve called on the Government to issue war bonds. The Government hasn’t shown how to increase defence spending by the end of the decade.

We’re in a cold war type scenario.

We need to increase defence spending quickly.

There has to be a question on whether we can rely on the US. With Trump in the White House they are no longer a reliable ally.

Kuenssberg asked him how this would work? Was it Govt borrowing with a fancy name on it?

Ed said that we should do this over two years and cap it at £20 billion

Institutional investors and public would be able to buy these to give the defence industry needs to know that the money is behind it to make plans.

So let’s just step away from the interview for a moment. This seems to be another example of a new policy being announced – a bit like the 7 day guarantee for GP appointments – without any sort of due process in the party. There have been plenty opportunities to talk about, to consult on such an idea internally. Given the amount of surprise I am picking up in the party about today’s announcement, I feel that this could have been handled better

It’s not necessarily a bad idea, but there are ways of ensuring that there is buy-in from the party before making an announcement like this. Then you avoid people feeling like they are being disrespected. There have been concerns about power being grabbed to the centre with no accountability for some time.

Back to the interview now, Ed said that there were other things we need to do on defence given the dramatic changes since the last election which requires a step change. He wants to see things like pushing the Joint Expeditionary Force further and faster and invite Canada to join it.

Kuenssberg asked him whether we were avoiding a conversation on the amount we are spending on welfare and the NHS

Ed replied:

We are up for these conversations. We have talked about a digital services tax, a European rearmanent bank and we have called for cross party talks on how we get (defence spending) up to 3.5% beyond 2030.

Ed has been pretty bullish on his language on Trump, much more than Starmer has been. Kuenssberg asked him if he would be the same if he were PM. Would he call him a bully and an international gangster

My language might be a bit more nuanced but my approach would be the same.

He highlighted areas where the UK Government could do more, such as rejoining the Customs Union.

How did Trump back down on Greenland? EU standing together with a bazooka of retaliatory measures.

Trump is so unpredictable. I really worry for America – he is doing huge damage to their economy and their world standing.

He was then challenged on our glacially improving poll ratings and the fact that we have only a third or so of the members of Reform and the Greens. – we have ten times the number of MPs but Green at 170,000 and Reform on 210,000. Ed pretty much said he didn’t care about either.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ed davey, featured and sunday with laura kuenssberg | 29 Comments

How could a coalition work?

By David Allen | Sat 17th January 2026 - 4:35 pm

Britain faces the grave threat of a Reform-led Trumpist Government in a hung parliament after the next election. Lord William Wallace recently discussed a Labour / Lib Dem / Green Coalition as a potential winning alternative. Many commenters on LDV supported the idea, while recognising substantial difficulties.

Coalition won’t happen unless it is meticulously debated, planned, and wargamed in advance. Here, I seek to start this ball rolling.

A first question: If a larger Party offers a smaller Party the Deputy Premiership, plus a key “Quad” Coalition Governing Committee with 2 members from each Party, is that fair? The answer is no. That’s what Clegg and Cameron agreed in 2010. Cameron, as permanent PM, then ran rings around Clegg, trashing his voting-system referendum and much else, and leaving the Lib Dems the big losers in 2015. Don’t let’s help Labour do likewise.

In Coalition, junior partner/s often get screwed. That’s when they fail to play hardball, accept superficially fair deals which won’t work out that way, and stumble into under-planned agreements with a mishmash of “red” lines which only get overturned. Let’s not do that.

Back in 2010, anti-Tory Lib Dems like myself pilloried Clegg for selling out principles for the sake of Ministerial limousines. In hindsight, that particular criticism was wrong-headed. Power is what matters. When you have power, then you can insist on implementing your principles. Not the other way round.

Spare a thought for the Greens, who might well out-poll Labour, yet win far fewer seats. We need their enthusiasm, idealism, and drive. Frankly, we also need Green supporters to vote tactically, secure in the belief that helping a prospective Coalition partner beat Reform will advance their own cause. How can we persuade Polanski that this will also work well for him? The answer must be – Offer him a decent deal.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged coalition | 39 Comments

What is a liberal party for?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd November 2025 - 4:04 pm

We’ve talked a lot about the changes the party has made to diversity quotas for the forthcoming presidential election this week. Presidential candidates Prue and Josh have had their say, as have Rebecca, Iain and Jack.

I have wanted to amplify other voices, but so many people have asked me for my view that I thought I’d give it to you too.

My heart is in a million pieces this weekend. To be fair, it’s been that way since the Supreme Court Judgement effectively ruined the lives of too many people I love for me to be silent on this issue. Ever.

Over the past four and a bit decades, I have seen on so many occasions the absolute joy that comes with being accepted as the person you are. When someone is recognised as the man or woman or person they have long known themselves to be, it is a real privilege to watch them become themselves rather than hide their true identity. To see them set free to live their best life as their true self, to live peaceably doing their own thing and not getting in anyone’s way.

That’s been the direction of travel for most of my adult life and I was proud that we lived in a country which was one of the best places in the world for trans people.

