Our Liberal Internationalism, born in a period of party fragmentation, is now our uniting and unique selling point – Liberal Democrat Voice

When you consult books about Liberal and Liberal Democrat party history about the birth of our Internationalism, European Federalism and our thesis that stand-alone nationstates (and narrow nationalism) become more and more obsolete, you discover a surprising fact.

According to Michael Steeds chapter Liberal Tradition in Don MacIvers bundle The Liberal Democrats (from 1996), it was in the comprehensive policy survey The Liberal Way of 1934, that we stated that in future, narrow nationalist parties everywhere would face parties, the Liberals firmly among them, supporting the growing, factual interdependence as best policy basis. Philip Kerr, marquis of Lothian, said (1935): the only final remedy for war is a federation of nations. But personal guilt about having himself written the War Damages clause in the Versailles Treaty made Kerr become an advocate of appeasement to Germany, a Liberal dissident, until the Munich Agreement.

Both Chris Cooks history of the Liberals in 1900-76, and Robert Ingham & Duncan Bracks authoritative bundle Peace Reform & Liberation (PRL; 2001) tell that this interdependence makes collectivism better policy-idea was formulated in a phase of disintegration of the Liberal party (the split about the 1931 National Government; desertions to the National Liberals and Labour; loss of seats).

Sir Archibald Sinclair, who became party leader after the heavy 1935 election defeat, put our internationalism to immediate use, insisting on collective security and collective deal-making (as opposed to selective powernation deals like Munich), Reynolds & Hunter write in their chapter about 1929-55 in PRL (p. 222). Instead of Appeasement, Sinclair insisted on collective resistance to expansionist dictatorships, while Tory dissident Churchill pointed to Germanys rearmament.

Steed (in MacIver, Lib Dems, p. 56) says that the Liberals support for Federalism in Europe (Federal Union from 1938/9; European movement from 48), and Clement Davies early support for the federally structured ECSC of Robert Schuman, all derive directly from the Liberal Way stance. And from there it is a small step to the full-blown support for (and wanting to join in) the EEC by Grimond, Thorpe and later leaders.

Sinclair is the man who combined Liberal international collectivism with pleas for restoring a strong defense (saying other states should do the same, while joining the collective). The Sudeten crisis and Munich were roundly condemned by Sinclair (joined by Churchill); instead of asking the Benelux countries to join in (where the Social Liberal Dutch VDB was also pleading rearmament), Chamberlain only brought wavering France to Munich, where they amputated the also excluded democracy Czechoslovakia.

Both the thinking of The Liberal Way, and the pleas by both Sinclairs Liberals and the Dutch VDB for rearmament from 1935 onward are a precedent for the thinking of LibDems and D66 in these days. The 2009 and 2014 Euro-election victories by D66 in a Netherlands turning Eurosceptic shows that it may be an uphill struggle, but distinctiveness wins.

* Bernard Aris is a Dutch historian (university of Leiden), and Documentation assistant to the D66 parliamentary Party. He is a member of the Brussels/EU branch of the LibDems.

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Our Liberal Internationalism, born in a period of party fragmentation, is now our uniting and unique selling point - Liberal Democrat Voice