From here
So, it is finally over. The spell is lifted, the evil — defeated. After a delay, an appeal, a haze of hustings, an endless stream of identical complaints about finding emails, and the usual social media invective, the Liberal Democrats have chosen a new leader — the MP for Kingston & Surbiton, orphaned at 11, latterly Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, former pork pie factory worker, Sir Edward Davey.
Like all elections — internal, national, local, whatever — in this age, it generated a great deal of heat on social media, and essentially no light as regards to the result was shed from these exchanges. If Twitter, for example, isn’t even representative of left-of-centre party electorates (which tend to be over-educated and wealthier compared to the population, much as Twitter is) then really, what can be learned about the actual state of a democracy’s internal debates from endless scrolling? Alas, even this insight is not enough to save my right thumb from arthritis.
But the more profound point — in so much as anything for the Lib Dems right now seems profound — is the future direction being set for the UK’s third political party. The Liberal Democrat party constitution is designed to ensure that responsibility is shared out so thinly in the party that no-one is truly in charge of anything, and this includes the leader — so debating what policies they support can feel like debating the impact of Pluto on the tides of Earth (a point that can feel even sharper when you recall the extremely vocal section of activists who view liberalism as little more than “the opposite of what the leadership want”). What matters more is the sort of party image they want to project — the vague sense that all parties try to implant in the heads of voters of who they are, what they’re for, and why they do the stuff they do.
Essentially, the view that was taken was that the leadership election offered one of two choices — the “radical” and the “safe”; both words having become perjoratives in this squabble. The argument on social media did at least reveal this divide within the party; and also a failure by some in the party to grapple with what the political landscape of 2020 looks like for the Liberal Democrats.
Stretching out before the Lib Dems is an exciting prospect — a neatly stacked group of demographically similar constituencies, within easy commuting distance of a large share of their membership, held by the governing party currently experiencing a torrent of scandal. Pleasingly for sloganeering two of them begin with the same letter as the seat used to represent the archetypal Tory target voter of 2019 — W. From Workington Man, then, we must move our minds to Wimbledon Woman. These seats are, on average, pretty-well educated, well-heeled, and becoming still more so. Fundamentally, the tenor of the noises both campaigns put out recognised this; it was how that fitted with their wider message that matters.
Ultimately, the Liberal Democrats are confronted with a hard choice — either try and turn the clock back to 2005, or fight on 2020’s terms. The 2005 tone was offered far more by the Moran campaign. The idea seems to be that, by signalling the Lib Dems are keener on UBI and electoral reform (and also, Moran being an Oxfordshire Lib Dem, extremely anti-housing), the party can sweep up a big assortment of voters that will produce some form of renaissance. The mood music from the Davey campaign was less clear than that, but it did not lean into that world view — a world view designed to resonate with a particular set of Lib Dem internal feelings — nearly half as much.
Because 2005 is dead. We have killed it. The rickety electoral coalition assembled by Charles Kennedy, the message that we could be to the Left of Labour (or “more radical” if you’re being coy), an incumbent Labour government led by a man with an instinctive grasp of the social conservatism of key parts of his electoral coalition — all these things are gone, dust on the winds of history. They are never coming back. The Lib Dems are not going to be the party of students, people who feel Labour is too right wing, a chunk of Muslim voters, plus South Western Methodists, some commuter-belt types, and assorted Celtic rural voters, again. The circumstances that created that have gone, and the coalition has scattered to the winds (well, mostly winds that blow towards Labour).
The more pertinent point is of course whether the Liberal Democrats should embrace that message — for me, the answer is transparently no. Political parties exist to seek power to further their goals. If the party does not seize the electoral chance before it with both hands, but instead hums, haws, looks over its shoulder at past glories and tries to rebuild them from spittle and twine, then it will die and deservedly so. It needs to lean hard into these seats — to focus remorselessly on Wimbledon Woman, and listen and build on that. From her will come more MPs, more votes, more councils, more seats.
The Kennedy legacy was ultimately a creature of its time — right or wrong, the choices that were made then were only possible because of the environment in which the party existed, and the fact it had not yet been in government. Any experience of government was always going to collapse such a heterogeneous voter coalition — regardless of who you were in government with. The party needs to move on from that, and settle in its new role. Because that new role can be extremely potent.
In the median scenario, a party focused on those voters in 2024 winds up doubling its MPs, refreshing itself with a new intake and strengthening itself in key target seats. Perhaps in the process it takes out Dominic Raab, who may well still be in Cabinet in 2024, and earns itself some good press. This not only sustains the party but raises the floor under it — a good step on the road back. In the happiest scenario, the party functions as the nether to Labour’s upper millstone — whilst Labour recaptures ground in the North and Midlands from a dazed and confused government, the Liberal Democrats ruthlessly gut the commuter belt heartlands of the Conservative Party, toppling ministers and grandees, winding up with a ’97 sized party, and Michael Gove losing his job in a leisure centre at 3 AM.
There are some, of course, for whom this isn’t “radical” enough, isn’t “progressive” enough, isn’t some other political label that is meant to denote deeper thought but just means good people who I like — enough. But the seats targeted are wealthier and better educated than average- meaning they’re likely more socially liberal than average. Building an economic policy that reflects hard choices isn’t anathema to progressivism — it must be central to it, to any responsible governing philosophy. Communicating with Winchester and Wimbledon that we want to invest in public services without breaking the bank — that we can repair the damage being done right now without needing to go overboard — is a perfectly sound, useful message. But more importantly — such a message will get the Lib Dems more MPs, a bigger platform to shout about their interests and values, and a more secure one.
That is only possible with full embrace of the circumstances in which the party now exists — the electoral coalition it needs to build from the ground it faces now. That coalition will be more cohesive and unified than the 2005 coalition, and may well therefore prove more durable if the party finds itself in government in 2024, or 2029, able to communicate with its voters why it did what it did more effectively because they are of a similar world view.
Doing all of this doesn’t make you less liberal, less progressive, less able to speak for the interests that the party should be speaking for. But it does mean you open the door to a path that gives you a louder voice for them over time, because you have decided your future lies in 2020’s electoral map, and not 2005’s. That, above all else, is what matters now.
