In recent months, a direction of travel has emerged for the party. One might expect that faced with a right-leaning, technocratic Labour party that’s disappointing in government, we Lib Dems would lean into our radical side, channelling Kennedy in a full-throated stand for our values to outflank Labour, if not wholly to the left, then certainly on a more radical side.
That is not what has been happening – if anything we remain more fixated on last year’s battles against the Conservatives. Flashes of radicalism are visible in our opposition to Trump and Farage, and standing up for communities. But in recent months we have also seen signs that the appetite for being the party of Kennedy is not there, despite the widening gap there in British politics.
For instance, the ‘Buy British, back Britain’ line coming out of HQ sits uncomfortably with both our values and our – in my opinion, much better – messaging about supporting our allies. As Liberals, we should not be joining the throngs manning the battlements and pulling up the drawbridges, instead being consistent in reminding everyone of the value of a community of nations working together. We’re doing that already with our robust rhetoric about aligning strongly with our European and Commonwealth allies – our messaging about whose products we buy should echo that. ‘Buy local, buy liberal’ would allow us to champion our own producers as well as goods from nations that uphold our values.
Speaking of our messaging reflecting our values, much is being made of how far the Conservative party has moved from its One Nation base of the last thirty or so years. We saw this just recently with the messaging around the – welcome – defection of Jamie Greene MSP, that the Conservative party had left him, rather than the other way around. It’s a very tempting logic, electorally – the Conservative lurch to the right has vacated much of the common ground on which the stability of the 1990s was predicated, and which opens up swathes of the Home Counties, and there are aspects, certainly, of One Nation Toryism that share some values with our party.
But there are other, bigger forces at play. Labour has joined the Conservatives in chasing after Reform – both of the “main parties” forgetting that in every other democracy, mainstream parties only enable and embolden the far right by appeasing them and imitating their policies. In politics as in negotiation, the only thing the far-right understands is strength, and the only way to beat them is with a robust defence of non-far right policies and values, which tend, more often than not, to be Liberal ones. All embracing them does is legitimise them and drive more people towards them.
With Reform on the rise and the Conservatives and Labour both chasing their voters, we must not forget that there will be as many voters, if not more, who are disappointed in the direction of the Labour government than there are the direction of the last Conservative one. Memories will fade – the logic of pursuing the vacated One Nation ground is logical,but probably only for the rest of this electoral year. The 2025 cycle is the last time local government elections are up that the Conservatives did well in the last time around. From 2026 onwards, we will be facing elections for seats in which we did well, and increasingly in which Labour did well too.
Britain already has a party of Major – for all its horrors, it’s still the Conservative party.
So where does that leave us? We must not forget that we are the party of Ashdown, not Major; of Clegg, not Cameron – and, for that matter, of Kennedy, not Blair or Howard. We can miss the politics of John Major without having to perform them ourselves – because, I think, we Liberal Democrats will come to miss the politics of Charles Kennedy even more as this Parliament wears on.
* John Grout is a Lib Dem activist and lives in Reading.
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18 Comments
Jamie Greene, our recruit from the Conservatives, confirmed to the BBC three days ago that his politics were ‘unchanged’. That sits uneasy with me. All of us welcome converts – by which I mean people who reassess their lives and/or their views and make a change of direction. From what he says, I do not think Jamie Greene has changed his views – just the vehicle he wishes to use to promote his views.
Perhaps the leadership believes the party can replace the Conservatives, as the main opposition to Labour, if it positions itself as centre-right and attracts moderate Conservatives to join our ranks. I hope that is not the plan.
Philosophy, policy and party can all change independently. Many have changed their party because of a better alignment on policy because the issues or the stances of the parties have changed. The Tory party didn’t really have a philosophy (it may have gained one recently) and defectors from it who try to make sense of their political journey by developing one often turn out to be radical Liberals. The party is full of people who joined because of the state of their pavement and turned out just as radical as those of us who joined to discuss political philosophy at Uni.
Honestly, I hate it when people rely on words like radical, distinctive etc. The real problem we have is how vague we are, and how we use that to avoid having to confront any possibility of trade offs. We’ll find our radicalism not by saying radical 5 times a day, but by actually applying some intellectual rigour to our own policy.
John, you start your piece with a call for radicalism, but it seems that as you develop your argument you realise some of the contradictions and inconsistencies. We may have a radical heritage but, as you point out, a move towards the centre could serve us well electorially in parts of the south without any huge compromises on principle. As you also say, this may be the party of Kennedy, but it is also the party of Ashdown and Clegg, to which I might add Grimond and Farron, not to mention our social democratic roots (knowing nods from old SDP members). It is absolutely reasonable to argue for our own, personal version of “liberalism” and to argue from a radical fringe of that tradition, or you might concede that “Big Tent” politics have more of a future.
Which brings us neatly to Jamie Greene. I can’t agree with @Mike Peters. Unless Mr Greene has some dubious far right past of which I am not familiar, he should be welcomed with open arms. We do not need to move to the centre right to attract moderate conservatives ? Just be centrist and they will flock to the party. Or do we want their votes, just as long as they don’t join and try to have a say ?
