There’s quite a bit from Norman Lamb and Tim Farron in the Sunday papers today, all of which shows off our two leadership contenders at the best, challenging orthodoxy with fresh liberal thinking based on principles. The Labour leadership candidates (with the exception of Comrade Corbyn) might like to try that sort of thing sometimes. It really can be quite invigorating.
The Observer highlights Tim Farron’s call for the UK to take 60,000 migrants as part of an EU arrangement to help these desperate people who have been fleeing horrible circumstances.
“We should support this because we are decent people. Our party should not have a mixed message about this. We should not turn people away,” he said.
The former Lib Dem president has written to David Cameron to say the UK should be proud of its record on taking in refugees, citing the admission of many thousands of Ugandan Asians who were expelled by President Idi Amin in 1972.
The policy had benefited all parties, and proved to be in the country’s economic interest. “First and foremost it is about compassion, but also there is enlightened self-interest,” Farron said.
The article also quotes Norman Lamb, who spoke very movingly on Any Questions last week, urging compassion for children who had been stuck for weeks in a refugee camp. He said:
Lamb said he had invited former party leader Paddy Ashdown and Baroness Williams to take part in a new foreign policy commission to address issues such as migration flows and climate change, that were now among the most serious facing political leaders across the world.
On migration, Lamb said: “The truth is that no one has a clear idea about how to address this challenge. We have to map out a way forward, otherwise there is a risk we as a society take a wrong turn with disastrous consequences.
Elsewhere, Norman Lamb has been upsetting the Daily Telegraph’s Simon Heffer, who wrote a poisonous little piece about policy on drugs, calling him a “pin-up for ageing hippies.” Given that there is not much in the way of difference between the two leadership candidates on this issue, it seems odd that Norman gets picked on, but he should look on it as a badge of honour because the evidence is clearly on his side.
He’s upset all the right people this week, as the Daily Mail spun his sensible suggestion that there should be more gay characters in children’s tv shows as a call for a lesbian Peppa Pig. Norman clearly gets the anguish that LGBT young people can go through, that crushing isolation of feeling that there is nobody like them represented in the media. Why not show Dora the Explorer with two mums without comment, without making a big thing about it. just to show that families come in many different forms?
The Western Morning News has profiled both candidates, saying of Tim:
The current favourite to win, Mr Farron is full of energy and enthusiasm as he outlines his plans for a Lib Dem revival – in which the South West will play a vital role.
It has been well-reported that he does not shy away from acknowledging the magnitude of the task ahead, and speaking to the WMN he admits the party “has no right to survive”. But he nevertheless claims he is ready to launch an “ambitious” come back, and will do so “with a smile on his face”.
“We lost 49 seats in the last election, and I want to get as many of those back as possible. I’ve got to go out there and scrap for our survival,” he said.
“At the moment we’re on single figures and it’s my jobto take the party past single figures and into the teens and into the twenties over the next five years.
Part of our way forward is to reclaim our position as the only credible anti-Tory party in the South West. And you do that by proving you are on the side of people in the Westcountry.”
Norman’s profile highlights his plan to build on the practical things he did in government to improve mental health services:
Better treatment for mental ill health remains a priority for Mr Lamb, but it forms part of a wider vision to create a future where there are “no second class citizens”. This includes ensuring low-wage and rural communities do not suffer as a result of Conservative cuts.
“We’re facing £12 billion in welfare cuts. If this happens it will mean a bigger divide between rich and poor, which will hit the South West,” he said. “My fear is that now they have secured an election victory we need to hold them to account for all the promises they made.
“As a hint of what may be coming, there was this great promise of the Northern powerhouse, part of that was a big investment in rail infrastructure . Now we’re being told that it’s not going to happen.
“If they can do it in the North they can do in the South West as well.”
Mr Lamb’s plan for a Lib Dem recovery is to “win the battle of ideas” and present voters in the Westcountry with novel solutions “to the big problems”. As the MP for a largely rural constituency he understands a lot of the challenges communities in Devon and Cornwall face, including poor rail services and struggling coastal economies. He also believes the country is living in a “liberal age”, and that by tapping into these ideals the party can rebuild trust.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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23 Comments
> he understands a lot of the challenges communities in Devon
>and Cornwall face, including poor rail services and struggling coastal economies
Erm….not wanting to doubt Norman, but Cornwall and Devon are close to their lowest point for unemployment in living memory and the train services are better than ever. This adds to my impression that the party has lost touch completely with South West voters and that neither Tim nor Norman will change that. It’s galling when politicians tell you local problems from a decade ago and completely ignore the current issues. What they need to admit is that they simply don’t understand the challenges faced by communities in Devon & Cornwall, but are hoping to find out!
http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Sharp-drop-unemployment-Devon-Cornwall-past-year/story-22715410-detail/story.html
>”Tim Farron’s call for the UK to take 60,000 migrants”
I was too busy thinking about my own backyard and missed this vote winning beauty. I agree with Tim, I think it’s the right thing to do, but I wouldn’t expect anyone to vote for the party ever again after publically advocating it either!
