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Where have the left-wing Liberal Democrats gone?

New Lib Dem group decries the party's role in supporting this "heartless, right-wing Tory government

By Linda Jack Published 09 March 2012 10:26

The last 22 months have been uncomfortable for many of us on the left of the Liberal Democrats. Many of us have had to think long and hard about whether to stay and fight, or throw in the towel. Some of us have decided to do the latter and are now seeking to fight back collectively through the establishment of Liberal Left.

We haven't been in hibernation since the establishment of the coalition. We have all, in our different ways, been active in challenging the party internally and externally and in doing our best to work towards the elusive "realignment of the left".

The current leadership narrative has been around taking the centre ground, "we're all centrists now" the mantra, equidistance the declared aim. But the truth is, we have never been equidistant. We have always been a party of the centre left and that self-evidently means we are always going to have more in common with the parties of the left than of the right. So as Liberal Left we have two clear aims, to provide a voice within the Liberal Democrats, opposing the party leadership on economic and fiscal policy, and advocating a positive alternative; and to seek every possible opportunity to build good relations across the left, between Liberal Democrats, Labour, the Greens, and the non-party liberal left, recognising that organisations such as Compass offer a thriving space for such dialogue around democracy and sustainability.

Now, of course our stance has earned us criticism from both left and right, but we take our lead from the declared aim of the party, namely "to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity". And it is clear that the grassroots of the party have not abandoned that aim. Particularly noteworthy has been the internal campaign against the Health and Social Care Bill.

This week we published our first pamphlet, Challenges for the Liberal Left, thoughtful essays laying out in more detail our ideological position. Exploring some of the most pressing issues, the economy, the role of the state, the impact of coalition policy on women, liberalism and the liberal left.

In exploring liberalism and the liberal left Richard Grayson, former Lib Dem Director of Policy, reminds us that "as a party we argued during the last election that eliminating the structural deficit in a single parliament, as the Tories proposed, would remove growth from the economy. We also said that the impact of such a plan would fall disproportionately on those least able to afford the cuts, increasing the gap between the rich and poor and further dividing the country. This is exactly what has happened and we must not as a party stay silent and accept it as the best deal possible."

Stephen Knight calls for radical thinking from the liberal left regarding how the state can best support a sustainable, stable, green economy with real distributive justice, while Simon Hebditch draws on his wide experience in the third sector to explore the contested role of the state. He critiques the contradictions in current policy and concludes that true localism must imply local sustainability if the theory of local power is to be realised.

Jo Ingold explores the disproportionate and adverse impact of current coalition policies on women, specifically in relation to tax, benefits and childcare policies; Ruth Bright strongly argues that the party is fooling itself if it does not understand that the need to appeal to women voters cannot be separated from the need to make the party itself look democratically representative of the country.

Ed Randall's historical analysis challenges us to consider seriously how as Liberal Democrats we should be responding to the current economic crisis and Stephen Haseler argues that the deficit reduction programme is not dealing with the underlying debt crisis but is in fact making it worse. He urges the party to ditch the Orange Book and Conservative neo-liberalism and return to our social liberal roots.

Our official launch will take place on Saturday evening -- 8pm in Hall 2 at the Sage Gateshead. We expect a lively debate, so if you are there, do come along. And if like us, you are a Liberal Democrat committed to Liberal Democrat values but dismayed at our party's role in supporting one of the most heartless, right wing Tory governments ever; do join us.

Linda Jack is the chair of Liberal Left.

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21 comments

Stop Splitting the Vote on the Left's picture

Fri, 2012-03-09 14:29 — Stop Splitting the Vote on the Left (not verified)

Instead of setting up another centre left/left party to split the vote for the left join the Labour party and oust the sickening Blue Labour/New Labour Tories in disguise. Then we might have a united party of the left that can bring a meaningful change.

