“I think we’ve got an opportunity now to truly bury the hatchet with the Labour Party,” said Layla Moran, who is very likely to the be the next Lib Dem leader, while on talk radio a couple of weeks ago. She also said she wouldn’t rule out a more formal relationship being established between the Lib Dems and Labour. This is a classic example of the Lib Dems misunderstanding the Labour Party in a comically absurd way, something that has gone on for a while but now, after the election, seems to be getting a lot worse.
The Lib Dems are looking at the December result and the Labour/Lib Dem “infighting” (which is a ridiculous way to put it, but a lot of Lib Dems are using the term, so let’s roll with it) and thinking they wish both parties could have found some way to work together to stop the Tories getting a majority. The one comfort the Lib Dems are taking out of the election result – too much comfort, if you ask me – is the fact that they came second in around 90 seats. All of them are Tory-facing, so they figure Labour will understand that it is in their interest to come to some sort of alliance that will allow the Lib Dems to take a chunk of these seats while they stand aside for Labour in a host of places only they can win.
Now, let’s talk about the way Labour sees the 2019 general election. The Lib Dems lured us all into the thing against our will, mostly for their own perceived benefit, only to screw up royally and deliver a huge Tory majority. Their leader spent the whole campaign doing down our leader, ultimately helping Boris Johnson. At best, the Lib Dems are in the way of a Labour government being possible and need to be destroyed; at worst, they are Tory-abetting hucksters who, as we know because they already did it, will jump into bed with the Tories any chance they get. And so, the Lib Dems need to be destroyed.
I’m not saying I agree with either point of view. But this is where the two sides are, and the Lib Dems are dreaming if they think any Labour leader is going to be remotely nice to them, never mind form some sort of electoral pact.
One of the easiest ways to get a cheap laugh at Labour conference is to make a joke about the Liberal Democrats. It is one of the few things that unites every faction of the Labour Party, Lib Dem hatred. Since the coalition government was formed, I feel it is fair to say that your average Labour activists hates the Lib Dems way more than the Tories – and I understand why. See, the Labour Party is a lot like a church, a religion, a faith. The only way for the country to be good is to elect a Labour government. At Labour conference you will hear a lot about how this group of people or that “needs a Labour government”, with particularly emphasis on need. Not want, need. In this context, the Tories are the devil – but Satan is always going to be there, nothing you can really do about that. The Lib Dems, on the other hand, don’t really need to exist. The yellows, in the Labour mindset, simply suck up votes, airspace and political oxygen from the Labour Party. As such, they are easier to hate since one can feel like the hate might have an end product – you can never really kill the Tories but with enough effort, perhaps the Labour movement can kill the Lib Dems.
What I’m trying to say here, Liberal Democrats, in a long winded way, is this: Labour people hate you. They really hate you. And the hatred runs deep and dark. They don’t want to form some “progressive alliance” with you. They want to destroy your party. And once you understand the Labour mindset, that goal seems totally rational. If you think the Labour Party is the source of all good, the one true faith, the only way to salvation, why would you want the Lib Dems to succeed? So you can form a government with them where they interfere with what you want to achieve before ultimately saying you’re a shower when the general election hovers into view, letting the Tories back in?
I close with something I’ve said many times before, but worth repeating here: all of the Lib Dems’ target seats are Tory-held. In order to win them, they need to convince Tory voters to vote Lib Dem. Labour voters are never going to vote Lib Dem tactically in big enough numbers for lots of reasons. This means the space for the Lib Dems is very Orange Book shaped. But almost none of the activists want to go there; they still think they can win back the parts of the left that deserted them when they went into government with the Tories. Which that can’t. If the Lib Dems keep trying to be Labour’s little buddy, they will continue to fail, and fail badly. I think that’s where we’re probably headed.
Spot on Nick – “Liberals are Tories without their kicking boots on” as Labour used to say in the north of England.
What Nicks article does not explain is how Labour has been replaced in Scotland by a essentially social democratic party from the progressive centre .who increased the number of MPs they had in the Commons .We do not need to drift to the right to find space but offer an alternative that makes Labour and their old fashioned socialist creed irrelivant in a social liberal age with looming climate change impacts already effecting us all as each year passes by.
