“A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living”.
These were the words of John Dewey, from his 1916 book, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education.
Without prior knowledge of Dewey’s work, I found that he captured my belief in democracy and its purpose in just one sentence. I have never believed that democracy is simply ticking a box or a group of people simply making decisions on behalf of others. It is about individuals making a collective decision about how their country should be run, what their society should look like, which views are acceptable to express and share, and which should be condemned. That decision changes over time. For political parties, this means democratic responsibility does not end when votes are counted. Accepting defeat is only the beginning; what follows is a test of patience, humility, and long-term commitment.
I also believe that political parties can never dictate society’s direction, no matter how much they want to. They must accept that, in a democracy, they are participants, not directors or masters. This means society can move in directions parties resist, and the response cannot be to burn down the house or to abandon principles in a rush to recover lost ground, but instead to embrace the loss and ask, “What can we learn from this?” It’s very easy to say, “Well, the voters were prejudiced?”, and there very well may be a degree of truth to that thought. But it doesn’t mean parties allow themselves to stay in a permanent sulk or adopt those views. Blaming the electorate and abandoning principles are, in different ways, attempts to avoid the more complex work of democratic reflection.
For the Liberal Democrats, that means democratic responsibility does not end when votes are counted; it also includes how we behave, organise, and learn in the space between elections.
Even when the electorate makes decisions we might disagree with, there is still a need to respect the person behind the vote and listen to why those decisions were made. There may be cases where prejudice plays a role in voter behaviour, and that is a reality we need to accept. But it doesn’t mean introspection isn’t required following a loss, or that results should be interpreted selectively. Parties can make mistakes, even when their members and voters believe their platform would benefit society, even if that turns out not to be true.
Democratic maturity, then, is not just about accepting defeat but about exploring more deeply how a party behaves between elections. This can also apply to success: reflecting on why a party won an election can be just as impactful as reflecting on losses, if not more so. The conditions that led to success may apply only to a single election, requiring parties to think carefully about how to consolidate success rather than assume it.
Of course, we should also be honest about our own success. The 2024 result was shaped in part by the collapse of Conservative support in many constituencies and by an electorate in a volatile mood. Those are conditions that may not repeat. But favourable circumstances only matter if a party is ready to take advantage of them. The Liberal Democrats benefited because we had done the slow work of rebuilding our local presence, clarifying priorities, and earning enough trust to be seen as a credible alternative.
That is precisely why democratic maturity between elections matters: it is how a moment becomes a foundation.
For the Liberal Democrats, the real test of democratic maturity is not just how we respond to defeat, but how we conduct ourselves between elections. If we want our recent success to be more than a moment, we must resist the temptation to chase every shift in opinion and instead focus on the steady work of listening, organising, and earning trust. Patience is not passivity; it is confidence in our values and in the democratic process itself. If we can hold our nerve, stay rooted in our principles, and remain open to learning, we give ourselves the best chance not only to win votes but to deserve them.
* Jack Meredith is a member of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and an active campaigner and canvasser with Swansea and Gower Liberal Democrats. His writing focuses on democratic reform, social justice, trade unionism, economic democracy, and the institutional foundations of effective government. He has written for the Fabians, Lib Dem Voice, Liberator, Nation Cymru, Bylines Cymru, and Centre Think Tank.
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13 Comments
A good article, but I worry a bit about the description, “which views are acceptable to express and share, and which should be condemned“: That sounds to me uncomfortably close to trying to censor freedom of expression. I’d be very careful about condemning anyone for expressing their genuine opinion.
I also think parties have a bit more influence than you’re suggesting. Of course in a democracy you wouldn’t expect a Government to dictate the direction of society against the wishes of the people, but it certainly can influence: Any Government or political party can express moral beliefs and seek to persuade people of those beliefs. Society doesn’t randomly evolve in a vacuum: It evolves in large part because people and groups of people seek to influence it. If the Government doesn’t express some kind of moral framework, big corporations, foreign Governments, online influencers etc. – including the Andrew Tates of the World will delightedly step in to fill that gap, and their influence is likely to be much less benign.
Dewey’s definition implies that democracy means starting with local democracy an d encouraging citizen engagement. Current reorganization of English local government is taking democracy further away from ordinary citizens and emphasising delivery of services from above rather than cooperation in the provision of local services between those who deliver and those who benefit. We have a hard fight to enter to persuade public and government that this model does not build an effective democracy.
@Simon Robinson:
While I value your comment and see what you’re trying to say, ultimately, I disagree with you.
There are views that are simply hateful and unacceptable.
If someone were to engage in Holocaust revisionism or claim that slurs should be normalised and then go on to use them, I should hope you would not view that simply as “freedom of expression” but as intolerance, and actively oppose it.
If there is anything I hope we as a society, and especially liberals, has learnt, it’s that intolerance is not to be tolerated. To do so in the name of being afraid of being seen a certain way by those who hold the views, in my opinion, does nothing but weaken liberalism and institutions like democracy as a whole.
Simply put, when we normalise accepting either factually wrong or knowingly hateful views, we are not encouraging discussion, but instead the weakening of basic decency and civil society.
