Liberal Democrats - where next for them?

[muddythefish]

If Labour won in 2010, austerity would of still have happened, and with UKIP becoming the 3rd party by 2015, then the Tories would offer an EU referendum by 2020 leading to a later Brexit.

Alistair Darling admitted that Labour was planning cutbacks in public spending had it won the 2010 election. But the cutbacks would have been nothing like the scale of the "austerity" programme of George Osborne.

 

[bramling]

I missed this. I would say the bit I've bolded is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the post-2010 election situation. A Tory Government was basically inevitable after the 2010 election result, no matter what the LibDems did. The Tories didn't quite have a majority in the Commons, but they were so close as to make it virtually impossible to form a Government that wasn't Tory-lead. It was a choice between a minority Government and a coalition Government. And the LibDems evidently took the decision that a stable majority coalition Government, in which they could hopefully nullify some of the worst excesses of the Tory right, was a better option than a minority Tory-only Government. You can agree or disagree about whether that was the right decision - but it's wrong to blame the LibDems for putting the Tories in Downing Street. It was a combination of the voters and our distorted electoral system that did that.

The notion that people will never forgive the Lib Dems for putting Cameron in power makes me laugh, for next time round the Lib Dem vote collapsed and many of these votes seemed to switch to the Conservatives. Look at how the Lib Dems are now essentially dead in the south-west, which was once a stronghold.

I’d love to see some more detailed analysis on Lib Dem fortunes over the last couple of decades, however my hunch is it’s simply a case of people seeing through bandwagon politics. Much of the Lib Dem material which has come through my door over time has been pretty cringeworthy, and barring stuff like tuition fees, the Iraq war and Brexit has tended to be little more sophisticated than “vote for us as we’re not Labour / Conservatives” (delete as applicable). That worked during the Blair years, but British politics has changed now.

 

[Mojo]

The talk about the Tories dying out however seems not be true - people still seem to move to the right as they get older.

Whilst I do share concerns for the future, I do wonder how much of it also rests with whoever is the party of Government; I started A Level Politics at a sixth form college back in 2005 and I remember in one of the first few lessons the teacher asking people in the class what party they would vote for if there was an election tomorrow and they were eligible to vote (it was AS year so everyone in the class was 16 or 17) and the number of people who answered Conservative outnumbered the Labour voters by quite some margin and those answering Labour being quite sheepish about it. This being in a major city also, that currently has all of its MPs from Labour, so not exactly natural Conservative territory.

 

[317 forever]

Anybody who would consider the unilateral dismissal of a decision made by 17.4m people as somewhat undemocratic.

Allegedly the three year argument over Brexit was not that it should happen but how it should happen. The LD 2017 manifesto said this:

"The Liberal Democrats are the only party that will give the people a chance to change Britain’s future by holding a referendum on the final Brexit deal with the option to remain in the European Union. This will be the only opportunity for the British public to reject a ‘hard’ Brexit that means leaving the single market, ending freedom of movement and abandoning the customs union."

So, no mention of ditching it entirely without reference to the electorate. Then in 2019 along comes their dearly departed leader of four months and publishes a manifesto that declares they will do exactly that. They gained 1.3m votes on the back of that (principally from Remainers who had nowhere else to go). But clearly not enough for even some staunch Remainers believed it was a step to far to simply kick the referendum result into touch. Their attitude was that if they get a sniff of power the 17.4m can shove it.

While there was some political merit in offering the Remain policy supported by 16.1 voters and many additional young voters, it was socially unreasonable to go against the referendum result without a People's Vote - which they incidentally pioneered. It was no wonder they experienced wipeout in Leave areas and no such gains there either.

 

[317 forever]

I think Layla Moran would be the best leader; new, untarnished by the coalition and has now got a much more comfortable majority. Ed Davey would probably be a steady hand but perhaps not as inspiring.

She may benefit in similar ways to Tony Blair and David Cameron (but still unlikely to become Prime Minister). Tony and David became MPs at the start of their parties' 2nd term outside government, thereby providing a sufficiently fresh start to enable them to lead their parties back to government. Layla could similarly provide a post-Coalition fresh start for the LibDems.

 

[317 forever]

Tim Farron is the odd one out among the current LibDem MPs. Out of their 11 current MPs, 4 are in Scotland while 6 are in the south, including 3 in London. So, Tim's seat in the north west is the only seat stopping them from being a Scotland & southern England party in terms of seats in Parliament.