The Lib Dem General Election review is out..

The party’s review of the General Election campaign has been published this morning, so we can all put our feet up in front of the fire on a cold Winter’s afternoon and digest its findings.

The review was written by a panel chaired by Tim Farron. The other members were Cllr Ade Adeyemo, Paul Farthing, Cllr Donna Harris, Cllr Emma Holland-Lindsay, Mike O’Carroll and Cllr Sally Pattle.

In an email to members, Tim Farron said:

We have returned to the House of Commons as the third largest party, a real force to be reckoned with under Ed’s leadership.

While it goes without saying, nevertheless it is important to be said, the result was exceptional. As Chair of the Review, I offer my full and unreserved praise to Ed and to every single member, helper, donor and staff member who helped make it happen.

However, it would be foolish to not take the opportunity to explore what we could do differently next time to help make sure the next General Election result is even better than the last.

Our recommendations fall into three groupings:

How to repeat and expand our target seat successes, especially if the next General Election is in less favourable circumstances;

How to broaden our successes so that while targeting wins us seats our other activities strengthen the party across the country; and

Improving key internal processes, especially our Westminster candidates system.
There are challenging recommendations in our Review.

They will require of us all a willingness to be adaptable to change. However, none of the recommendations are written to be a criticism of past actions. They are based on review submissions and interviews and a strong desire of the Review team to ensure our strategy and processes are ready for the challenges ahead. We will also be following up with some further specific recommendations regarding membership.

We should be under no doubt there are difficult times ahead. While our greatly improved standing in Parliament offers a shining beacon of liberalism, across the UK and the world, extremism and populism are sadly becoming the norm. We, as a party, have the antidote to this, but we need to be election-ready for the fight ahead.

You can read the review here.

I am going to make a cup of tea and start reading through the document. I’ll  put my thoughts in a new post.

Tim has also been talking to the Guardian about one of recommendations, namely that we shouldn’t have some sort of anti Tory progressive alliance. He said:

“We believe the 2024 election, which saw a high level of tactical voting, demonstrates that the party is right to not pursue this strategy,” the report said.

Farron told the Guardian that while he believed strongly in working closely with other parties, pre-election pacts were “an insult to the electorate”, adding: “We don’t have any right to offer our voters to another party and vice versa. And I think this election proved us right.”

This aligns with my own instincts on this. There may be some individual seats where it is worth doing but these are rarities and should be dealt with on a case by case basis. What wins seats is on the ground campaigning with a message that resonates. The last thing we need is for the headlines to be full of upset activists of whatever party bemoaning the fact that they have to stand down for someone else when they should be about what we are offering the electorate. We are here to advance the distinctive Lib Dem message. Nobody else is going to. And that involves giving everyone the chance to vote Lib Dem.

The review was presented to the Federal Board yesterday. As a member of Federal Council, I think that something as important as this should be called in as a matter of course to provide scrutiny. I don’t mean to say that we should reject it, but it’s important that the Board and the review group hears informed feedback, positive and negative, from party members in a structured way. So your comments would be very welcome and an important part of that process.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings

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7 Comments

  • nigel hunter 12th Jan '25 - 1:51pm

    Off the top of my head constant door knocking we ask what the voter wants both NATIONALLY and LOCALLY and form our policies accordingly.We are constantly bombarded with media right wing ideas and people (Musk anyone?) but at Instow we won NIETHER Conservatives or Reform even with the constant flow succeeded,Implication being people are fed up/do not want what they have to offer.

  • David Allen 12th Jan '25 - 4:53pm

    So – Musk and Trump have serious plans to replace Starmer, Scholz and Macron with far-right stooges who will support the colonisation of Europe by MAGA America. But don’t worry – back in centre / left Britain, tribalism rules OK!

    There is absolutely no need for Labour, Lib Dems and Greens to pull together and see off the threat of the Badenoch / Jenrick / Farage / Robinson far right. No, far easier to carry on with It’s a Knockout politics, and play at fighting traditional enemies despite broad convergence in policies (just like Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in Ireland). And just wait for MAGA to steamroller us all into political oblivion.

  • Mick Taylor 12th Jan '25 - 5:05pm

    Dear me David Allen. Cooperation in the UK will never be possible under FPTP. Look what happened to the LibDems when they did cooperate, a near wipe out at the following election.
    To have cooperation, you need people willing to cooperate and Labour – who just won big under FPTP – the most likely party to form the bedrock of cooperation have ruled it out. Indeed their constitution forbids electoral cooperation at all.
    We need a big push to get PR. Once we get it, cooperation will be necessary and parties won’t get wiped out (or nearly so) just because they do show willing to put the country first.
    I’m enthusiastic for cooperation, just not at the expense of losing (almost) all our seats.

  • Chris Moore 12th Jan '25 - 5:37pm

    “Musk and Trump have serious plans..”

    No, they don’t. Adolescent tweets and threats are NOT a serious plan.

  • Callum Robertson 12th Jan '25 - 6:00pm

    The report is a good piece of work that doesn’t naval gaze and pretend everything is rosey.

    The bit I am particularly concerned about is the (absolutely fair) criticism of the candidates process. I’m increasingly of the opinion that parliamentary selections should be in the hands of the federal party and regional elections should be devolved to those regions.

    The English party should really step away from the process.

  • David Allen 12th Jan '25 - 8:07pm

    Dear me Mick Taylor. We don’t need a pact. We need a united party to oppose the MAGA threat. Utopian? Well, if the alternative is a fascist world, don’t we need to think how to stop it?

  • Peter Davies 12th Jan '25 - 8:14pm

    The one part I find a little complacent is the bit that deals with people who couldn’t get to target seats “The party ran a very effective telephone campaigning operation” is not enough. I’m not sure how you assess a telephone campaign. It may have been successful but I’ve never come out of a telephone canvassing session feeling I’ve achieved anything.

    In any case there are a lot of people who don’t feel confident to do it so there need to be alternatives, perhaps maximising the reach of our social media messaging?

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