For many of us, of a certain age, the modern Liberal Democrats are in many ways unrecognisable from the radical, campaigning Liberal Party of our youth.
We, who grew up forged in the fires of the Young Liberals and the Union of Liberal Students, at the heights of titanic struggles against apartheid, nuclear weapons such as Cruise missiles, Nazi groups active in our major cities and the like, now look on confused and regretful as we seem to have become a polite and almost entirely middle-class debating society, meandering our way through worthy and no doubt well-meaning policy development, but with little to recommend us and seize the public’s imagination, nor, it seems, to excite the majority of our membership.
The EU. An idea whose time has come again.
A classic example was the attitude of our party grandees, who (with the party’s support marooned at the time at 6-8%, so it seems hard to imagine who they thought we were going to offend), failed to lift high the torch for an unambiguous commitment to Rejoin the EU.
This would have been a commitment which would have, at a stroke, differentiated us from both Labour and the Tories, kept the faith with our bedrock supporters, (and many who have drifted from us from time to time, but not entirely left us behind), and, as is now clear, would have unambiguously positioned us to benefit most from the rapid and completely predictable public disenchantment with Brexit.
Instead, we presented (and we continue to present) mealy-mouthed waffle about ‘pursuing the closest possible relationship with the EU’, ignoring the obvious fact that the closest possible relationship, as is clearly enshrined in party policy, by the way, would simply be to ask the British people if they’d now like to Rejoin.
Bang banga boom boom – you’re dead.
Another, more recent example, is our seeming determination to actually maintain or even increase our reliance on nuclear weapons, in direct contradiction to decades of informed scepticism about their worth, and at the very moment that the war in Ukraine surely demonstrates that they are an unusable and irrelevant defence mechanism, redolent of a neo-colonial machismo that bears no resemblance to the position and role of modern Britain.
At the very least, we need a serious, informed debate that doesn’t not rely on knee-jerk machismo, but rather a serious-minded review of all of Britain’s defence options, how to get nuclear disarmament talks re-started, and how to engage with those countries with whom we disagree profoundly, short of threatening to blow each other off the map.
Wither Scotland?
Our passionately presented commitment to Union between the component parts of Great Britain is yet another example of policy inertia.
Admittedly there is little doubt that the party in Scotland is emphatically unionist, (whilst the public are clearly not), which is the Scots party’s absolute right, of course, but the rest of the party simply falls meekly into line.
Indeed, seeking to debate our unionist preference is to light the blue touchpaper on howls of protest for those who argue that it is none of the business of English, Welsh, Northern Irish and international members what happens with Scotland, but only a matter for the Scots party, despite the very obvious fact that with an entwined political culture and economy it most obviously is a legitimate matter for all to consider.
This apparently unshakeable unionist commitment from the party should at least be questioned – especially in the party that championed the very concept of devolution when no-one else was interested, and which, within the context of the EU, should have no fear of a free association of independent nations who have taken upon themselves the right and responsibilities of self-government. It is said in response that we support a Federal Britain, which might indeed be a smart way through the morass, but where do we see this alternative presented with vim, vigour and with much to recommend it to break the “Yes/No” deadlock on independence?
Why are we here?
I put it to you: if we are morphing, in effect, into nothing more than a sort of offend no-one “Tory lite” organisation, then what earthly reason is there for Tory voters to switch to us, when they have a successful and persistent Tory Party in power which they can simply keep voting for?
As the incomparable Tony Benn once said to me, (not that I have always agreed with him, but he had some things very right), “Stephen, there’s no point us pretending to be bastards, because if the public want the bastards in they’ll vote for the real ones, because they know we’re not really bastards, we’re just pretending.”
I had cause to remember that comment after we were savaged for our supine failure to make the Coalition with Cameron work for ordinary folk.
A party in Government which cheerfully discarded treasured policy positions to get along peacefully with its larger partner was always going to be seen as irrelevant and weak, and duly was.
Do we never learn? We must be vibrant, or disappear.
The Liberal radicalism of my youth kept our parliamentary party on its toes, and culminated in Charles Kennedy’s principled and impressive opposition to the Iraq war. That radicalism saw us reach a modern high-water mark for the party in terms of electoral success, just as our earlier opposition to apartheid and cruise missiles saw us become increasingly relevant (and talked about) during the Steel and Ashdown eras.