Right wing mantras are frequently short lived and barely last one term of parliament .
There are new economic models coming forward as part of the circular econonomy new models on generational change .Liberals in tory clothing never feels or is comfortable..
But Labour has proven to be a political cul-de-sac for the left that’s just kept the Tories in power for most of the time, or upheld their agenda. The only exception being 1945, when Labour heartily adopted Liberal Beveridge Welfare State.
Completely agree but The Coalition is just a convenient stick. Labour have been trying to destroy The Liberal tradition for 120 Years, their persistent failure to acheive that destruction has no effect on their “thinking”.
Labour & “Labour” Voters are different things though.
Writing as a LibDem, I totally recognise this visceral dislike of us by Labour activists. In fact I have seen it in action as election counts. You must admit it is a bit arrogant of Labour members feeling that they are the only true believers.
PS I like the idea that Labour were ‘lured’ into the General Election by the despised LDs. Actually 127 Labour MPs voted for it. The LD MPs abstained!
Over the past 3 years, it has felt like there has been an alliance between the Tory and Labour Parties to deliver Brexit.
Of course, there is the public mudslinging, but on so many critical votes, Corbyn backed the Tories with either active support or abstention.
But let’s assume, just for a moment, that Labour is correct about us and we’re all really fond of the Tories. If they manage to destroy us as a Party, then the impact will be us all heading to vote Tory in the future in the 2 party state they dream of.
Labour doesn’t benefit out of that change. Just as they haven’t benefitted from the repeated betrayals of the electorate on voting reform amongst so many other issues.
I agree, but I also think Layla does accurately reflect what many LibDem voters think.
Nick spot on
I said before the liberal party lack a soul
Charles kennedy is the only decent leader you have had in your awful history
Nick clegg the glove puppet is the reason that the liberals deserve to be out of business
Face book orange book cynical manure
What about Paddy Ashdown?
Who the hell hates him?
Did he support the glove puppet
Think so
Kennedy did not
The relationship between Blair and Ashdown was mutually beneficial. It’s be good to return to something similar but until Labour has a change of heart it’s hard to see how.
It was the unions that caused Blair to renege on his agreement with Paddy that PR would be introduced to prevent the Tories ever forming a government on their own. If only Blair had been strong enough to see this through!
I am not at all sure that Layla will be the next Lib Dem leader; I think there are doubts she will stand.
You are obviously right about Labour’s enmity towards Lib Dems. They attacked Jo Swinson more vigorously than they attacked Johnson.
You are wrong to conflate Labour members with Labour voters: the dalliance with Corbyn has added to the squeeze potential.
What you mean by “Orange Book shaped” is unclear: you give the impression there is a policy or set of policies that would produce a major switch from Conservatives to Lib Dem. The two main factors are not in Liberal Democrat hands and that is the leadership of the two big parties.
Literally every fucking Lib Dem knows the far left hates them.
Come back with a more original article
Not just the Left – Labour through and through !
We did have something close to a Labour/Lib Dem alliance under the leadership of Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown. Does anyone really believe that the Lib Dems more than doubled their seats in Parliament in 1997 without some degree of tactical voting by Labour supporters?
Labour’s problem is that since Tony Blair they have chosen losers as their Prime Ministerial candidates, because socialist purity was more important to them than winning power.
I agree to an extent that many Labour activists and particularly local leaders hate and despise the Lib Dems with a passion, but…
– As said above, many Labour voters are more pluralistic, and many of them do believe that the Labour Party stands for Nice Things, and therefore it would be Nice that the two parties ‘just sorted things out’.
– There are also many Labour members who (possibly erroneously) see the Lib Dems as essentially a Social Democratic or democratic party with some common goals and think some kind of rapprochement is possible (it’s possible that the fact I’m in the West Country and you’re in London is affecting this view I have, although Bristol itself is getting more partisan and divided). They then tend to reveal their ignorance of the Lib Dems by hoping Lib Dems will be bought off on some of their most-obsessed-over issues with simplistic concessions like AV or list PR for council elections, or similar…
– It did at least use to be the case that said Tory-facing seats were capable of being won back by people who voted Labour and Green tactically voting Lib Dem.