Sat, 2012-03-10 11:16 — John (not verified)

If the Lib Dems waive through the Legal Aid bill now in the Lords they can say goodbye forever to their claim to be the party of civil liberties and justice. A bill that takes 650,000 out of the scope of legal aid, that cuts funding to CAB and law centres by 77%, that leave 6,000 children without any legal representation, that removes employment, welfare benefits, immigration, most of debt and 40% of housing from the scope of legal aid and legal advice from every level from first hearing to the Supreme Court regardless of disability, language capacity or mental illness. A truly illiberal bill that BBC TV seem not to want to cover. A shame for Clegg and all his party.

Fri, 2012-03-09 14:41 — elrob

I left the Labour Party and voted for a small party of the Left as a protest in 2001: This was because of the treatment of Ken Livingstone in the Labour mayoral candidate selection process, and the contempt that was shown towards ordinary members. That and barely any discernable social democracy.

I voted for no-one in 2005: I was already slipping from Labour due to their descent to neoliberalism, but the "booming" City, booming "private sector" debt of people scrambling to buy a home with enormous mortgages for the benefit of the financial services industry was the final straw (even more than the Iraq War for me).

Partyless, I looked to the LibDems, and after the election of Clegg, decided to research him a bit. I was horrified.
Three neoliberal parties, just as neoliberalism was about to become discredited on a scale not seen since the early 1930s.

Thank Heavens we now have a Labour Party that is at least looking beyond NewLabour and the post-Thatcher consensus. That consensus has to be consigned to the dustbin of history. But the LibDems are embracibng it, and as such you're no longer a party of the Left. You either need a party coup, or at least ditch this neloiberalism at conference, or else get out.

Those who whinge that we must not lose our Blairism are missing the point. Blair only won because it was 1997. The certainties of 1997 (Thatcherite free markets, 19c style neoliberalism, "supremely relaxed about people becoming stinkingly rich") are gone. Thatcherism and financial services is bankrupt.

This govt should be the dying embers of neoliberals, but it acts the dying songbird, apparently full of life before it chokes it. And you LibDems are giving this terrible state of affairs legitimacy as well as power. You might choke it, too.

Fri, 2012-03-09 14:49 — Fergus Pickering (not verified)

Heavens yes. Leftie Libs should join the party of the Eds, the party of hope, the party of honesty, the party of Jesus.

Sat, 2012-03-10 11:58 — Hal (not verified)

If you stand in the middle of the road, you get run over.

True as it ever was. It is time to make your mind up which side you are on.

Fri, 2012-03-09 15:01 — Raleigh Burner (not verified)

@Fergus Pickering

It's a case of getting us to the least evil possibly. Ed and the Labour part as the major opposition are the least vile of the bunch. Note the turn of phrase there. Only a moron would think politicians of any political persuasion are not in it for themselves. However, we, the voters, have a duty to put a lid on their excesses by keeping the most wildly excessive and self serving of them (notably, though not exclusivly on the right and representing the Tory party). Therefore, voting for the left provides a de facto acknowledgement of the need to look after the wider society (not just the rich). So Ed and the Labour party as it stands are the best hope of getting something- anything- that comes close to representing the wider society (normal people)then your vote should go that way. Don't worry, I know it won't.

Fri, 2012-03-09 15:29 — Raleigh Burner (not verified)

Apologies I appear to have had some sort of typo meltdown. The general gist is they're all b*stards but at the moment, Ed and Labour are the least b*stard like of the options available.

Fri, 2012-03-09 17:12 — ISC

Stalking horse need

Fri, 2012-03-09 17:24 — Stuart Eels (not verified)

Yes where have they gone? where have the left of the Labour Party gone? and where have the right of the Tory Party gone, it's a mystery. No not really they've all collided in what they call the centre ground. It's nothing of the sort really, it's just self serving frauds with their policy think tanks churning out the latest garbage at election time to keep the plebs happy! By plebs I mean you me and every other poor sap that lives in this country!