@ Mike Peter
Having read Jamie Green’s article in the Guardian (see below) I see no reason at all not to welcome him – and the others he predicts will follow – to our party. You may have seen that the former Tory Minister Stephen Dorell is contesting a County Council seat for us in Worcestershire – against another former Tory MP this time standing with the Reform Ltd label.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/09/tory-party-trump-socially-liberal-jamie-greene
I think the problem here is confusion of “radial” with “left wing” . Thatcher was radical enough
The old alignment of politics is changing from left vrs right to constitutionalist/liberal/internationalist vrs “strongman authoritarianism/nationalist. It has been changing with frightening speed over the last few months. It looks as if the Conservative party is heading for the authoritarian/nationalist side. Socialism has been intellectually bankrupt for years and is losing its voting base as well.
Clearly Liberal Democrats belong squarely on the internationalist/liberal side of the new divide. We must not let legitimate arguments between social liberals and economic liberals distract us too much from the the real enemy – authoritarianism, collectivism and other concentrations of power and abuse of it.
@Chris Cory @Tristan Ward
I hope your optimist is well-placed. I am just aware that Jamie Greene was a firm supporter of Brexit before the EU referendum and has defended Brexit is the years following, claiming that he had absolutely no regrets.
So one of our MSPs supports Brexit and disagrees with our Party Policy on this crucial issue?
I would also like clarity around whether arch-Unionist Jamie Greene now supports a federal UK…
@Mike Peters: That sounds like you’re pushing for a very exclusive party. I mean, do you seriously want to be rejecting new members (and new MSPs to boot) purely because of their views on just two particular issues, out of all the hundreds of issues facing the UK?
Mike Peters:
According to polling about 10% of Lib Dem voters support Brexit. Perhaps they need a representative in the party.
The party does need to be radical. It needs to look back into Liberal history to Lloyd George’s Peoples budget and Beveridge.
We need to see a picture painted of what a Liberal Britain might look like with higher living standards, secure work, housing for all and first class public services.
With the Tories and Labour discredited being radical isn’t just the right thing to do, it is a no brainer in electoral terms!
We all want to see higher living standards, secure work, housing for all and first class public services. That’s hardly a radical notion. The problem is that no political party (including I think ourselves) seems to have come up with any credible ideas for how to achieve that. Saying ‘We need to be radical!‘ is I think true to the extent that any credible solution is likely to involve big changes in how we as a nation do things, but it’s not very helpful without clarity on the nature of those radical changes. And being radical doesn’t automatically mean something is good (as illustrated by, for example, a certain Mr. Trump, whose policies are most definitely radical…)
Simon R
We have been silent on the governments employments rights legislation, silent on the closure of essential services like post offices, timid of housing and lots more issues.
What we need is a thought out policy on things that matter to people instead of platitudes or silence.
“We all want to see higher living standards, secure work, housing for all and first class public services. That’s hardly a radical notion.”
I’d argue just the opposite. It is a radical notion.
The system we have at the moment does rely on the threat of unemployment, homelessness and poverty to keep us all in line! The objective of the ruling class over the last four decades, or more, has been to increase the differentials between the ultra wealthy and the rest of us.
They have been very successful in doing this. An alternative explanation is that they didn’t mean this to happen but somehow it just happened anyway.
I don’t think this is very likely though.
@Peter Martin – It is quite likely that most of those responsible or complicit did not mean it to happen. In the absence of major shocks to the economy, the tendency of money to go to money is the default. It requires government inaction rather than any deliberate plot.
David Warren is right, we need to build on our history and tradition of radicalism, and update it for the battles against reaction and authoritarianism to come.
From the Newcastle programme of 1891 through to the People’s Budget, the policies of Keynes and Beveridge, and our support for European integration and de-colonization, we were at our best when we advocated clear policies that were distinctive from Labour and Tory.
When Grimond, Ashdown and Kennedy were leaders and we promoted policies which were bold and slightly risky (eg. on Europe, Bosnia, Iraq, income and council tax) but at least voters had a better idea of where we stood.
I can see that we need to retain and gain more voters who used to be on the moderate wing of the Tory Party, but we don’t do that just by moving onto their vacated political terrain. We will be at long term risk if the Tories do what Labour has done and re-engage with their lost voters, as they did under Cameron. And if we don’t promote distinctive and radical polices we will continue to leak support to the Green Party.
Brexit, Trump and climate change have gifted us a favourable political climate so lets make sure we make use of it.
The Lib Dems are not even prepared to live up to the fine words in the Preamble to the Party’s Constitution and promote Universal Human Rights universally. We should be screaming at the top of our voices about the ethnic cleansing and genocide being committed by a friendly “democracy” in Occupied Palestine.
Just as we believe in free and fair trade we can believe in local and traded products and services. One does not negate the other. Both are important in different contexts. I do believe however that trade for trade’s sake is misguided. Trade like everythng else needs to be justified.
@Peter Davies – “It requires government inaction rather than any deliberate plot.”
I had always though inaction was the deliberate policy of many governments, we’ve had since 1970 and probably prior. It is a policy that is easy to justify: the money goes to those who risked their money…
Thatcher with the privatisations and “Tell Sid” did attempt to spread some wealth but it wasn’t followed through particularly well.