Jack Newfield once wrote, “We learned that we shall not overcome. The most compassionate leaders our nation could produce had been assassinated. The stone was at the bottom of the hill and we were alone.”
Those words of penetrating despair referred to the deaths of two leading American liberals in 1968. In the aftermath Richard Nixon seized the presidency and Democrats fell into a dark period of infighting and indecision that lasted off and on until at least 1992.
No-one in our party, in our country has been killed. Yet there is a sense of loss. MPs we admired are gone. Millions of people who voted for a liberal future are cut out by the electoral system. Our leader was the victim of orchestrated misrepresentation by newspapers owned by a few individuals overseas, whose interests are at odds from the public interest. Too few people who said they like our vision believed in it strongly enough to vote for it. It is easy to feel bereaved.
Liberal Democrat campaigners must not submit to the responses that often follow bereavement. We must not, as individuals or as a party, cut ourselves off. We must not become cynical or give up our principles. There must be neither a retreat into comfort or acquiescence to our opponents’ world view.
What we must retain is a clear idea of what we want to achieve for the people and equally great clarity in explaining why it’s important.
As we demand STV for the House of Commons, call to mind why it matters. It is not because of fairness to our candidates who deserve to win but do not under FPTP. It matters because the Acts of our legislature should serve the interests of the people, which will happen if the legislature proportionately reflects the views and interests of all the people.
Given that we have a bicameral parliament does STV for the Commons matter if we have STV for a new elected upper house? If laws have to pass both houses then proposed laws would still have to display the qualities that we believe subjecting Bills to an STV assembly would ensure. If another party will consent to STV for the upper house there is probably no need to sacrifice that because they will only give AV or less for the Commons.
In justifying change to the public it is not a question of electoral fairness for our party but freedom for people to live under laws that balance all of our interests.
We should seriously review whether “the fairness message” (I adopt this term the Party President’s email to party members on Friday night) has properly convinced people about our aims. Argument about whether community-service-for-citizenship is or is not “an amnesty” did not inspire the electorate. Our opponents want the issue to be reduced to such a stupid semantic exercise. We need to fundamentally answer our opponents’ “immigration is bad” frame. Aren’t points that needs to be made:
- Immigration is good. A country with an aging population needs more young people to work and contribute to the health and pension provision of those already here,
- The number of migrants who claim welfare or commit crimes is a minority that can be stopped without attacking all migration,
- And most importantly, in a free country, if a company wants to employ someone then isn’t that a freedom they should have? Is it right for government to intervene and say that British companies should not have that freedom?
The European Union, like immigration, was raised on the doorstep to an extent not encountered in the last two elections. If the debate is framed as about fairness then Europe was likely to be a vote loser. People’s abiding feeling about fairness regards Europe is a perceived lack of political fair play over a referendum on Lisbon. I do not think most people feel strongly as to whether or not it is a good or bad treaty. But you do not need to know the Treaty’s content to feel you were “promised” a referendum on the Constitution, which people regard as basically the same document. I am not saying people should feel that way. But they do feel it and regard it is unfair.
The frame that might have worked with Europe as an issue is not fairness but freedom. Being a citizen of Europe enriches your life chances by giving you freedom of movement, freedom of trade, greater freedom from international pollution and from international crime from that you benefit from either directly or indirectly through people economically connected to you.
At the moment none of the three parties cite freedom as their key value. But it is the value on which the party of Mill is based. All I suggest is that we might maximise our progress with the public by explaining ourselves not only in terms of fairness but also in terms of freedom.
The greatest leaders our country can produce are not dead. I saw Nick Clegg on television.
Antony Hook is a Liberal Democrat Campaigner in the South East.
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7 Comments
Now THAT is a good idea 🙂 I can very happily get behind a compromise delivering AV (or perhaps even less, single-sizes for constituencies, for example) in the commons if we get a fully elected Lords elected using STV.
I voted LD to keep the Tories out of Eastleigh, I have emailed Chris Huhne to ask him not to support a Conservative/LD coalition. I cannot believe that LDs are even considering working with the Tories.
@Fiona: What would you have us do instead?
We don’t have enough seats to form a majority with Labour, unless various nationalists or Northern Irish parties hop on board too. And if they do that, they will be bound to extract at least partial exemption from the cuts the rest of us will have to face to close the deficit – how fair is that?
