Writing in the Press and Journal this week, Malcolm Bruce argued that liberals are an essential and critical part of the fightback against the polarised world we find ourselves in.
Much of society has degenerated into angry, polarised camps, brooking no compromise and demanding people conform to their woke identity slogans or resign themselves to being the “enemy”.
This is not the stuff of a civilised society. It prevents genuine exchange of views. Evidence is discarded in favour of fake news and alternative facts, leading to rash decisions.
He wonders why the other parties are so vicious in their attitude towards us:
In an ever-more complex, challenging and divided world, once-great parties are offering simplistic, irrational, glib solutions. By the same token, the political debate has sought either to trash the Liberal Democrats or sneer at their irrelevance – displaying uncertainty of intent. Why are other parties so splenetic about the Liberal Democrats? My guess is it is because we get in the way of simplistic, hardline, ideological identity politics.
Liberal Democrats believe in the freedom of individuals to express themselves in their own way, free from pressure to conform. We celebrate diversity and pluralism in an electoral system that has the deliberate intention of forcing people into camps.
He says that there is another way:
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