Fri, 2012-03-09 17:27 — Jedibeeftrix (not verified)

"Many of us have had to think long and hard about whether to stay and fight, or throw in the towel. Some of us have decided to do the latter and are now seeking to fight back collectively through the establishment of Liberal Left."

So, you are choosing to fight back by throwing in the towel, right?

Unintentionally hilarious wording there!

Fri, 2012-03-09 17:50 — Vercingetorix (not verified)

Liberal Left is nothing more than a vehicle for a group of Lib Dems who lack the cajones to join the Labour party because they know they are sufficiently lacking in talent that they will sink without trace in Labour's bigger gene pool.

Just dissolve the Lib Dems so social democrats can rejoin Labour and the Orange Bookers can forge an alliance with the Tories.

The 2010 election and the Coalition has rumbled the janus faced nature of the Lib Dems. No voter will forget this. Liberal Left is simply a further manifestation of the incoherence and irrelevance of the Lib Dem's; they have no unifying ideology, perspective or force other than their individual egotism and careerism and it is time the taxpyer stopped having to pay for that.

Out damned spot! out I say!

Fri, 2012-03-09 18:04 — David Lindsay

The Conservative Party has been hoovering up Liberals for a very long time: Country Whigs, Patriot Whigs, Liberal Unionists, Liberal Imperialists, National Liberals as one of whom Michael Heseltine first sought election to Parliament, Alfred Roberts’s daughter, those around the Institute of Economic Affairs (although its founders and its founding backer, like Roberts, never actually joined), and now the Liberal Democrats.

Among those last, the most blatantly obvious outrider or trailblazer is Elizabeth Truss, a veteran anti-monarchist campaigner within that party, and also possessed of most unorthodox opinions regarding the institution of marriage, but whom the Conservative hierarchy forced upon a safe Conservative seat in time for the 2010 General Election, since when it has promoted her vigorously in and through the media.

The followers of David Owen, another who never formally signed up, were in a very similar position, although Owen himself is now close to Ed Miliband.

It is entirely incorrect to say that members of the present Coalition are the first Liberal Cabinet Ministers since the War: by the time that he was Home Secretary between 1954 and 1957, Gwilym Lloyd George had ceased to be a member of either of the Liberal parties that had each separately asked him to lead it in 1945, but nor had he joined the Conservative Party; and one third of the Cabinet Ministers dismissed in one night by Harold Macmillan on 13th July 1962 were National Liberals, raising yet more among the many serious questions about how conservative or Tory the sacked six’s economic views, which went on to become monetarism, really were or were not, are or are not.

The feud between the former Miss Roberts and the present Lord Heseltine, who in his time has been directly responsible for privatising more of the British economy than any other Minister, was fundamentally and ultimately an intra-Liberal affair, and at the time of writing it remains so. Even if vicariously and posthumously, Margaret Thatcher’s father was the last great Liberal commercial magnate from the provinces to exercise national political power in that specific capacity.

The Conservative Party is itself therefore two parties in one, which would be entirely separate in many other countries, competing hardly at all for the same votes and co-operating hardly at all on any issue of policy. The metropolitan, urban, capitalist, secular, libertarian, make-the-world-anew party has finally defeated and banished the provincial, rural, protectionist, church-based, conservative, mind-our-own-business party. The Whigs have finally defeated and banished the Tories.

But preferably in a context of electoral reform, which can only suit the Tories down to the ground. They are not the only ones.

Fri, 2012-03-09 19:39 — UnitedCountry (not verified)

Why did I become a Liberal democrat? It was because of the declared aim of the party, namely "to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.
It was never a bunch of lefties, that was the Labour Party, neither was it the loony right, no that was (probably still is) the Tories. No it was and still is with the majority of the party, a party of Lefties,Right wing thinkers, but the majority was centralists. It was, and i still believe it is a diverse party with people who sees the need to balance Social Needs along with Economic prosperity. A party of not leaving anyone behind, unlike what Labour started and the coalition seems hell bent on continuing. It is a party of not just the majority but the factions as well. Everyone has a part to play, even those we do not agree with.... that is what freedom is all about... with the majority being able to listen and then have their say with the added comments, no matter if they are right or left wing. The Democratic majority would usually represent the majority of the population.