There was always disagreement – sometimes trenchant disagreement – between the party’s leadership, some of the hierarchy, and our more radical activist members, but the disagreement was acknowledged, and managed, and frequently more radical ideas weaved their way into otherwise somewhat anodyne policy. We weren’t afraid of debate – we lived for it.
This passion for ideas gave us a keener cutting edge, and, for example, bred a generation of community campaigners who truly believed that governing was actually about the welfare of the governed, not those in power, and that structures and procedures had to be put in place to ensure that the levers of power were increasingly put in ordinary folk’s hands, whether in the workplace, in local Government, in planning, or, indeed, yet more broadly. When we cried “Power to the People”, we actually meant it.
So is it actually all over, orange rover?
Unlike some, I now fear that the Party cannot be dragged back to its earlier roots. We have simply lost too many good members to tiredness, premature death, (vale, Simon Titley), cynicism, the other attractions of life, and also to other parties, especially Labour and the Greens, and to a lesser extent the nationalists.
Our main appeal – our raison d’etre – now seems to have collapsed to “We are not the others” … and fair enough, we aren’t, and we know what’s wrong with them … but is apparently not backed up with any successful attempt to define what a resurgent Liberalism could mean for the public, and for the success of the country.
Our internationalism is muted, our industrial policy is never heard, (disgracefully, we did not full-throatily support the rail workers when Labour deserted them), our passion for electoral reform as part of a wider rearrangement of Britain’s political structure seems to have degenerated into little more than whining “but First Past the Post is so jolly unfair to us”, no-one turns to us for breakthrough thinking on modern policy conundrums, (they always used to – we were a constant ferment of new ideas), we are not leading the debate on how to preserve and enhance a national health system become ever more unwieldy and expensive as waiting periods expand exponentially and the seriously ill wait in vain for an ambulance, and whilst I absolutely applaud the party’s commitment to cleaning up Britain’s waterways, is it part of a comprehensive and convincing collection of policies, which the public can articulate when they consider who to vote for, unambiguously demanding ecological sustainability and combating climate change? Or have we now meekly conceded that ground in the public’s mind to the Greens?
Some people will read this article and nod sadly in agreement. Others will rail angrily, (willfully in denial, in my opinion), missing the point that we are unquestionably a pale orange shadow of what we used to be.
Ironically, they will quote recent political successes at me as evidence that things are going well, and insist we need to give it time, we are carving out the centre ground, the electoral calculation may swing our way, and so on and so forth.
But if all that were true, then I ask you in all humility, what would a Government with the Liberal Democrats in it actually do that would be distinctively Liberal, democratic, radical, and courageous?
Have we not assumed a mantle of managerial incrementalism so intrinsically unimaginative and lacking in all boldness, so that if someone handed us the levers of power we would do perilously little with them, and merely nibble around the edges of a system which inexorably seems to create a Britain that is inexorably weaker, less safe, dirtier, unhealthier and less progressive than it was when we led the charge for new ideas?
There was a time, remember, when we marched, at Jo Grimond’s urging, towards the sound of gunfire.
Wave a pop gun at us now and I think we’d run away.
But given the chance to dramatically play that role now by arguing that Britain should lead the stalled world disarmament process, what they have just done, in reality – because of the inexorable timetable for the Trident replacement decision – is actually to fall in lock-step behind a radical right-wing Conservative Government that would never consider Britain giving up nuclear weapons in a pink fit.
It seems to us that only those who have actually fought wars show real reluctance to engage in them again. That is rarely politicians, especially those who have spent their entirely career crawling slowly up the political ladder.
Within days of the explosion, the Liberal leader, William Ewart Gladstone, then in opposition, announced his concern about Irish grievances and said that it was the duty of the British people to remove them. Later, he said that it was the Fenian action at Clerkenwell that turned his mind towards Home Rule. When Gladstone discovered at Hawarden later that year that Queen Victoria had invited him to form a government he famously stated, “my mission is to pacify Ireland.”
Well, This Is What I Think 