A year ago today, Tim Farron woke up to his first day as Lib Dem Leader.
In that year, he has been the voice for refugees, the first leader to go to Calais and Lesbos and the Macedonian Border, constantly making the case for the UK to do more to help these desperate people.
The UK Government is not yet doing enough but Farron dragged Cameron into doing more for unaccompanied refugee children
It’s a pity that the Remain campaign didn’t make more use of him in the media during the referendum. His positive points would have been a very effective balance which may have encouraged people to pay attention to the warnings of the consequences of Brexit which now seem to have been under-stated.
It would have been easy for him simply to refuse to back air strikes in Syria, but he was convinced that intervention was necessary, subject to certain conditions. I didn’t agree with him on that decision, and I am struggling to see what good we have done in Syria as a result, but I respect the way in which he articulated his position at the time. He did so with the best of liberal, humanitarian and internationalist principles. My emotions were very mixed at the time – although I disagreed with him, I was very proud of the way he made his case.
On the night he was elected, he made a stonking speech to a rally in London, It’s inspiring, joyful and motivating. At that time, 17000 people had joined the Liberal Democrats (and within days of his election that exceeded 20,000) and this year another 17,000 people have joined in the wake of the EU Referendum.
His challenge for the coming year is to be very clear that Liberal Democrats believe our future is in the EU. MPs and Peers should not vote to trigger Article 50, an irreversible step which would harm the very people that Liberal Democrats fight for – the poorest, most vulnerable and isolated. He needs to continue to make the case for Britain to stay in the EU or rejoin if we had left. That is our position for the next General Election. As the country realises what it’s about to lose, he needs to encourage those changes in public opinion. Former Liberal Democrat MP David Howarth told the Social Liberal Forum conference yesterday that within just 45 months, the Leave majority would disappear as the older generation who voted Leave die and the 16 and 17 year olds who would have voted to Remain come on to the electoral roll. We need to ensure that those voices are heard. We have a unique position – we are the only UK wide political party advocating staying in the EU (and in Scotland we want to stay in the EU and UK) and we need to get out there and communicate that on radio, tv, regional and national media, on doorsteps and on streets.
It’s a very simple message and we need to follow the example of one N Sturgeon. Look what happened to her party in 2015. Certainly they started from a much larger base, but way back in 2001, they were sinking into irrelevance in Scotland. In 2007, they were able to capture the mood of the country for change. At that time, they had a simple message, and the resource to deliver it. One of Tim Farron’s key challenges is to make sure we have the money to make an impact in a snap election. If we get it right, the rewards for us and the country could be significant.
Part of that is to speak to those people who voted Leave out of concern on housing and pay. We need to tell them what we are going to do to help them, and that’s around building more houses, tackling low pay and giving resources to areas where population has increased to help them expand provision of public services. A big government investment would cost a lot less than the amount we will lose by leaving the EU.
We can show that we can stay in the EU and deal properly with the concerns that people have – a real best of both worlds. And, who knows, we could keep the UK together as well.
We certainly have a mountain to climb, but there are some good indications. Two polls this week have shown an increase in support for us. Today ComRes has us on 9%.
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 39% (+1)
LAB: 29% (-1)
UKIP: 14% (-1)
LDEM: 9% (+1)
GRN: 4% (-)
(via ICM / post-Wednesday)— Britain Elects (@britainelects) July 17, 2016
Earlier in the week, IPSOS MORI had us on 11%, ahead of UKIP:
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 36% (+1)
LAB: 35% (+1)
LDEM: 11% (+2)
UKIP: 8% (-2)
GRN: 4% (-)
(via Ipsos Mori / 09 – 11 Jul)— Britain Elects (@britainelects) July 13, 2016
The Tories may well decide to go for a snap election to totally fragment their opposition and give themselves a large majority. There’s a window of opportunity for them, before things get really tough, where they might be tempted to get unassailable power in the Commons and destroy their biggest opposition party. That would be an even bigger disaster for the country, particularly if we end up with a whole load of UKIP. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen.
So we need Tim Farron to keep doing what he did on the night he was elected. We need more speeches like this:
Remember that brilliant ending:
Our vested interests are the people in our street, our town, our village. Our vested interest is your vested interest. Our liberal voice is your liberal voice.
So lets together make our liberal voice stronger.
If you care about human rights join us.
if you think you shouldn’t have your emails snooped on join us.
if you think everyone deserves a decent home join us.
if you think its wrong to demonise immigrants, the young, the poor, foreigners, Brussels, the English, the Scots…join us.
If you are fed up of self-satisfied politicians ambitious for themselves and unambitious for their country… then guess what? You are a liberal. Embrace that diagnosis. It is an utterly decent and British condition. So join us, join us today.
Liberals of Britain, if you want a better Britain then you need to do something about it.
Come and be part of the most joyful, inspiring and worthwhile come back in political history.
If you agree with Tim, join us if you haven’t already.
The whole transcript of Tim’s speech is here.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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8 Comments
Didn’t the Prime Minister promise quarterly reports on our war in Syria? Is it not the case that this committment has not been met? Why has Tim Farron not withdrawn his support for the bombing?
I think our team have been dragging the reports out of the Government – I suspect the most recent quarter’s has been overtaken by events, though.
There won’t be an election until 2020, the UK has fixed term parliaments.
If there were to be an election tomorrow UKIP probably would do so well as their voters would vote for Teresa May as she promises to implement Brexit. However if article 50 is not triggered by 2020 UKIP could have more seats than the SNP.
Surprised there hasn’t been an article about the coup attempt in turkey…
As for Syria, they wanted to intervene on the side of the people who became ISIS. That’s what people need reminded about. Those politicans who supported military intervention in Syria wanted to intervene on the side that became Isis. We also need a chillcot 2 to investigate libya.
We should be greatful that labour and ed milliband and to Putin to his credit who got Assad to handover all his chemical weapons. I’m not convinced Assad used chemical weapons though.
Rightsaidfredfan – ‘Surprised there hasn’t been an article about the coup attempt in turkey…’
So why don’t you write it?
I also supported the threat of air strikes against Assad. Someone was using chemical weapons. You have to have red lines somewhere. Most importantly, the net result of the threat was for Assad to destroy his chemical weapons. A very good outcome in view of the terrorist developments in Syria. The OPCW received the Nobel Peace Prize for its work in the decommissioning of the chemical weapons. Russia was involved. It helps if you understand how diplomacy works.
RSFFan
“They” did not want to support the people who became ISIS (ISIS was by then already an entity, the organisation being kicked out of the loose affiliation called Al Qaeda). Nor did they support Al Nusra.
the government DID (and does) support the moderate factions in Syria – for instance, the Free Syrian Army.
“It’s a pity that the Remain campaign didn’t make more use of him in the media during the referendum.”
I always presumed that the people who won the ‘contract’ for ‘Remain’ from the Electoral Commission were in fact stooges of ‘Leave’. After all, if it doesn’t walk like a duck, even if it talks like a duck can it really be a duck? Who were they? How were they open to influence from ‘sympathetic’ individuals or even national political parties or MPs?
Using Tim might well have reversed the fortunes enough to win over a few thousand more votes nationwide. But with both Corbyn and Cameron putting Party above outcome in the campaign, I was always surprised that anyone was ever optimistic.