The Liberal Democrats have achieved something remarkable in recent years. The strategy that delivered 72 MPs in 2024 demonstrated once again the extraordinary power of community politics, strong local candidates, and disciplined targeting. The mood at the last two conferences have been of celebration, but there’s a growing disquiet amongst many following the May local elections: what comes next?
In Britain’s cities, liberal values ought to have enormous resonance. These are places shaped by diversity, mobility, economic opportunity, civil liberties, and the daily negotiation of how people with very different lives live alongside one another. Yet despite pockets of success in May, our reputation of being the party that “fixes the church roof” struggled to cut through.
In areas where we campaigned hard, had established local candidates, and our eyes on the prize of sizable opposition groups or even control of Councils, our gains were considerably smaller than they might have been. Across London in 2026, Liberal Democrat vote share fell to 12.4%, below both 2022 and 2018, while inner London recorded its weakest Liberal Democrat vote share since 1978. This happened despite a major effort to stand candidates across the capital and despite Labour fighting in an exceptionally difficult national environment.
The same pattern appeared at ward level. In several places, Liberal Democrat campaigns followed the local election playbook: repeated literature, extensive canvassing, and significant local activity, while Green candidates secured substantial support with limited or in some cases no visible local campaigning.
That doesn’t mean canvassing, delivering, and building the profile and credibility of your activists by making them a governor at a local school has stopped working. Local embedding is one of the Liberal Democrats’ greatest strengths. What it means is that in some places, excellent local campaigning reaches a political ceiling which relies on a strong national message, and a strong political identity, to lift.
Moreover, in areas where we currently have little to no presence, the question becomes “who’s on the starting line?”. Strong local parties compound success: good Councillors build trust, trust attracts members, members become campaigners and candidates, and those candidates create the next generation of local strength. But across our urban areas, there are pockets emerging where there is no-one to pick that baton up and run with it because there is no one to hand it off to them.
The challenge, then, is not to abandon localism, but to give it more to work with.
In part, that requires recognising that liberalism was never simply a politics of competent administration. Its great victories were disruptive ones: challenging entrenched power, expanding democracy, defending private life against state interference, and insisting upon the equal status of citizens.
Those ideas remain urgently relevant. But modern freedom must also be material. Freedom means being able to find a home, build a career, raise a family, feel safe in your community, and believe that the future contains opportunities worth striving for, and all resonate with those that live and work in our cities. A confident modern liberalism should therefore be socially open and economically optimistic: defending individual freedom while building the housing, growth, functioning public services, and opportunity that allow people genuinely to exercise it.
These are things many of us believe in, but a strong Liberal Democrat candidate should not have to construct that entire national political case for voting Liberal Democrat one doorstep at a time. The national party should strive to create enough political meaning that local credibility has something to attach itself to, and that people can carry forward in their lives beyond their time in urban areas..
Indeed, young urban voters do not remain young urban voters forever. They move into suburbs, commuter towns, and communities where Liberal Democrats may already be stronger. They become activists, donors, candidates, Councillors, and MPs. If we fail to build political attachment when people are first forming their political identities, we should not assume that they will discover us automatically later.
The strongest Liberal Democrat politics happens when good local Councillors, dedicated volunteers, and clear local campaigns combine with a national message that speaks to the people in the area they live in. National messages on sewage and clean rivers or tackling the rising costs of health and social care resonated in areas of the country where the Liberal Democrats did well. One of the things we need to establish as a party is a clear urban political identity, and couple it with a way of delivering our message that speaks to young, progressive voters. This will amplify the work of our campaigners, lift our current ceiling, and help us build the next generation of Liberal Democrats.
At Conference, our fringe Winning Britain’s Cities: A Liberal Vision for Urban Britain will bring together Liberal Democrat MPs, Councillors, and campaigners to ask what that next stage should look like, and how we can unite behind a Liberal Vision for Urban Britain.
