A couple of years ago, in the wake of the 2017 general election, I wrote a book called “Apocalypse Delayed: Why the Left are Still in Trouble” which advanced a theory about the Labour Party that is about to be tested, namely that they would lose, again. I also wrote about the woes of the Lib Dems, devoting a whole chapter to this subject. Amongst the problems I identified as afflicting the party, one was a desperation to get the left-wing vote back; the voters they had lost when the party went into government with the Tories in 2010. I said at the time that the prime market for Lib Dems votes was disaffected Tory voters, people who had voted Tory in 2010 and 2015 but who liked the coalition government and did not like the Conservative Party morphing into the Brexit Party. I said that these people would vote for the Lib Dems if the pitch was right; further, that these were the types of people who lived in almost all of the Liberal Democrats’ target seats in large numbers.
I said that the left wouldn’t forgive the Lib Dems inside of a generation. This looked to be on shaky ground when many centre-left voters not only voted Lib Dem in the EU elections, but openly campaigned for the party. I wondered if I had got it wrong. This election campaign has shown I was more correct on this point than I wish I was. I have seen my social media timelines filled with people who six months ago had pictures of themselves delivering Lib Dem leaflets now saying that they “hate” the Lib Dems. This is what is powering the “vote tactically” drive that is doomed to failure: the Lib Dems are only good to these people as some sort of cog in a “progressive alliance” that will propel Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10. They cannot understand why the Lib Dems refuse to play ball, continuously saying they will not put Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10 under any circumstances.
The Lib Dems came out of the gates in this general election campaign with a very, very Lib Demy approach. “Build a Better Future” and how the Lib Dems are gunning for a majority. I have always said that the Lib Dems lack of ambition was unfortunate, yet there is a difference between ambition and fantasy. Many people lent the Lib Dems a vote in May; lots of them would do it again, if they were convinced in the right way. The Lib Dems running an insular campaign that is semi-presidential was never the way to go. Thankfully, I think they may have realised this with enough time to turn the ship around.
Hinting that if push came to shove they would essentially support a Tory minority government in return for a second referendum will annoy a lot of lefties. There will be tons of people on social media telling you that they were all set to vote Lib Dem, but now they cannot. I’ve seen this all before; these people wouldn’t have voted Lib Dem in the end anyhow. They never do in a general election, when it really matters, which is why the party almost always does worse than expected. Saying they will act as a bar to Boris Johnson going mad and doing anything stupid while preventing Jeremy Corbyn from becoming prime minister is the Lib Dems best possible campaigning position, however hard that might be for many on the centre-left to accept.
The truth is, there are two ways this election campaign is going to finish. Either with a Tory majority or with the Tories short by a few seats. If the latter happens, stopping Brexit is still in the air. The only way the latter happens is if the Lib Dems win enough seats off of the Tories. In order to do that, they need to convince voters in these target seats not to vote Tory but to vote Lib Dem. They need to convince this cohort that voting Lib Dem is not going to backfire and put Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10, because if they feel a vote for the Lib Dems risks this happening, they won’t vote for the Liberal Democrats.
The greatest irony of the 2019 general election is that by doing the thing that lefty Remainers want least, the propping up of a Boris Johnson government, the Lib Dems might achieve the thing they supposedly want most of all, the halting of Brexit.
It is if people believe them.
But the problem is that given their main motivation is to overturn the referendum — they’ve made no secret of that — everybody knows that if the maths after the election makes a Labour + SNP + PC + Green ( + SDLP? Ha ha) coalition at all viable, even by two seats, they’ll do that and put the IRA-supporter in Number 10 as that gives them a better chance of the result they want.
So voting Lib Dem, in the hopes of not getting Corbyn, is a total hostage to fortune.
Maria gatland IRA MEMBER AND CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE
FACTCHECK
“Hinting that if push came to shove they would essentially support a Tory minority government in return for a second referendum will annoy a lot of lefties.”
An interesting interpretation of Ed Davey’s speech. Voting issue by issue doesn’t sound like supporting a Tory government.
Voting issue by issue doesn’t sound like supporting a Tory government.
It is if one of the ‘issues’ is a vote of no confidence, and they either vote with the government or abstain (same applies to a Labour government obviously).
If they won’t give an assurance that they will support a no-confidence vote against a minority Conservative government, then they can reasonably be described as ‘supporting a Tory government’.
Likewise if they won’t give an assurance that they will support a no-confidence vote against a minority Labour government, then they can reasonably be described as ‘putting an IRA supporter in number 10’.
Labour manifesto has just blown the liberals out of the water
Watch their numbers go to brexit party level
Nick
As your piece proves there are 3 certainties in life death
Taxes
And liberals jumping into bed with tories
Did you not learn from your near extinction in 15
Remain Alliance: you do not understand the hoops which Lib Dem MPs would have to jump through to get the party to agree to an agreement with any otgfher party. It aint gonner happen mate
2010 to 2015
Is that a big enough hoop
There are no circumstances in which we should ‘prop up a Boris Johnson government’. We should be an anti-austerity party promising to end it, increasing both day-to-day expenditure and capital investment. If we were clear on these points we could attract left of centre voters, which is our natural base. We have always been an anti-Conservative Party. Going for Conservative Remainer voters is a short-term policy, especially if they have a Conservative Party world view. Once Brexit is sorted they will go back to the Tories, their natural home.
I hope your election prediction is wrong. In 2017 three weeks out from the election the Conservatives were predicted a huge majority of well over 100 based a Conservative lead of over 15%. The difference in the end was only 2.4%. Currently the Conservative lead is 11% and the prediction is a Conservative majority of about 42.
It could end with the Conservatives as the largest party (say 284 seats) needing both us and the DUP to get to 321, while Labour (say 271 seats) plus the Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru number 320. As the Conservatives would have lost the election, we could sit on our hands and allow a Labour government to be formed so we get a referendum on a deal and staying in the EU.
On the basis of the opinion polls, Conservatives appear to be heading for a majority. Seat by seat this is no quite so obvious. Most of their seats are likely to be lost in Scotland and some more to the Lib Dems elsewhere.
I am unclear how many Labour seats are pregnable, but this is the key factor, so I find it hard to assess the likelihood of a parliament without overall control. However, if this happens again, I presume that without a successor, Johnson has to hang on, but I do not know what happens to the parliamentary programme. There could still be a danger of Johnson’s Brexit being pushed through with the aid of Labour Brexiters, but Johnson might be obliged to accept putting his Brexit to a referendum, but I cannot see who would vote for him to continue as PM for this to happen. Ironically, if the DUP have sufficient numbers, they could be the group who become the enforcers.