Cornwall and most of Devon have been cut off from the rest of UK severals times in recent years due to errosion on the line between Teignmouth and Dawlish, providing major logistical problems and costs to people, bussiness and other organisations. Wages in the South West are often low, and (compared to many other provincial areas in England) house prices high. Not sure what there is here to find fault with – and I am sure both leadership candidates have a good sense of issues in such rural areas, given where they have cut their teeth and now represent.
60,000 migrants. So, this is roughly 90 refugees per constituency in Britain, presumably not all coming at once. Hardly scary electorally, surely, even if manipulated madly by the Daily Mail.
Tony Dawson 5th Jul ’15 – 2:31pm
“60,000 migrants. So, this is roughly 90 refugees per constituency in Britain, presumably not all coming at once. Hardly scary electorally, surely, even if manipulated madly by the Daily Mail.”
Thank you Tony. I hope we will all be using this simple fact over the coming days and months.
The 60,000 migrants would not be refugees but ecomimic migrants who prefer to piggy back on our past efforts to improve the country rather than stay in their own country and improve it for their own people, heritage and culture.
David, you think that people leaving war zones are anything but refugees? If you get on one of those boats, you are desperate, and I really think we should have compassion for what they are going through and not suggest that they stay when we haven’t a clue what their circumstances were.
I support helping the refugees. 60,000 is not a lot. Importantly, we need to develop the best policy possible to help bring stability into the region as soon as we can.
Regards
Apart from the fact that it is right and absolutely necessary to help the refugees, it is totally and utterly wrong to put all the responsibility for dealing with them onto a weak Italian economy and a collapsed Greek one.
This question of the quota comes down to “Is Italy our friend or not?” So far ONLY Tim Farron has had the courage to say what is right on this.
This may not be the way to get 40% of the vote in Britain at the moment but taking correct, distinctive and principled stands IS the way to start climbing away from our current nadir
‘Importantly, we need to develop the best policy possible to help bring stability into the region as soon as we can.’
Well…with respect (and I do mean that) talk is free and easy. It’s not exactly as if, ‘we,’ (whoever that means) have not tried. Have, ‘we,’ really had any meaningful success for all the effort put in? ‘We,’ might have the odd little bit here and there, but have, ‘we,’ got anything to point to as serious and lasting achievement?
Just look at the above. One of the candidates talks about events that happened in 1972. The other talks about, ‘a new foreign policy commission to address issues such as migration flows and climate change.’ Not altogether earth-shattering and confidence-filling is it? Now, sure, it’s not as if we have loads of grand, visionary ideas from all parts of the political spectrum – I get that.There are no easy answers.
Just perhaps the time has come for something a bit serious more than cant about, ‘compassion,’ and, ‘stability.’
I thnk I am correct to say that Simon Heffer is a bit younger than me. So I find it odd that he uses the phrase “ageing hippies” in a pejorative sense.
How old would one have to be to be an ageing hippy? I guess you would have needed to been around about 20 in 1967.
I was only just 15 so a bit young to take full advantage of that summer. A trip to San Francisco withor without flowers in my hair would have been well beyond the earnings from my Saturday job at Chessington Zoo. In today’s terms I was perhaps a “wannabe” hippy.
To qualify as a genuine “ageing hippy” I guess you would need to be over 70 years old.
Is this the group of people that Simon Heffer seeks to denigrate? Why has he got it in for the elderly?
I have just checked and Simon Heffer is indeed younger than me. He was born on 18 July 1960 so he will be 55 in a couple of weeks time,
Too young to remember Lady Chatterly or The Beatles first LP.
Too young to be an ageing hippy, too old to be a young fogey any more.
He seems to have spent his entire adult life writing grumpy, backward looking articles regretting the fact that Margaret Tatcher was not right-wing enough and that we are all going to hell in a kaftan.
It is a sad reflection on the newspaper that employs him that they continue to churn out Heffer’s reactionary drivel.
David Evershed
‘ The 60,000 migrants would not be refugees but ecomimic migrants who prefer to piggy back on our past efforts to improve the country rather than stay in their own country’
Unlikely. Most are fleeing war zones and in the case of many Syrians, active persecution of their communities by ISIL. Telling refugees to go back to their own country is the kind of advice I would expect from Nigel Farage and UKIP rather than the Liberal Democrats.
Economic migrants V Genuine Refugees
I am being deliberately controversial here, because I believe this is a debate that needs to be had.
I suspect one is a potential vote winner (regardless that it is undeniably the right thing to do for all compassionate human beings no matter what your political leanings). The other though………………..Um.
How you deliver clarity of message to say nothing of the practicalities of implementing a policy on this one without it getting very messy.
Not sure what the solution is, just encouraging the debate which I believe it is in our interests to have
Please, please, and not just on this issue, will folks get their language correct?