And then a fringe group, fuelled by £70,000 from a billionaire, were successful in winning their case at the Supreme Court in April, obtaining a judgement that in a very narrow set of circumstances, woman and man in the Equality Act had to be interpreted as this weird and according to doctors at the BMA “scientifically illiterate” definition of biological woman or man.

This judgement makes not one woman safer. In fact the amount of time we have spent talking about these issues over the past few years actively harmed woman’s safety, wellbeing, legal status and wellbeing because it has distracted from the real problems women face in every aspect of their daily lives. The judgement, does, however, make the lives of trans people extremely difficult. And not just trans people. Any woman who doesn’t satisfy narrow criteria on what a woman should look like is now likely to be challenged when doing something as basic as going to the toilet. It’s truly disgusting and demeaning and as liberals we should not stand for it.

What has rendered my heart into its broken state has been seeing the impact on those same people that I love. They are no less who they are, but they feel the weight of prejudice, they fear even the most mundane aspects of daily life. Nobody should be in that situation.

With a few notable exceptions, though, we’ve been silent. We’ve not stood up as we should have done for a marginalised group under fire. We’ve not told the human stories of those affected. We’ve not talked about how this is a dangerous distraction from the real issues facing women.

This, despite our Conference voting in massive numbers just 7 months ago, in favour of a policy paper that is fully in support of the right of trans people and all LGBT+ people to be who they are. Just six weeks ago, our Conference overwhelmingly for the second time against a constitutional amendment which would have required our trans and non binary colleagues to be counted as the sex they were assigned at birth.

I want to give you a bit of background on the quotas. I have spent most of my adult life banging my head against a brick wall trying to get this party to a place where it took women’s representation seriously. But then finally, about 10 years ago, in a windowless room in the party’s former HQ in Great George Street, we got a decent way forward, after much wrangling. I found myself in a room with constitutional wonks like Mark Pack, Jeremy Hargreaves and Jon Ball and we came up with a workable framework for ensuring better and more balanced representation for a number of under-represented groups. The gender quota has also been used on occasion to increase the number of men on a committee when more than 60% of women have been elected. I don’t love that so much because, to be honest, women have been under-represented for so long that we could literally have every place on every committee for the next 2000 years and still not redress the historical imbalance but that’s by the by. But we got these quotas in and I think that they have made a difference even when they have not needed to be used. Our federal committees are more diverse and that is a good thing.

I want these quotas to stay and be used for as long as it takes for there to be a world free of discrimination. But how would I feel about benefitting from their use when my trans and non binary siblings cannot without the indignity of being counted as who they are not.

And now this week, on the eve of ballots being issued, the party issued a statement instituting pretty much what Conference rejected. Did I say it was just 6 weeks ago?

The establishment line, from talking to many people about this in recent days, seems to be:

a) we have advice and we can’t do anything else or the anti-trans groups or individuals will sue us

b) we can’t do as the Scottish Greens have done (with great reluctance) and suspend our gender quota until the legal landscape is clearer for a justification that makes no sense to me.

My feelings on the points above:

a) Try harder. There is more than one legal view on this and we are very likely to get sued from the other perspective to. Our approach seems to be inconsistent with several other laws, including the Human Rights Act and GDPR as far as I can see. Of course I don’t want to see one penny of our members’ money going to anti-trans litigants but I feel like we could be doing a lot more to build a successful challenge.

b) But Conference emphatically rejected the changes announced last week so surely there is no authority to impose them. And any pushback on how the Scottish Greens can do this and we can’t just gets meaningless word salad in return.

c) The communications around this would make an omnishambles look competent and have been woefully inadequate. The initial announcement was slipped out on our internal elections website without candidates being alerted. Not only that, but we should have had a clear statement that this was horrific and that we wanted to see clear changes in the law to ensure that everyone’s rights were respected.

While I am sure that the email sent to candidates late on Friday was well-meaning, it spectacularly failed to show any understanding of how people are actually feeling. It was described to me by one frustrated person thus:

As you’ll notice, we’ve been forced to stand on your fingers as you dangle from the edge of a cliff. We hope you’re not affected by this, but if you are, here’s a helpline where you can access our leaflet, “Dealing with Gravity”. We hope this will be comforting as you plummet hundreds of feet. Have a great weekend!

d) Acquiescing to this is not an isolated incident. We have been consistently throwing the people our preamble requires us to speak for under the bus in this ill-thought through exclusive pursuit of soft Tory voters.

Which is doubly stupid as soft Tory voters are likely to be socially liberal and horrified at what is happening on many levels.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged 2025 Federal internal elections, diversity quotas, featured, human rights, LGBT rights and womens rights | 34 Comments

Liberalism — Bare your fangs!

By Joshua Hindle | Thu 9th October 2025 - 8:55 am

I haven’t been a member of the Liberal Democrats for the last five years — though I remain a registered supporter. But lately, I’ve found myself hovering over the “rejoin” button, watching the party and waiting for the one thing that might pull me back into the fold.

The truth is simple: politics has shifted — and we must shift with it.