Also to note, we condemn views we disagree with every day, whether it’s racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, etc. Are you saying it is wrong to condemn them?
Thank you for an interesting article which helps us move away from the undemocratic binarism of our current electoral practices and theory.
Might it be that the L. D. Party would mightily help itself, and our country, by moving the current “Overton Window” to accommodate genuinely democratic inputs, processes and outputs?
https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow
How can our current politiucal set up be genuinely classified as democratic when so many of our children are chronically underfed/semi-starved?
https://www.google.com/search?q=current+rates+of+uk+child+hunger&oq=current+rates+of+uk+child+hunger&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRifBTIHCAMQIRifBTIHCAQQIRifBTIHCAUQIRifBTIHCAYQIRifBTIHCAcQIRifBTIHCAgQIRifBTIHCAkQIRifBdIBCjIxODI1ajBqMTWoAgqwAgHxBfScx-ZKu8Mi&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
William Wallace is absolutely right in his condemnation of the current Local Government Reform, but I fear the situation is even worse than he indicates. The thought that we will have a hard fight to persuade public and government that this model does not build an effective democracy, is not really tenable as we have lost that battle already and the consequences for local participative local democracy will be dire.
Ever larger authorities, with substantially fewer councillors representing bigger and bigger wards will be the end of the part time councillor, working in and for local people, replacing them with full time paid party politicos focussed on running the council and personal ambition. The smaller groups, including most independent and local residents will wither away as instead of six or eight people forming a group and it being self-sustaining, it will be two or three at most with no way of keeping the wider team together.
The proof of that disaster will only come over the years as the reorganisation’s total failure (with its ever-growing concentration of power, in the hands of ever fewer full time professional politicos and elected mayors, and the inevitable bullying, cronyism, one party authoritarianism, corruption and waste) becomes clear.
However, I fear that when it comes, it will receive the same welcome from Lib Dem council groups as this time, where with their never-ending supply of optimism will manifest as ‘We can make this work‘ rather than ‘How do we stop this in its tracks?’
@Jack
I do agree with Simon that we have to be very careful to avoid limiting our democracy to only allowing certain views to be expressed. The essence of democracy is that people seek to share views and seek to persuade, and not cross into violence, threats etc to seek to advance their beliefs. Indeed, the strength of our democracy is shown by the extent we tolerate others to express and seek to persuade, views and ideas we strongly reject. For example, some people feel strongly that abortion is the ending of innocent human life and should be restricted – if it we totally disagree, a democracy is only a democracy worthy of the name, if those who hold such a view are free to express them, and seek to persuade.
The true line we must draw is between those who express views peacefully and within the law, and those who seek to influence by threats, violence or law breaking. It should be how people act that make their actions democratic or not – not what their views happen to be.
@Joan
Please see my response to Simon above, as it clarifies what I am saying in my piece 🙂
“If there is anything I hope we as a society, and especially liberals, has learnt, it’s that intolerance is not to be tolerated.”
isn’t that dangerously close to saying we should fight intolernance with intolerance?
@Andrew Tampion
Have a read up on the Intolerance Paradox, that’s what I am referencing 🙂
@Jack Meredith You raise an interesting question when you ask “we condemn views we disagree with every day, whether it’s racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, etc. Are you saying it is wrong to condemn them?”
However, as long standing liberals we should also ask ourselves what do we do when pressure groups try to get (and sometimes do get) the meaning of words, that were once clearly understood, redefined by organisations wanting to prevent criticism of that group. We have all seen it in the case of Antisemitism where attempts have been made to extend its meaning to include criticism of Israel’s government and leaders and similarly Islamaphobia. Indeed any grouping that can generate a narrative about itself of unfair treatment and oppression almost instinctively gets immediate strong support within parts of our party. However this is undermined if we see the claimed oppressed group behave in an illiberal manner and oppressing some other group when most of us rally around the party’s core values of tolerance rather than unthinking acceptance.
So ultimately we are against all those things, except where people try to redefine words to mask their wish undermine liberal values and oppress others.
Thank you for the response Jack.
First your response, to me, implies that you accept Karl Poppers argument, which is fine. But not everybody does. John Rawls for example. Further even those who do might argue that persuasion by rational argument is to be preferred.
Turning to your examples. I agree that normalising the factually wrong should be rejected. But what is factually wrong? There are many cases where what is factually wrong is not clear. Take religion as an example. I am an atheist and therefore believe all religions to be factually wrong. Does that entitle me to be intolerant of devout Christians?
Also what exactly is racism or sexism etc. What do those terms mean precisely? Is it sexism enjoy a pantomime dame who some people might consider to belittle women by caricature?
> Patience is not passivity; it is confidence in our values and in the democratic process itself.
A good use of mature process might be to start implementing the Alderdice and Thornhill Reports. We would learn a lot in the process.
Political parties should combine showing what values they espouse and adapting to changing circumstances both nationally and locally. They should be given sufficient flexibility to allow those representing them locally to show they understand and respect what makes their locality distinctive. Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in the north south divide. Those who make this transition in either direction have much to teach us on how to be a successful political party.