Tough Liberal love – Liberal Democrat Voice

Without doubt, this was a tough election, and I wasnt even in a lead campaigning role, let alone running. (I thought about the latter, and was approved; but I then campaigned in my home constituency of Sheffield Hallam.)

Gutted about our loss of Nick Clegg, I took to the blogs and comments on Liberal Democrat Voice over the past week to see how our national results were perceived across the party. Despite some celebration, they also demonstrate that there is much discontent, with rallying cries for radical centrism to so long, liberals alike. Evidently, tough Liberal love is in order.

It would make sense for us to take stock of the core challenges as the leadership bids begin. The new leadership and conference will determine the direction of the party: are we to continue the strategy of placing the Lib Dems on an axis of value politics, or return to decisions about left, right or centre? But besides direction, there are two other key themes which I think need urgent debate, too.

There is anger among many at the way Tim was allegedly pressured to resign, from those unelected Lords, no less, who represent the very party thats in favour of Lords reform.

But more fundamentally, as Liberal Democrats we need to redefine what we mean by our commitment to democracy, both internally and externally. For example, we were against a second independence referendum in Scotland, which was absolutely the right call, and helped get us three additional MPs. But we were in favour of a second referendum on Brexit, without much evidence that the mood had changed, and it turned out to be not that appealing to the electorate.

Most political parties and ideologies are somehow contradictory: its what should make them attractive to the mainstream. But framing our Brexit approach as about democracy above all else opened us up to another easy line of attack, aside from incoherence. When Andrew Neil in an otherwise bizarrely angry interview called us populists who arent popular (or something to that effect), he had a point. The 2011 referendum on the Alternative Vote was a loss. So as a party, we need to debate what being a democrat means for us, for our internal governance, and for the country.

There is also frustration that Tims resignation (wrongly) suggests were precisely not the party for freedom of thought.

The issue here seems to be that parts of the party (and much of the way weve spoken of our recent electoral successes) promotes what Mark Lilla has called identity liberalism. Hes claimed controversially that it lost Hilary Clinton the American presidency, and that Democrats there should instead move towards a post-identity liberalism.

We are not only in an era of Trump; in Britain we have our second female Prime Minister who is, for the second time, Conservative. I think we need to ask whether we are presenting ourselves and our fight for personal freedoms and fairness often through personal representation of, or attachment to, minority and currently or historically marginalised identities in a way that is actually resonating with the British electorate at large.

I had my misgivings about Tims leadership, but as a gay man I would far rather a leader who stood up for rights and private conscience over one who claimed to know, embody or worse approve of! some generalised gay identity. Could we achieve more through an issues-based, over identity-focussed approach to our political position? Its another question that I feel needs to be put to conference this year.

* Sean Williams is a Lib Dem member in the Sheffield Hallam constituency

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Tough Liberal love - Liberal Democrat Voice