Across the country, politics has become louder, sharper, and more emotional. Reform UK has built an entire movement not on competence or compassion, but on conviction. They dominate social media with soundbites, certainty, and swagger — even when they’re bafflingly wrong about our country. Meanwhile, the liberal voice of reason, fairness, and decency too often sounds careful, polite, quiet — and most of all, meek.

That has to change.

The Liberal Democrats have reliably been on the right side of history: from Iraq to the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit to digital ID cards. We have so much more to be proud of — and yet we rarely show it. Too often our rhetoric fails to inspire a movement beyond membership.

This is my plea to the political family I want to come home to: the time has come to bare your fangs.

Reclaiming Patriotism from Populism

It’s time we stopped surrendering patriotism to the nationalists and grifters.

Liberal Democrats can and should proudly own what it means to love this country — not through slogans or scapegoats, but through the values that truly make Britain worth believing in: fairness, compassion, and honesty.

We are patriotic because we believe in human rights — and don’t cast them aside when inconvenient. We defend the rule of law — and don’t flaunt it. We care about the country our children will inherit — and don’t use them as political props.

That is a deeper, truer love of country than any piece of Temu tat zip-tied to a railing can offer.

Being proudly British means standing up for the vulnerable, protecting our environment, welcoming those in need, and calling out corruption wherever it hides. That’s the patriotism liberals should champion — and it’s time we did so with confidence.

Let’s not bite our tongues on our values. If Reform wants to drag us into the mud, then we’re ready to meet them there — but we’ll bring truth, not fear.

Becoming the Natural Opposition to Reform UK

We need to be clear about something: our real ideological rival is not Labour or the Greens — it’s Reform UK.

Labour’s caution and compromise leave a vacuum in the debate about what kind of country we want to be. Their lack of vision and values leaves them a husk — a relic of a political establishment that’s lost its way.

The Greens inspire many, but their message doesn’t always reach beyond their core. Even they now compromise on their values to chase the fleeting trends of social media slacktivism.

The Liberal Democrats can — and should — be the loud, unapologetic liberal antidote to populism from both left and right.

Reform UK offers anger. We should offer hope with backbone.

They shout about betrayal; we should shout about belonging.

They trade in fear; we should trade in freedom.

That’s how we position ourselves not as the quiet third choice, but as the party standing tall against the politics of division — the tide that lifts all boats.

Supercharging the Movement

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged messaging and party narrative | 10 Comments

A new approach?

By Jack Lee-Brown | Sun 7th September 2025 - 12:30 pm

It is time. The country, in fact the world, is in a state of political flux. As the loud minority gets louder, it’s time for the quiet majority to speak up, and stand up.

For too long now the extremists in politics, be it Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, or Donald Trump, have been dominating the headlines, the waves and our screens. Tweets, soundbites, provocation, division. It is clearly effective. But the politics they stand for are dangerous. They take away dignity, liberty, and humanity. You needn’t look far to see examples of this. ICE in America, Reform’s copycat mass deporation policies. Then, to the left, Jeremy Corbyn’s apparent inaction to stamp out antisemitism in the Labour Party during his leadership.

These people and parties do not hide their colours in ambiguity or political jargon which the Labour government of today has done very well. On paper, a left-leaning progressive government. Yet, because of the loud Reform Party, their rhetoric has shifted rightward, and the Conservatives have all but disappeared into a cloud of teal trying to win back support after being the adopted definition of reckless, shameful, and incompetent government. There is no loud liberal or centrist voice anymore.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged liberalism and populism | 12 Comments

Three ways to highlight Lib Dem local government beyond Conference

By Callum Robertson | Wed 27th August 2025 - 8:55 am

Nick da Costa’s recent article on local government inclusion at conference made for pleasant reading. However, our work to champion our local government work, has to exist beyond conference.

It is important because winning a greater number of councillors in any given area is crucial to winning more parliamentary seats. Crucially it goes beyond that. Every single councillor elected means that a greater number of people across our country get a hard-working local councillor standing up for them and their community and when we win control of councils, we can deliver life changing opportunities to local areas.

Inclusion of local government work within our comms grid to members.

Our emails are good at explaining what we are doing in parliament. However, as the third party in parliament we can only have so much impact.

So where can we communicate that we have had a direct impact on people’s lives?

Through highlighting our local government work and the impact it can have on people’s lives to members, we could both increase the respect that local government has in the party but also increase the number of people who actually want to be local councillors.

Promote the work of our councils in the media.

I am a great believer that you can learn from your opponents, and whilst we share basically nothing in common with Reform, they have managed to make their councils and councillors newsworthy. Albeit often for the wrong reasons.

We should be shouting about the achievements of our councils and councillors. Whilst our Liberal Democrat-led councils are delivering for residents every day, our opposition councillors are also punching above their weight.

For example, Cllr Tom Astell, who is an opposition councillor in Hull and East Yorkshire managed to win some fantastic coverage for his work holding the Reform Mayor to account for his flexible interpretation of public finance regulations. Another example is councillor Michael Mullaney in Leicestershire who has hit out over reform chaos.