– There are also a contingent of people who have shifted Lib-Dem-Labour-Tory in such seats, and it may be a simplification to lump such people in with more tribally Tory voters. Such people may be attracted (although ‘may’ is a bit weak, I concede) by Labour-LibDem entente, because they have voted Tory because they have a Plan, and would find unity on the centre-left attractive (if the Lib Dems are wearing their centre-left drag this week). Whether such people are easily identifiable is another thing entirely.
This is spot on about Labour tribalism but then falls flat on its face with the attempt to argue LDs should therefore try to become more like Tories. As other commenters have pointed out, this fails to factor in the huge gulf between activists and voters
The liberal party needs to shut up shop
As they can never be as progressive as labour
Nor can they replace the tories as one nation conservatives or rabid right wing cutter nutters as tried by the glove puppet Clegg
I see the liberal party as the Kenneth William’s diary entry before suicide
Oh what’s the point
The Liberal Democrats should not shut up shop. It is Labour that have failed to be progressive. Tony Blair had the opportunity when first elected but he instead choose to adopt Tory budget plans for two years. Thereby hastening the demise of local government and missing the golden opportunity to enact much needed reform in many walks of life. Tony Blair was the puppet to Bush. That led to the emergence of real Labour in the shape of Corbyn which of course is a throw back to times past, do as I say or you are out, no understanding of how to move forward with tolerance or cooperation
Liberalism will not die, a more compassionate caring society will come from the that philosophy rather than those who promise the earth and wrap it up as socialism, or those who promise the moon and wrap it up in the flag and call it conservatism
LibDems find it very easy to be more progressive than Labour. Not only have most policies seen as progressive been championed by liberals long before socialists give them a look. But Labour is, in many respects, distinctly unprogressive, particularly in areas where people’s freedoms and liberty are at stake.
Indeed the pressure on Labour to become more “electable” and regain its northern seats are likely to be regressive.
A very Plausible-sounding article in some ways, but doesn’t match reality in my limited experience.
* I know some very staunch labour voters who voted LibDem because of our stance on Europe.
* The article appears to totally ignore Fair Votes – something I bet many Labour voters regret not supporting when they could. Very many “Labour” votes are merely anti-Tory, and vice versa and probably quite a few of these would be prepared to vote LibDem if we were the best chance of defeating “the Party” that they dislike so much. It’s time we got real when talking politics. (Sorry if I’m repeating what other comments have said)
As a disclaimer, I don’t have skin in this game, as they say. At the first election in which I could have voted, the Labour Prime Minister was Wilson. To this day I have never voted Labour or LIbDem. In that time, I’ve probably spoiled my ballot paper on more occasions than I have placed a substantive vote.
I have encountered the LibDems in the past, associates of friends who dabbled in local politics. There are times I have an almost morbid fascination with them. However, my conclusion of their respective stances is this. If a time traveller from the future could take a LibDem member to the year 2520 and send them back to this year, and tell the membership they’d lose every General Election for the next five hundred years with compelling, convincing supporting evidence, the LibDems would still not change course or policy. Everyone else would continue to be wrong. As a party culture, they are not capable of acknowledging fault or failure. Failure and loss is their comfort zone. I have come to believe they actively seek it.
What Nicks article does not explain is how Labour has been replaced in Scotland by a essentially social democratic party from the progressive centre .who increased the number of MPs they had in the Commons .We do not need to drift to the right to find space but offer an alternative that makes Labour and their old fashioned socialist creed irrelivant in a social liberal age with looming climate change impacts already effecting us all as each year passes by.
Right wing mantras are frequently short lived and barely last one term of parliament .
There are new economic models coming forward as part of the circular econonomy new models on generational change .Liberals in tory clothing never feels or is comfortable..
I think Layla might have been misheard. For ‘with’ read ‘in’.
This article is pointless and does not address the elephant in the room , how are lib Dems going to attract working class voters to vote for them?
Not every labour activist, councillor Hayes the lib Dems, take Bedford as an example where we work in partnership even though we have the most councillors on the council of any party.
The Tories have found a way of working class voters to vote for them and lib Dems need to do the same!