I’ve been following politics for about 15 years and I joined the Liberal Democrats in January. When I was first interested in politics, I was pretty right-wing. I was mired in stereotypes about race, sexuality, gender, and the unemployed. I was an avid reader of the Daily Mail and would hang on every word written by Richard Littlejohn. Then Michael Foot died. Now I’m too young to remember Michael Foot, but I’m sure older readers will remember him as being very divisive. Well Littlejohn just couldn’t help but call him a “useful idiot” just 3 days after he died and after that I was out. I slowly embraced liberalism and left right-wing dogma behind.
After a journey that started in US politics and included a lot of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” I developed left leaning views, open to reason but annoyed at the way people where being scapegoated for the mistakes of the powerful instead of being helped. But I became too cynical about politicians and started towards the far left. There I realised they were full of dogma too, were too anti-capitalist and fond of false equivalences about Republicans and Democrats, as well as being disrespectful of reasonable points of view. On top of that I realised that as much as the right-wing has been duped by The Sun and the Daily Mail, they were being taken in by Russia Today and Press TV.
I could have been storming down to the polling station ready to haul foreigners out of my country with one angry cross on the 23rd June last year. I could have been a cheerleader from the UK as Donald Trump won in the US. Or I could have been an anti-capitalist, pretending that bankers could fund the NHS with their “ill gotten gains” and that we could shut ourselves away from trade deals without our economy and jobs suffering, while insulting Owen Jones for critiquing Jeremy Corbyn and complaining that Bernie Sanders lost the primary contest on the basis of some bad emails instead of through Hillary Clinton simply winning more votes and states than he did.
However, through my own journey , I realise that with the Tories lurching towards the hard right with a form of Brexit that will damage this country for a generation, and with the Labour Party caught between hard left socialism and the need to stop UKIP from snatching their much taken for granted voters from under their noses there is more than enough room for a party that doesn’t fit those extremist points of view. The Liberal Democrats are a party that like others is a broad church, but there is a sense of respect here, and a sense that with the right kind of push we can moderate the discourse in this country. We are needed more than ever and I am honoured to call myself a member.
* Richard Hall joined the Liberal Democrats in 2016
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10 Comments
Welcome Richard.
‘Bernie Sanders lost the primary contest on the basis of some bad emails instead of through Hillary Clinton simply winning more votes and states than he did.’ She fixed the whole DNC in her favour and spent years making sure that she would have the nomination.
Thank you Michael, this op-ed of mine was trimmed down a lot by me and was edited again for brevity by LDV themselves, and there was much more i wanted to say to explain why i have joined the party, including some of my own personal views which are party policy and some that i would like them to adopt as party policy, but the jist is there.
Funny though, it said i joined the party in 2016 at the bottom, it was actually at the end of January this year.
Again thank you.
Richard , your journey is in either direction of where the extreme or worrying elements are today as ever, so well done coming home to where things make more sense !
We should remember that the USA is not a single market, better described as variable geometry, with their current President emphasising ‘states rights’.
I do not recall that Michael Foot was particularly divisive. At least, many others were much more divisive, in fact he was made leader as someone who would not be so divisive in a divided Labour Party, however he was more or less hostage to the left in his party, so responded more than initiated.
May’s position in the Conservatives has similarities. The Brexit wannabee UKIP wing has taken over and insist on a crash landing; with rational sense treated with derision.
Unfortunately the Tories are in a position to cause a lot more damage than Foot’s Labour could ever have achieved. Almost unbelievably Corbyn is insisting that Labour links arms with Tory Brexit headbangers. Both extremes would appear to be in the grip of Maoist ‘creative destruction’, with hot heads on both sides out to purge dissenting voices.
Richard: “it said i joined the party in 2016 at the bottom, it was actually at the end of January this year.” Yes, I noticed that.
“… there was much more i wanted to say to explain why i have joined the party …” Anyway, if you enjoy discussing pragmatic politics then you are in the right Party, and I hope you will be a regular participant on LDV.
Dylan. I accept that high ranking members of the DNC preferred Hillary Clinton, and that explains those “bad emails”, however there is no evidence that the primary was “rigged”. More registered Democrat voters turned out for Hillary than Bernie in the primaries whereas Bernie was stronger in caucuses and in open primaries. Super-delegates went towards Hillary Clinton of course, but they didn’t vote “against” the state vote. Super-delegates reinforced her lead over Bernie Sanders but didn’t effect the eventual result
Seeing as it is easier for an American to register as a Democrat or Republican and vote in a primary in the US than it is for us to choose a party leader in this country it would of made much more sense for Bernie Sanders supporters to of registered as Democrats to effect the results in those Democratic primaries, clearly that didn’t happen in enough numbers.
On a side note, I believe that Bernie Sanders could of beaten Donald Trump. According to polls (and they weren’t all wrong) he was far more popular than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was in states that Trump flipped from the Democrats in November.
Thank you everyone else for the kind comments and critiques.
Richard, a big welcome to the Lib Dems. It’s a journey I made more than half a century ago. My political awakening came when I joined the Young Liberals back in the early 1960s. My family were Conservative but a friend introduced me and I gradually became immersed in the politics and issues of the 1960s – opposition to apartheid, the Vietnam War, imperialism and colonialism in the Middle East, CND and street campaigns against fascists (I was frog marched by the police out of Trafalgar Square for continuously blowing a horn in Oswald Mosley’s face (and turning the fountains red with potassium permanganate!).
Members old and new sometimes need to take a pause and understand what this party is about, where our underpinning philosophy and outlook comes from.
We recognise the inescapability of conflict between beliefs and vested interests. Liberals always need to be prepared to challenge and if necessary resist power and authority. We have faith in the concept of progress as a way of advancing humanity’s wellbeing. We also believe in freedom of expression abd have respect for different views, beliefs and ideologies. The late Alan Paton’s statement should remain our lodestar:
Alan Paton’s definition: “by Liberalism I do not mean the creed of any party, nor any century. I mean a generosity of spirit, a tolerance of others, a commitment to the rule of law, a high ideal of the worth and dignity of man, a repugnance of authoritarianism, and a love of freedom.”