I do hope the conference SHOUT this message out. We should not support, even in a coalition, bills that the vast majority of people are against. We have and should be the voice of the majority..... remember the people, they are not thick, as so many in politics believe and they have a voice, known as the vote.

Fri, 2012-03-09 11:06 — Gerry Tierney (not verified)

Thank Odin you still exist. I fear that the nutjob proportion of your party, the ones who value power before morality, are dragging you all through the mud with them.

Fri, 2012-03-09 11:07 — David (not verified)

Interesting stuff actually, and very welcome. However, I think the only way there is going to be any change within the Lib Dems (and I speak as one those whose last-ever vote for the party was in May 2010), it must come in the form of a challenge to Clegg's bumbling leadership. Those at the top are now too used to power, and have been blinded by it. The Lib Dems are now de facto Tories in the House of Commons. If the party is to ever be taken seriously again, someone must force change to happen.

Fri, 2012-03-09 12:00 — duck soup

The Lib Dems under the Clegg and Danny Alexander regime now resemble the old Sir John Simon National Liberals who were Tory in all but name.The National Liberals were eventually incorporated into the Conservative Party.

Take a look at Scottish Liberal Democrat policy changes.The Scottish Lib Dems called for devolution of Crown Estates powers during the 1998 Devolution Bill.Now they steadfastly oppose it.They also in 1998 called for statutory representation for Holyrood Ministers at the EU Council of Ministers.Now they are agin it.

More recently,in submissions to the Calman Commission,the party favoured substantial borrowing powers and devolution of tobacco,alcohol,fuel and vehicle excise duties.Under Clegg and Michael Moore they see no need for any of this.

The Lib Dems Steel Commission called for the considerable devolution of broadcasting powers to Scotland.They are not in favour of it now.

Fri, 2012-03-09 12:09 — duck soup

This drift to the Tories is catching.Last night Labour MP Brain Donohoe accepted the invitation from David Cameron to share the platform at the Scottish Conservative Spring Conference at Troon.Clearly the hardline Scottish unionists like Donohoe,Danny Alexander,Michael Moore and Johann Lamont identify more closely with the Tory Party than they identify with the people of Scotland.

When Mr.Donohoe gets to the conference hall at Troon he can remark,like his erstwhile Labour colleague,that the place is full of Tories.Only Brian Donohoe can clearly say it with pleasure instead of chagrin.

Sat, 2012-03-10 09:37 — Stuart Eels (not verified)

UnitedCountry

I think your Democratic majority is limping along on about 5% at the moment, obviously you are going to rise up and seize power any moment now!

Fri, 2012-03-09 13:58 — representingthemambo (not verified)

Scottish first

Donohoe's mistake isn't that he is against the break-up of the UK. It's that he has joined hands with the Tories to try and do so.

As you say though, it does appear that the names you mention have more in common with th Tories than they would like to think they do.

This is is a welcome initiative. I would argue however that you need to break with your party if you are serious about opposing the Tories. The point is to do on a principled, organised basis.

representingthemambo.wordpress.com/

Fri, 2012-03-09 13:59 — representingthemambo (not verified)

Let me try that again

Scottish first

Donohoe's mistake isn't that he is against the break-up of the UK. It's that he has joined hands with the Tories to try and do so.

As you say though, it does appear that the names you mention have more in common with th Tories than they would like to think they do.

This is is a welcome initiative. I would argue however that you need to break with your party if you are serious about opposing the Tories. The point is to do on a principled, organised basis.

http://representingthemambo.wordpress.com/

Fri, 2012-03-09 14:00 — representingthemambo (not verified)

It came on eventually, sorry for posting the same comment twice.....