The Lib Dems will offer opposition where the Tory-Reform coalition can’t
3 min read
There is now a large contingent of Lib Dems in the new Parliament. My pre-poll guess, for what it is worth, was around 45 – as in the 1997 landslide election. The Lib Dems have exceeded their objective by delivering a record-breaking 71 MPs, leapfrogging the SNP to be the third-largest party in Parliament again.
This success is down to two factors. The first was very disciplined targeting to maximise the number of seats in an election where the public mood was to remove the Conservatives, and where our first-past-the-post electoral system made a Lib Dem victory achievable.
The second was that the campaign was disciplined and effective. The aim was to establish Ed Davey as a recognised name and face, achieved partly through visually striking stunts. These were disparaged by our opponents but achieved their purpose. Ed then attracted personal support by focusing on the issue of care, of which he has direct experience.
Post-97 experience suggests that the Lib Dems will have a key role in leading opposition to Labour’s encroachment on civil liberties
How the Lib Dems operate in the new Parliament will partly depend on what happens to the Conservatives now they have just 121 seats. There is an extreme scenario, in which the Conservatives die – as the Liberals did in the early 1920s. Just as the Liberals could not cope with the rise of an authentic party of the working class, so the Tories may be unable to fend off an authentic, nativist, party of the nationalist right. Then and now, internal divisions and personal ambitions aggravate an existential crisis.
But the focus will have to be on how best to offer effective opposition to Labour. Keir Starmer’s Labour has successfully made itself a small target. But its lack of declared ambition means that there is little political momentum, and there is a risk of it quickly being overwhelmed by events and achieving little.
I would identify several areas where Lib Dems, acting from their values and experience, will be able to challenge Labour effectively.
The first is over Europe, where post-Brexit trade barriers are a significant impediment to the revival of business investment which is necessary for growth. The European Union has currently no appetite for revisiting Brexit but, equally, will resist the ‘cherry-picking’ approach Labour appears to favour. It also has daunting internal political problems with France and the Netherlands. What is needed is a clear long-term roadmap showing how Britain can progress to re-entry of the single market and customs union. The Lib Dems have such a map.
Second, the Blair government carried out some much-needed constitutional reform. Starmer has only a minimal commitment to Lords reform and none on the electoral system. But the Lib Dems will have other opposition parties and some Labour allies pushing for reform of our discredited and corrupted institutions.
Third, as a party grounded in local government, the Lib Dems can focus on the most extreme of the various public spending crises. The bankruptcy of local government: important in itself, but also the key to solving other serious problems around care and hospital discharge.
Fourth, in its economic growth agenda the Labour government will need an industrial strategy. There is much it can heed from the Lib Dems’ role in the Coalition industrial strategy.
Last, post-97 experience suggests that the Lib Dems will have a key role in leading opposition to Labour’s encroachment on civil liberties and in challenging grievous lapses of judgment like the Iraq war.
The Lib Dems will offer effective opposition where the Tory-Reform coalition can’t.
Vince Cable, former leader of the Liberal Democrats
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