Champion getting more metro-Mayors and London Assembly Members elected.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Local government and media | 4 Comments

William Wallace writes: What are we campaigning FOR?

By Lord William Wallace | Tue 26th August 2025 - 11:57 am

The Liberal Party I joined in 1960 was far better at thinking than campaigning. The party leader, Jo Grimond, published several books, with radical proposals ranging from co-ownership to joining the ‘Common Market’ and cancelling the independent deterrent. There were multiple policy groups, several academically-led bodies like the ‘Unservile State Group’ that published their own lengthy analyses, and a Liberal Summer School. We weren’t much good at campaigning, but we prided ourselves on being ‘the party of ideas’.

Young Liberals in the 1960s also loved debating policy, but after the setbacks of the 1964 and 1966 elections were critical of the amateurish approach to campaigning. Community politics proved itself from local successes, and rising generations of Liberal campaigners learned how to win, one ward and one seat after another, through pounding the pavements and taking up local issues. Several decades later, the 2024 election showed what we can achieve through targeted campaigning. But facing an electorate that is more and more sceptical of all politicians, we risk being seen as nice, friendly but hard to define in political terms. The Labour government is now being criticised for having no overall message to underpin its policies. We are in danger of attracting similar criticism.

So we need to spend more time thinking, making political discussion and informed proposals complement continued campaigning. Party policy-making runs through an unavoidable cycle between elections: immediate exhaustion after each election, with new MPs, Councillors and members finding their feet and defining their roles; sufficient experience and time in the second and third years to try out new ideas and shape them into attractive and practical policies; greater caution about floating new ideas as the next election approaches, as party strategists boil down policy packages into messages and manifesto and guard against hostile publicity exploiting any half-prepared idea that is floated.

We need to be particularly attentive during this political cycle for two reasons: first, that the most likely outcome of the 2028-9 election is that no party wins an overall majority (unless, horror of horrors, Reform sweeps in), and that we find ourselves as a potential partner in whatever government is formed; second, that the economic and international situation which that new government faces will be at least as grim as it is today. Many Liberal Democrats will groan at the suggestion that we might once again go into government, particularly if we were not the senior partner. But we could not refuse to negotiate if the outcome is unclear, and if – for example – we find ourselves with 100 MPs or more in a 3-party negotiation (an entirely possible scenario) we will be in a much stronger position than in 2010, provided we have prepared carefully and have agreed priorities.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, party messaging and party narrative | 18 Comments

The Liberal Democrats need a more radical platform

By Will Lawson | Thu 7th August 2025 - 11:55 am

Last Summer, the mood at party conference was jubilant. Record election success brought us 72 Members of Parliament and offered us a vast opportunity to shape national debate and grow our party further.

Yet, in the year since the election, it is the rise of Reform UK which has dominated the political agenda – despite us outnumbering them in Parliament by a factor of 14. Meanwhile, our vote share has sat stagnant at the same level since 2019, even whilst the combined Tory-Labour vote share has declined from 75% to 55%. As dissatisfaction with the status quo escalates, our electoral platform has clearly lacked a sufficiently bold vision to represent a serious political alternative.

To grow our party further, our policy platform needs to achieve three objectives. First, it must speak to the whole electorate, focussing on national priorities rather than those of voters in a small number of seats. Second, our party should embrace the radicalism needed to earn us the attention of the media and match the scale of public dissatisfaction with the status quo. Third, we must remain true to our distinct identity: blending human freedom with social justice, internationalism with localism, liberalism with social democracy.

A new platform

In his 2019 campaign for the Tory leadership, Rory Stewart declared that “the centre ground must not be simply the midpoint of the stick, whose only merit is being as far away as possible from each extreme”. Instead, the centre can succeed by “harnessing the tension of two opposing forces”: mixing policies from both sides of the political spectrum. This is the path the Liberal Democrats must adopt, embracing a new radicalism which transcends the established political divide.

Take the issue of rising child poverty – the most morally unacceptable consequence of inequality – where Labour’s conspicuous inaction over the two-child benefit cap has left a political opening. Our party has committed to repealing the two-child limit, but why not go further to outflank Labour on the left? There are 14 million children in the UK: we could consolidate existing child benefits into a single, universal, far higher benefit of £100 per week – for an additional £40bn. That is roughly 10% of our current welfare spend and could be funded, for example, by reducing the number of VAT exemptions to the OECD average. This policy is not only socially just but economically liberal, since removing VAT exemptions promotes economic efficiency, whilst universal cash benefits are fairly non-distortionary and avoid ‘perverse incentives’.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged policy | 20 Comments

Lib Dems need to be less nice, more radical says Politics Home article

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 27th July 2025 - 4:44 pm

An article on Politics Home suggests that some activists want to see us using similar tactics to Reform UK to get noticed.

Based on snippets from the Social Liberal Forum conference last weekend, and an interview with Bobby Dean, the article provides some useful insight into discussions happening not just in St Albans but across the party.