If we allow Gordon Brown to continue as Prime Minister of a Labour minority government there is little prospect of stability (he may not even manage to pass the Queen’s speech if we vote for it because of the arithmetic) and every chance of another early election, where we would be bound to be squeezed further.
Cameron cannot form a minority government unless either Brown is forced to resign (e.g. by losing the Queen’s Speech) or the Lib Dems come to some form of agreement with him.
So we have two choices: do a deal with Cameron, or precipitate another election in months. If you want to avoid a snap election, the maths of this bad election result leave us with only one alternative. And surely Cameron will be much better when constrained by Lib Dems preventing some of their more hare-brained economic and tax policies than if he has an outright majority, which he might well achieve if Brown falls and another election is called?
Another election in October is staring down the barrel of a gun. Only one party has the rescources and will power for that.
STV would take YEARS – firstly, a Boundaries Commission and civil servants to draw up new large constituencies, in very many existing constituencies, the Liberal Democrats have no manpower to fight what they have got, without merging whole areas together. STV means big consituencies. Right now we have the pound on the slide, the stock market on the slide, and the Euro under pressure with predictions of a great financial meltdown, and here we are, discussing merging constituencies together. Cant see anyone giving that much priority.
thank you for posting such a clear explanation of the situation…I don’t LIKE the idea of doing a deal with the Tories – what LibDem would – but I have waited a very long time for the LibDem voice to have real power in government . It seems that this might be achievable but we must be very sure that the compromises do not cost too much. There are huge elements of Tory policy that are deeply distasteful…I wish I were sure we would have the strength to work against them from within a coalition.
No-one seems to have mentioned the environment.
Has everyone forgotten that Copenhagen failed, that we need to urgently pick up the pace of change on climate policy, and that this is the priority that was bottom of the Tory PPC’s list?
I said at conference last year that what scared me most was the thought of Cameron being PM for the next 5 years, a period that is critical if we are to take effective action to prevent catastrophic global warming.
I agree with others that our options if we want to create a stable government are very limited. I cannot see there being enough Labour and LibDem MPs to run an effective joint administration, however much we agree with them on some key issues – including climate change.
The point of entering into an arrangement with the Tories is to give the country a government that reflects the views of 59% of the electorate, rather than 36%. However distasteful it sounds – and those of us who have fought against Tory campaigns locally know just how nasty, how dishonest, and how divisive they can be – one of the things we said was that we would act as a brake on their potential to destroy this country, and maybe a coalition with them could achieve a great deal. I don’t hold out much hope, but I think we need to give it a try.
My conditions would be:
True electoral reform via the Electoral Conference we put forward, but with commitment in advance from the Tories for PR at local level and for the Lords
Commitment to a Green Infrastructure Bank and our programme of green investment. Commitment to 40% reduction by 2020. Commitment to Renewables. Agreement that carbon price needs to be $50 per tonne and if emissions trading not working then Carbon Taxes need to be brought in.
Fairer taxes
Commitment to Pupil Premium and a full role for LEAs in education, and elected Health Boards for the NHS – we need to test the Tories rhetoric on localism.
Scrapping Tuition Fees.
Last but not least key cabinet posts based on relative votes cast not seats won, including Vince as chancellor, and Huhne at DECC.
Now if they were to offer us that, I would find it hard to say no. Anything less is not enough.
Buy that man a pint. Well said Mr Hook.
I know the Lib Dems are a democratic bunch (stands to reason), but you don’t need a committee to tell you that the glass is half full.
You put on nearly 1 million more votes despite the best efforts of a grossly partisan media lying through their pages at every opportunity and 2 opposing parties scaring the voters with “Vote Clegg get Brown / Cameron” and shoddy PPB’s that had to be drawn up at short notice because Nick Clegg but the fear of God into Cameron.
Fear and negativity work. This should not be news.
What you have now is an opportunity to make a positive difference to peoples lives. Isn’t that what you’re in politics for?
Cameron has already said yes to the pupil premium so within a few months, tens if not hundreds of thousands of kids could be getting extra help thanks to you.
Cameron seems to agree on a basic rate tax cut. Maybe not the full £700 but even if it was £300-500 that is real money helping real people in difficult times thanks to you.
To all those saying they voted LD to keep the Tories out, you have to respect the democratic and political reality.
The Tories got 2 million more votes than Labour and have an obvious right to govern. However, they will be restrained by the party you voted for which is a good thing. As for the politics, there is no Lib-Lab majority in the Commons so the “Progressive Majority” / “Coalition of Losers” is a non-starter.