* Patrick Stillman is a Liberal Democrat Councillor in Camden. He has been working with urban campaigners across the party on how the Liberal Democrats can build lasting strength in Britain’s cities, and is organising the Conference fringe “Winning Britain’s Cities: A Liberal Vision for Urban Britain”.
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9 Comments
I agree with almost every word of this but I must point out that The Green performance involved a great deal of luck, in getting a winnable By-election at the right time & especially in The Local Elections arriving a few weeks after Green support peaked.
Average Green Polling has fallen by more than 6% in the last 5 Months.
I agree with much of this, but…………A Conservative councillor I know quite well said to me last week how much he resented as a conscientious councillor that the majority of voters in local elections still vote for the national party they most identify with. That’s my experience as a regular canvasser too. So the Party needs to accept that their messages on national and international politics are important in these urban areas and would resonate with voters in towns/cities with universities and will large ethnic minority populations. One example is that our recognition of and campaigning against the genocide in Palestine is not as well known in those areas as it should be – and in my view is one of the reasons for disappointing performance in them in May.
Patrick is repeating a complaint that has plagued the party throughout my 62 years’ membership.
The real question is how to persuade an indifferent media to report us at all. People, including many on LDV derided the Ed Davey stunts but it gave us more publicity as a party during GE 2924.
So I would welcome realistic suggestions as to how the media can be convinced to carry reports on the LibDems.
There is always talk at times like this about new leadership, but will those who want this to happen please explain how a decades long problem of coverage will be resolved by a new face at the top?
@ Mick Taylor Jo Grimond managed to get national media attention on a regular basis despite having only six MP colleagues when you and I first joined the party, Mick.
Most of these arguments apply as much to rural areas as to urban ones. And yes, “liberalism’s great victories were disruptive ones: challenging entrenched power, expanding democracy, defending private life against state interference, and insisting upon the equal status of citizens.” Both nationally and worldwide.
Given the global mess we’re in, that impacts every one of us, Lib Dems should be leading on peace and justice in the Middle East, Ukraine and on climate/environment crises. If they were really seen to be spearheading positive action on these fronts, which they’re not, Lib Dems would attract both votes and media coverage like a magnet.
John Kelly’s point matches what I see on the doorstep. In urban wards, people (predominantly younger professionals) are voting on who they think they are and which party resonates most with them, not on how many leaflets we delivered. Local credibility on its own is often not enough. What matters is being clear about what we stand for – identity wins votes, and it comes from national issues, both international and domestic. In cities I would build it on housing, the high street and the job market.
As someone from the Kashmiri community and Chair of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Kashmir, I believe there is a significant opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to engage more effectively with the Kashmiri community, which numbers around one million people in the UK.
The Labour Party has developed effective ways of identifying and engaging with minority communities and addressing the issues that affect them. The Green Party successfully adopted a similar approach in Waltham Forest and, through effective community engagement, went on to take control of the council.
Unfortunately, the Liberal Democrats currently have a limited understanding of Kashmir and of the ways in which issues affecting Kashmir impact UK residents and communities with links to the region. This represents a missed opportunity for the party to engage with an important and sizeable community.
If you would like to engage with the Kashmiri community, or learn more about Kashmir and the issues that matter to British Kashmiris, please visit the Liberal Democrat Friends of Kashmir stand at Conference, Stand 40.
I agree with everything in this post. We need a national message as well as local ones. As I am currently disabled, waiting for a hip replacement and knee operation, my best support is telephone canvassing. But I feel like someone who has a bow, but no arrows in the quiver. It’s totally demotivating when I’m sure that if people understood what we stand for, we’d be mopping up. I’ve been begging the party for years to speak up for what we stand for, and not just whinge on the sidelines. The media would soon notice us if we made a noise. We can’t keep blaming them for our lack of exposure.
Thanks all for the comments. Glad that my thoughts resonated across different areas and communities. Let’s get shaping that message!