I’m repeatedly hearing people who want us to stop hand-wringing and actually stand up for our values. Abstentions in Parliament on issues where we should take a stance come in for particular disapproval.

I’m still seething from our response to Keir Starmer’s disgraceful speech on immigration, which even he admits he regrets, which basically amounted to “we need to train British people to do jobs.” We should have been much more robust, as I said at the time:

We should ride a coach and horses through Labour’s plans and we should be bold. We should not give a damn about what the Daily Mail says or thinks.

We should shout about the benefits of being an open, liberal, generous-spirited country and we should not put up with yet another Government failing to meet the needs of our communities by investing enough in public services and housing and then using people who choose this country to live as scapegoats for their failure. We need big picture emotional language that reflects our values as Liberal Democrats. It’s time to challenge the language of prejudice with good, solid practical ideas that will improve the quality of our lives.

At last week’s Social Liberal Forum conference in Daisy Cooper’s St Albans constituency, our treasury spokesperson heard similar views according to Politics Home.

A Lib Dem councillor later told PoliticsHome: “What are we actually known for? People know what Reform stands for… I don’t think we would consider ourselves to be wishy-washy or centrist, but that is where lots of people have us.”

We are too nice, said one member:

“We’re too nice,” one party member exclaimed during the conference. “Nick Clegg was unbelievably nice in the coalition, and we got screwed. It is time we start saying it how it is. We can politely say, look, that is an absolute load of bullshit.”

SLF Chair John Shreeve is quoted as saying:

Why is it that Nigel Farage, with barely any policy detail, is dictating the traffic?” he asked.

He’s doing it from a vision perspective, and we are not doing enough to promote our vision.

I think he’s getting away with it because he is not being challenged. While Labour and Conservatives pander to him, there is clear space to call him out on his nonsense. We are perfectly placed to do this and in fact have a responsibility to do so. If nobody comes out with a clear anti populist narrative, there will be a continued rightward drift in policy and government which will harm people.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged immigration, liberal democrat values and reform | 29 Comments

William Wallace writes: How should we play five party politics?

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 28th May 2025 - 12:00 pm

May’s local elections confirmed what opinion polls had been indicating for several months: that England now has five political parties attracting between 10% and 30% of voters. Nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales make six serious parties: an even more crowded field.

Of course it’s possible that over the next four years UK politics might return to its traditional two-party model. But that doesn’t look likely. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives any longer command the automatic support of a large proportion of voters, nor the mass membership that used to provide local organisations throughout the country. Other divides apart from class and wealth cut across old loyalties: young versus old, graduates versus school leavers, libertarians versus socially-engaged. The old dream that a ‘realignment of the left’ might enable us to replace Labour, and the more recent hope that we might push the Conservatives out of contention as one of the two main parties both look illusory. The result of the 2029 election may largely depend on how effectively different parties target specific constituencies, and whether the Conservatives and Reform can construct a formal or informal electoral pact. And it might then require more than two parties to form a majoritarian government.

After our experience between 2010 and 2015, many Liberal Democrats will groan at the prospect of any form of participation in a government in which we were not the largest party. But we can’t dictate what election outcome we would prefer, and we need to be prepared to make the best of a different pattern of politics as it emerges. Established party systems have withered in most other democratic states, as similar social and economic changes have transformed their electorates. Say that we double our number of MPs in 2029, to become a major player in any post-election scenario, perhaps with more MPs than one of the two ‘established’ parties: what would we do then? We’ve just seen an opinion poll put us ahead of the Tories. We HAVE to think ahead.

I suggest some themes that ought to feed into our thinking and campaigning if the current pattern of disillusion with Labour and the Tories persists.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, hung parliament and uk politics | 9 Comments

Let Lib Dems, not Farage, “Reform UK”

By Tony Paterson | Wed 19th March 2025 - 11:55 am

At this time of crisis, the Lib Dems must seize back the `Reform UK’ initiative from Nigel Farage and his ramshackle party. Freedom is at stake.

Voting intentions (polling data from 10 March) are 15% for the Lib Dems and 23% for Reform UK (from 11% and 25% last December). Here’s how to build on this poll hike.

Farage’s stated belief in electoral reform contains an inherent contradiction: while he ostensibly champions PR, his dream of being PM in 2029 hinges on First Past The Post being maintained.

To be recognised as the real party of reform, the Lib Dems must recapture the initiative. First, use PR as a protest vehicle for appealing to voters disenchanted with a system which gave 2/3 of seats to a party with only 1/3 of the votes.

Secondly, keep flagging up Farage’s championing of Putin during the 2024 GE campaign, when, pointing to NATO’s and the EU’s eastward expansion, he claimed that ‘we provoked this war’. Already in 2014, in an interview with GQ magazine, Farage had named Putin as the world leader he most admired. And let’s not forget his many appearances on Russia Today, at least three of them after Putin invaded Crimea in 2014.

But more recently, Farage has been presenting himself as the voice of moderation within his party. We must highlight Farage’s volatility, contrasted with our consistent liberalism.