Firstly the people fleeing a variety of places are described as “refugees”. We need to distinguish between
1) what our international committments are at the moment
2) what steps we want to make voluntarily beyond our minimum committments
3) what changes we want to make to the law, in the UK, in the EU or more widely.
The British people would, I’m sure, happily take in 60,000 people if they believed they were all genuinely fleeing war and that there was any prospect of ensuring their eventual return. What they see is a mix of genuine refugees, economic migrants and no doubt a few terrorist ‘sleepers’, all indistinguishable due to genuine or convenient lack of documents, whom Europe decides to assist or not based on a very dark kind of ‘Its A Knockout’ tournament where those with deepest pockets and most nerve/luck manage to cross the Med and who pass up the chance to settle in many other civilised countries, preferring instead to offer extreme violence and disruption to our citizens (lorry drivers and other port users in order to enter this one. None of whom will ever voluntarily return to their country of origin.
When we can set out a version of the 60,000 that takes all of that into account and looks fair and equitable, it may be politically saleable.
The 1951 United Nations Convention on the status of refugees is not a statement of common sense, it is a sophisticated reaction to Nazism. Although World War 2 ended in 1945 the Convention came into force in 1953.
There are regional variations to suit local conditions. France, a safe country, has refused refugee status to Julian Assange, presumbaly because he is not in French jurisdiction. Ecuador has provided him with protection using their discretion. He is actually in an embassy, which would be allowed in South America. The United Kingdom has exercised discretion of a kind by choosing not to evict him, although he would be arrested if he chose to leave.
We also need to think carefully about international borders, on which the Convention depends. We have precedents in the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, etc. The border between Iraq and Syria has ceased to exist because of Islamic State (IS or its translation into Arabic).
Please be careful about minorities, because majorities can be persecuted. Think of women in Iran forming a large majority after the carnage to their menfolk caused by the Iran-Iraq war. Think of Rwanda and Burundi.
Please also think about Internally-Displaced-Persons (IDPs). Someone can be persecuted in Burma/Myanmar for political reasons and/or religious reasons and/or ethnic reasons, or a combination of those, but has not crossed an international border.
Please also think about those who have arrived in an unsafe country which has refugee camps. They may be recognised as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but UNHCR is not a country and has a continuing need for money.
It is widely assumed that people who are recognised as refugees are granted Indefinite Leave to Enter or Remain, which did happen when the Blair-Brown government was following the Tory spending plans in 1997 – 1999. Such a policy is not in the 1951 Convention.
If a country of origin becomes safe, for instance if a dictatorship becomes a democracy, there will be both voluntary and enforced returns.
During the Blair-Brown government peopel who would have qualified for recognition as refugees were awaiting an initial decision for long periods, during which the underlying basis of their initial claims were eroded.
@Paul Pettinger,
>Cornwall and most of Devon have been cut off from the rest of UK
No, they haven’t – whilst the Dawlish stretch is notorious, it seldom stops anyone getting to and from Cornwall/Devon, it just involves sitting on a bus for an hour. That track is fraught because of where it is, it’d be nice to have a whole different route but this isn’t necessarily a vote-winner in Cornwall as it only affects people once in blue moon. Local lines have been improved a lot in the past decade, so for most it’s the best era for rail travel in their memory. It’s really not something you could easily win votes in the south west with, what we’d need to know is the proposal for an alternative (look at a map with train stations on and it should be apparent why this isn’t a simple issue).
You make a much better point regarding wages compared to house prices, and yet neither candidate said anything on that subject (possibly because it’s so controversial in Cornwall & Devon at the moment because of the massive housebuilding plans and opposition to them).
> I am sure both leadership candidates have a good sense of issues in such rural areas
I’m not disputing that, what I’m saying is these aren’t the makings of a plan to take back the south west and I’m giving my reasons as to why that’s the case. A lot of folk around here really wouldn’t be impressed with “poor rail services” and “struggling coastal economies” as a precis of their woes, it’s just demonstrates he doesn’t understand the situation. I say this as a Lamb supporter/voter.
Winning back ageing hippies and the south west? Two very different things aren’t they? After a coalition with the Tories and a refusal to make reforming the drug laws a part of the coalition agreement I don’t think you can get the votes of ageing hippies anymore, do you? Being in national government makes being all things to all people impossible I’m afraid.
I am continually horrified by what Tory and Labour MPs have said on TV about refugee issues. The phrase “economic migrant” is used a lot. It is irrelevant to the decision to recognise a refugee or refuse an asylum seeker.
When John Alderdice was President of the Liberal International he organised a conference in Belfast. At the conference he criticised the Home Office for their reluctance to issue visas. Perhaps they feared that delegates would claim asylum once they were in-country.
One person who would have had a very strong claim to recognition as a refugee was the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, whose relationships with the President of Zimbabwe had been difficult to put it mildly. He went back to Zimbabwe.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/john_alderdice