It Could Be Said #55 Good Enemies, Better Friends
British Liberalism and Labourism are prone to bickering, but together, they make for a powerful tag team
Fourteen wasted years are finally over.
And they’re over in a particularly poignant way that hopefully points the way forward to avoiding a repeat of the damage the 2010 General Election unleashed on the country. There is such a thing as the wisdom of crowds, with the people usually able to sniff out problems with a party that weren’t clearly visible. But that election was where this broke down.
The people were understandably tired of an exhausted Labour Government and rightly sensed that the Tories hadn’t changed enough to deserve a majority. They however overestimated the extent to which the Liberal Democrats would try or could succeed in holding back the Tories’ worst excesses, either by working with Labour or being a moderating influence on the new Government. The Coalition Government’s insane decision to use the bully pulpit to take a sledgehammer to investor and consumer confidence by pretending we were on the brink of bankruptcy whilst combining fiscal contraction with significant tax cuts set the stage for the populist revolts that would engulf Scotland, the Labour Party, and finally the entire nation from 2014 to 2016.
It is therefore apt that the Tories were defeated by Labour and the Liberal Democrats truly complimenting each other for the first time since 2001. Indeed, it’s telling that two senior politicians who in very different ways reflect liberalism discomfort with labourism were rebuffed; libertarian Young Liberal turned failed Tory Prime Minister Liz Truss was defeated by Labour, whilst Nick Clegg’s attempts to buy back his old constituency similarly failed. As an angry young woman and a complacent middle-aged man both made the same mistake liberalism has struggled to escape since the late 19th Century; focusing too much on the damage an overmighty state may cause at the expense of recognising the damage an enfeebled state may permit to continue.
There is a third result that is telling, and aptly it was the last one; Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, where a Liberal Democrat victory was announced two days late due to technical issues with the count. This is the seat that covers the old stomping grounds of Charlie Kennedy, the much-loved former leader of the Liberal Democrats who managed to break both the 50 and 60 seat thresholds in the two general elections he contested. Labourites tend to think warmly of Kennedy given he specialised in attacking Tony Blair from his left and was clearly uncomfortable at how his successors shifted the party to the right. But Kennedy’s tactics were wrong for his party, and the broader anti-Tory cause. The gains he made in 2001 and 2005 were at the expense of Labour rather than the Tories, therefore representing no strengthening of the anti-Tory forces in parliament.
Now you might say, “so what, if the Liberal Democrats can succeed by hurting Labour, then so be it”? But the party’s current leadership clearly disagrees with you. Nothing better demonstrates this than how Sir Ed Davey did not look to capitalise on Labour’s difficulties over Gaza. Indeed, the new MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, Ayoub Khan, was a longstanding Liberal Democrat councillor that quit the party after apparently being told to temper his activism on the issue.
This reflects wisdom on the part of Davey and those around him. If the Liberal Democrats could replace Labour, then Labour would never have needed to replace the Liberals in the first place. British Liberalism has long been a preoccupation of the most earnest and non-conformist elements of the middle class, struggling to reach out beyond that niche. That’s why even at the height of its powers the Liberal Party relied upon alliances with the Irish Home Rule Party and later the Labour Party as more of the Irish and British lower-middle and working class were allowed to vote. Kennedy using eye-catching policies to pick up the occasional seat in heavily Muslim, Student or White Working Class seats that Labour had alienated only distracted the party from its true purpose; challenging the Tory Party in seats where affluence and an individualist or anti-urban ethic make Labour a tough sell. This is not with the benefit of hindsight, as it was reported at the time that many people, including Sir Menzies Campbell, were uncomfortable with the party’s opposition to the Iraq War due to fears it would undermine their push into Tory territory.
It took time, but such fears were vindicated. The party’s failure to win over significantly more Tory-leaning seats in 2001 or 2005 meant that when Labour stumbled in 2010, the Liberal Democrats had no choice but to enter into coalition with the Tories, a decision that immediately caused more than half their supporters to abandon the party. The challenge for the party now will be to not similarly lose discipline, to remain focused on retaining the seats its won from the Tories at this election, and even gaining those seats where they just fell short due to failing to sufficiently drive down the local Labour vote. Should they do that, they will make it next to impossible for the Tories to return to power under their own steam when Labour’s fortunes inevitably decline. Imagine if over the next two elections, Labour loses 150 seats to the Tories or Reform, whilst the Liberal Democrats inch forward in Tory-leaning seats to capture 80 seats; that would still give a coalition between two progressive parties a working majority of 34 seats before even factoring in separatist or leftist MPs that would also oppose a rightist government.
But the strong logic behind continued cooperation, doesn’t make the task any easier. After all, British politics has shifted on its axis, and like any opposition party, the natural role of the Liberal Democrats is to oppose what the new Government does. And, Labour has the bad habit of finding criticism from the Liberal Democrats especially irritating, even when compared to other parties of the left.
The lesson of how cooperation gradually broke down during the noughties suggests that Liberal Democrats remaining ideologically disciplined and focused on winning Tory-leaning seats is crucial, but that such discipline is easier to maintain if the leadership senses its being rewarded for having a constructive relationship with Labour. It would certainly be helpful if both parties could find some issues where they could work together in a formalised way, in the same way Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown worked together on constitutional reform. It was after all, frustration with lack of progress in this area, that empowered Kennedy to unpick this partnership when he became leader.
They didn’t quite breakthrough to the extent they could become the largest opposition party, but last week the Liberal Democrats established the type of beachhead that if they can defend it, will ultimately give them the chance to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2010, and finally expunge the ghosts of Nick Clegg and Tuition Fees.