Ed Davey, who is stalwartly supporting Ukraine, has proposed large increases in our defence spending as a percentage of GDP and, over the past few weeks, has used many of his PMQs to back Ukraine, is best placed to challenge Reform UK over UK military reform. Farage’s well publicised association with Trump makes it hard for him to follow suit. Polling data shows how deeply split Reform voters are over whether their party would do better with or without Farage.

World War III, using modern means of warfare to undermine Western freedom and democracy, has already begun. (See Economist `Want to stop a third world war?’, 30.5.24). Warfare today is hybrid: insidious, dangerous, but not always obvious. It includes ‘grey zone’ warfare: ‘salami-slicing’ (as Putin did to Crimea in 2014, severing it from Ukraine while causing little Western reaction), cyber warfare, sabotaging crucial infrastructure, etc.

Ideologically, the strategy involves harnessing populism to build up far-right parties across Europe, including in the UK. How can we jolt the country as a whole into recognising that we, on the other hand, stand for freedom and democracy?

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged defence, ed davey, nigel farage, reform uk and ukraine | 4 Comments

Moving beyond tactical votes: Taking the fight to Labour – everywhere.

By Josh Lucas Mitte | Mon 10th February 2025 - 12:55 pm

The following article is primarily concerned with how we approach Labour voters nationally and locally (outside Labour-facing seats). I have much respect for the many local parties, whether in Liverpool or Southwark, who have taken a strong fight to Labour and for whom much of the criticism here would not apply.

The 2019 and 2024 General Elections made one thing clear – parties cannot control tactical voting, only voters can, and their decision is circumstantial. The reason it worked in 2024 without alliances but failed in 2019 with pacts is because voters were ready to do it in the former and not the latter, our leaflets simply reminded them we were the best option in certain areas.

Almost all the leaflets targeted at Labour voters in target seats simply had previous results as a reason to vote for us, rarely providing any reasons to differentiate us from Labour. This was to avoid ‘offending’ Labour voters who could tactically vote for us, which was understandable, the persistence of this mindset, however, is not. Our dependence on a pure tactical voting message has left us with a chunk of unsustainable voters (YouGov Oct ’24), we saw how detrimental a reliance on borrowed votes can be with the collapse of the Conservative vote in the Red Wall.

As the Conservatives continue to struggle with their national revival, often placing third in the polls, and Labour continues with unpopular decisions in government, the notion of tactical voting weakens more and more. A recent poll puts us within 11 percentage points of four other parties. This becomes a greater issue amongst younger generations who are so disillusioned with the establishment (a recent poll showed they’d prefer a dictatorship) that they are more likely to vote on values, not statistical probabilities – especially when those statistics show “this is how things have been in the past.”

But it is not too late, we can still fully switch these voters to create a more sustainable base, but only if we have the courage to take the fight to Labour.

We must shake off the fear of offending Labour voters for three reasons.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged labour facing campaigning and tactical votes | 8 Comments

Liberals Must Rediscover Working Class Politics

By Paul Hindley | Sun 10th November 2024 - 11:55 am

The world changed in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Like all Liberal Democrats, I was extremely hopeful the Kamala Harris would be elected as America’s next President. That did not happen. Donald Trump triumphed. Authoritarian nationalism triumphed. The far-right triumphed.

Central to Harris’ defeat was the loss of Latino and even white women voters. But most crucially, it was the loss of working class voters, especially in those vital “rust belt” swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Biden carried these states in 2020 and Obama carried them easily in 2008 and 2012. But the Harris campaign made a fatal error, they failed to realise that it was a cost of living election, they failed to realise the impact of inflation and they failed to realise the disconnect between the Democrats and their traditional working class base.

In 2020, Biden made a virtue out of being “Scranton Joe”. He worked tirelessly to connect with the traditional working class voters in the industrial swing states. And Biden never shied away from championing his support for trade unions. For all the strengths of the Harris campaign, they lost sight of an important political fact. It’s the economy that is always the defining issue of elections and it’s living standards that matter most.

What does all this mean for Liberal Democrats here in the UK? Firstly, we will have to contend with a destructive protectionist and fascistic US President. Secondly, we will need to be on our guard for Trump apologists in our own country that may seek to take Britain down a similar destructive far-right path. But most importantly of all, we need to understand that if progressive liberalism cannot offer an alternative to the injustices faced by working class people, then far-right nationalism will. This is regardless of the consequences that such nationalism poses to liberal democracy. Liberals in Britain and around the world need to reconnect with working class voters.

If liberalism is not strong at ending the injustices that fuel fascism, then fascism will be strong at ending liberalism. Recall the words of the great liberal US President Franklin D Roosevelt, speaking in 1944:

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

Liberals need to be strong about confronting social hardships. We need to show working class voters and those people left behind by the economy of recent decades, that we are capable of improving their lives, and that we seek to build a democracy that represents them and works for them. We must offer a progressive anti-elitist politics, which is rooted in the liberal tradition, and that will work to offer an effective alternative to both far-right nationalism and far-left authoritarianism.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged 2024 us election and working class | 35 Comments

If we want to “finish the job” on the Tories, we shouldn’t move to the left

By Buddy Anderson | Thu 26th September 2024 - 10:25 am

According to The Economist,

“If the Liberal Democrats want to replace the Conservatives, they must move further right on the economy”.

