No tracking. No cookies
Subscriptions
Subscriptions
Will the Lib Dems Lurch Towards Libertarianism?
The North Shropshire by-election result has ended nearly 200 years of Conservative domination in the once safe Tory seat – but it now raises the question of what the Liberal Democrats stand for, says Gareth Roberts
In the wake of the North Shropshire by-election upset, Conservative MPs will be scurrying around, meeting in dark corners and asking themselves the question: is Boris Johnson the right leader to save my job?
No doubt, the fabled letters to chair of the 1922 Committee, Graham Brady, will be written – leading to dark horses emerging in a hoped-for leadership race, while the stronger candidates keep their public powder dry with caged and duplicitous pronouncements of loyalty.
It is likely too that Boris Johnson will look to divert attention with fatuous statements and boasts.
But, while the Conservatives ask questions about the future of their leaders, what happens next for the Liberal Democrats?
Achieving Relevance
With this shock win, Ed Davey’s party has met the first challenge for any third party in a two party system – it has proved itself to be relevant.
I worked as a senior researcher for the Liberal Democrats in the 1990s. Back then, we spent every day working out how to win a few seconds in a news bulletin or a paragraph in newspapers. Not much has changed in this regard. The Liberal Democrats’ position has been to get its head above the turbulent waves of politics long enough for people to see that it still exists.
Today’s by-election result demonstrates that the Liberal Democrats are now much more than just a ‘wasted vote’ – indeed, it is the second by-election the party has won this year. However, with that first challenge faced, a second remains – and it is one the party has struggled to meet throughout its entire existence: what does the party stand for?
Are the Liberal Democrats a protest vote – a suitable and harmless vessel for people to temporarily put a cross next to in the ballot? Or is there something more to the party – a clear and cogent philosophy which will enable it to set out a realistic vision and programme for government in the run-up to the next general election?
Two days before this week’s by-election, the parliamentary vote on whether to extend Coronavirus protections provided a much clearer insight into the current state of the Liberal Democrats.
The Labour Party felt compelled to vote for Johnson’s ‘Plan B’, with its leader Keir Starmer asserting that it was in the national interest for the Government to have powers that it could use to keep us safe in times of a pandemic. Starmer did, however, express less confidence in the Conservatives’ ability to utilise those powers effectively.
In reality, Labour’s choice to vote with the Government reflects a party that instinctively believes in the benevolent state. Labour argues that there are times when personal freedoms may have to be curtailed for the greater good of the nation. A pandemic with thousands of people falling ill each day is, it argues, one of those times.
In contrast, the Liberal Democrats in Parliament quietly joined the likes of Conservative MP Liam Fox, David Davis and Andrea Leadsom to vote against the Government’s measures. The rules, the MPs declared, were “too draconian” and “ill-thought out”. Plans for vaccine passports were, they said, an “attack on our liberties”.
I don’t doubt that the party of Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy and Shirley Williams would have whipped its members behind the Government’s restrictions in the past. For then, it was still a party imbued with the spirit of the social democrats who had split with Labour in the early 1980s.
For men and women like these, personal freedom was contingent upon the creation of a society in which everyone could flourish. It was for this reason that the slogans for the 1997 General Election centred around opportunities for all and unleashing potential, alongside policies that were progressive and statist – including raising income tax to pay for education, strengthening local government, devolution and better pensions.
Back then, the Liberal Democrats were more socialist than Tony Blair and were rewarded with a doubling of their seats. That trend continued into the new millennium.
The position started to shift when the party’s libertarian wing decided that it had had enough of trying to outflank Labour on the left. It created the ‘Orange Book’ – hailing the free market and placing personal choice at the centre of social and economic policy.
Such a philosophy meant that the 2010 decision to form a Coalition Government with David Cameron and advocate support for austerity was a much simpler exercise. But it also led to a catastrophic election performance in 2015, from which – until now – the Liberal Democrats have failed to recover.
Freedom and Responsibility
If the result in North Shropshire leads to more Liberal Democrats taking seats from the Conservatives, the ongoing relevance of the party to the electorate is beyond doubt.
But my fear is that, in its desire to be relevant within a political culture that is dominated by the constant charge of ‘wokeism’ and the stirring of animosity towards a perceived erosion of freedoms that in truth we never had, the Liberal Democrats may decide their future lies in being the party of ‘freedom’.
This would mean a political positioning that advocates an individual’s right to say and do what they want – while still trying to claim that the party is in favour of minority rights and against oppression.
This is not an easy path to tread. One only has to take the simple example of those who claim to be in favour of protecting the NHS and the nation’s health, all while raging against Coronavirus passports, to see how intellectually vacuous and self-serving those who take that route can become.
The Liberal Democrats have a duty to those who are fed up with the Conservatives but who still cannot quite put their faith in Labour. But it cannot be a party that espouses freedom, without also recognising its responsibility to create a better society. After all, freedoms which are enjoyed mainly by the rich, healthy and educated are simply oppression and social injustice by another name. The Liberal Democrats must be more than this.
Gareth Roberts was a senior parliamentary party researcher for the Liberal Democrats from 1993 to 1997