This was instantly backed unsurprisingly by the Liberal Reform group, the last of the so-called Orange Bookers, a dominant force during the Clegg years. Every time these guys support or share anything, it usually causes outrage from the grassroots, who have historically been more progressive than the politicians. As someone from the right of the party, I’m always perplexed at how much anger Liberal Reform generate. I very happily accept most Lib Dems’ identity as centre-left, but parties that reach the greatest heights of politics are broad churches. Those, like myself, who often dare support these ideals are often scoffed at for having short memories, and forgetting what happened in 2015. But have we?

Under Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems secured over 6.8m votes in 2010, the highest number of votes the party has ever received to this day. Most political commentators blame what happened in 2015 on broken promises, notably tuition fees, rather than ideology (which hadn’t really changed that much in those 5 years). In fact the majority of the Lib Dem seats were lost to the then centre-right Conservative party. The Lib Dems did adopt a more centre-left stance at the next GE in 2017 and the number of votes they received went down further. I don’t think anybody wants me to attempt to unpack 2019. Now with this in mind, I am fairly sure that I am not suffering acute memory loss at the sprightly age of 35. However, my interpretation of events is clearly at odds with the ever-progressive grassroots of the party.

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Posted in Op-eds | 42 Comments

We are a major force in British politics again – let’s update elements of our support processes to reflect this

By Callum Robertson | Wed 31st July 2024 - 10:25 am

We have 72 Members of Parliament, it would be the easiest thing in the world to sit back and be a bit smug for six months. However, that would be a mistake – with the Conservatives hell bent on internal warfare and Labour in a honeymoon period, we are the de facto opposition. Consequently we have to start acting like it. To my mind we succeed where there is local leadership and being blunt, our selection process is unnecessarily slow in getting candidates in place.

Parliamentary Selections – including seats where we are third, should take place in the next 18 months.

The most effective way of electing MPs remains selecting early and embedding those candidates in as genuine local champions, ready to hold their local Member of Parliament to account.

We are second in 27 seats, selecting these seats early will allow us to bed in candidates ahead of time and give us a more realistic chance of building on the incredible gains next time.

However, there are also a large number of seats where we are a good third (15-25% of the vote) and should be challenging for second place in 2029. We know that in these seats, credibility can be a challenge – so equally building our vote in these seats is important too.

Understandably there needs to be some time for reflection – however post 2019 we were far too slow in selecting candidates. We can grow on our success if we have all our target seat candidates and most of our moving forward seat candidates, selected by December 2025.

Large Seat Selections – these should be treated as advanced seats are, or we will not be able to prove what we would do differently.

We have built clusters of victories in seats around Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Hampshire, Gloucestershire and Surrey. This concentration of parliamentary seats should help us win some larger seats such as Mayoralties and Police (Fire) and Crime Commissioners at the next election for those seats.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged candidate selection | 3 Comments

We need to move from the shires and suburbs into the deprived areas of the UK

By Richard Kemp | Sat 6th July 2024 - 2:30 pm

No matter how successful we have been in the many General Elections that I have been involved in since my first in 1970 there has always been someone who, after the elections, says, ….”but!” So, it might as well be me! In fact, let me correct my own first sentence. For the first time since 1970 I have not been involved in the General Election at all. Convention in Liverpool is that for the year that you are in office the Lord Mayor plays no part in politics so that they can act as the only member of the council able to speak in Purdah periods but also, as with the Speaker, can be neutral throughout the year.

For most of my political life I have been involved in the school of hard politics, which is Liverpool, but it could be any other rough, tough, urban core city or borough. Although I represent a reasonably affluent area now, the fabulous Penny Lane Ward, for much of my time on the council I represented difficult inner-city areas. My lament through the whole of this period has been that the Liberals and then Liberal Democrats have been a party of the suburbs and shires. A quick look at the map of where Lib Dems took seats on Thursday will see that this has not changed at all.

I do understand the need for targeting and believe that this policy was absolutely necessary to ensure that we came back from the political wilderness to enable the Party as a whole to be relevant to the law-making processes of the nation as a whole. But we have now achieved that and my plea to Ed Davey and our other leaders is that now is the time to be bold and push for real representation in our major cities.

Now I know that we are not entirely unrepresented in urban areas at local level. We control Hull and have significant and growing numbers of councillors in places like Sheffield, Newcastle and a growing re-energised presence in my own city of Liverpool. But over the whole of my 50 years in Liverpool we have had to do everything ourselves and fight a poorly funded urban guerilla warfare against Labour’s well-funded mighty machines.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged 2024 general election, cities, featured and urban affairs | 6 Comments

Didn’t we have a good national campaign!

By Lord William Wallace | Sat 6th July 2024 - 12:17 pm

Few of us dreamed that we could come out of this election campaign with over 70 seats. The willingness of Liberal Democrats across the country to travel to target seats, the high quality of the local campaign organisation when we got there, determined efforts to raise more money than most local campaigns have ever thought of before, all helped to maximise our gains. But we must also give full credit to the high quality and sustained consistency of the national campaign.

I expect that many Liberal Democrats – naturally argumentative, with strong opinions of our own – have had their doubts about aspects of our national strategy over the past year or more: a focus on sewage and water pollution rather than Europe or Liberal values, a ruthless approach to target seat selection and to the demands placed upon them, stunts and photo-opportunities that attracted attention but didn’t seem sufficiently serious.

Well, the results have justified the hard discipline our central organisation imposed. Concentrated campaigning harvested tactical votes and used our limited funds effectively. Ed Davey’s standing in the polls rose as Sunak’s fell; he was seen to be the most human and approachable of the three main party leaders. And as to sewage: the issue of water pollution ‘cut through’, as the phrase goes, to a point where much of the Thames Valley has turned orange.

Liberal Democrats outside London may grasp only with difficulty how much smaller our professional staff is than those who have thronged Conservative and Labour headquarters in their hundreds: extensive media and digital teams, multiple fundraisers, ranks of policy advisers, organisers for national and local campaigns. Our headquarters has unavoidably remained small, within our limited budget – with its staff probably paid a good deal less than elsewhere, and helped by volunteers. I think I have had half our media team in my Lords office once or twice – and it’s not a large office!

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged 2024 general election and featured | 11 Comments

But what happens next?

By Ben Rich | Sun 17th March 2024 - 7:45 am

A political collapse along the lines of that suffered by the Canadian Conservatives in 1993 – when they fell from a Parliamentary majority to just 2 seats – has long been the stuff of fantasy in British politics. Such implosions hardly ever happen in Western democracies and yet the chances a near repeat by the British Conservatives later this year have climbed from “impossible” to merely “highly improbably”.

Conservatives whips are struggling, I am told, to identify more than fifty colleagues confident of victory in the Autumn, while the steady trickle of senior Conservative MPs standing down – Theresa May last week, Brandon Lewis this – reinforces the impression of sinking ships and guinea pig-like rodents.

Lee Anderson’s defection to Reform UK is likely to be more an effect than a cause of decline but party leaders fear that things could quickly snowball, were others to follow suit. And that’s without Farage showing his hand, which many suspect could tip the Conservative party over the edge.

In a ‘normal’ election, the roughly 35-40% of the right-wing vote consolidates over the course of the campaign around the Conservatives, driven by fear of the alternative, but what if Labour is insufficiently fear-inspiring to drive voters home and the right wing vote splits down the middle?

It is perfectly conceivable that the Conservatives and Reform UK might each finish on between 15% and 20% with the Lib Dems just behind on 10%-12%. Under the perversities of first past the post, Labour might then reasonably expect 400+ seats in return for its 40-42% vote share, with the Conservatives might indeed plunge below 100 with the Lib Dems either side of fifty. Meanwhile, a disgruntled Reform UK, despite potentially even coming second in terms of the popular vote, might be lucky to return more than the handful of seats the Liberal party achieved with its 19% of the vote in February 1974.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged 2024 general election and featured | 52 Comments

Will we learn the lessons of 2014 in 2024?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 3rd January 2024 - 6:54 am

It hit me yesterday that 2024 marks 10 years since the Scottish referendum on independence. How on earth did that happen? Given the failure of the SNP to manage Scotland’s public services using the extensive powers they already have, you could argue that we had a very lucky escape.

For me, that referendum set in motion the events that led to where we are now. David Cameron learned that a broadly negative status quo campaign could win the day and transferred that experience to the campaign to remain in the EU. He should have realised that the pro-UK side was lucky to get away with such a poor campaign and should have done so much better. If we had managed to get over 60%, we could have perhaps avoided all the arguments about a second referendum that have paralysed Scottish politics since.

The campaigns to stay in both unions failed to inspire, or offer any sort of positive vision. The Scottish independence campaign cunningly hid the negativity at its core with a frothy, engaging message that touched people’s hearts. The campaign to leave the EU just flat out lied to people and wasn’t effectively challenged either by the media or the opposition.

The Yes campaign and the campaign to leave the EU touched a nerve with people because they felt powerless to change their own destiny. It is also 10 years since our Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper, half a decade before she became an MP, suggested “Take Back Control” as a slogan for us. It would be a slogan with meaning, too, because so many of our policies are about exercising power as close to the people as possible. Liberal Democrats could deliver so much more than the non-existent control promised by the Brexiteers.

Liberal Democrats have so much substance in our policies to help deliver a much more equal, happier, sustainable society. From our guaranteed basic income, to strengthening our democracy by cleaning up our politics and making sure people get the parliament they ask for, to restoring our international reputation, to tackling the housing crisis and slowing our rush to climate catastrophe, we have some solid ideas that will make a huge difference to people.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged 2024 general election and featured | 20 Comments