The lib dems should hold tight — their time may be coming | thearticle

The Lib Dems finally settled on Sir Ed Davey as their new leader, as he secured almost twice as many votes as his challenger, Layla Moran. He promptly implored his supporters to “smell the

coffee”. Lord Ashcroft, the billionaire Tory donor, authored a report with the same instruction following the Conservative Party’s third successive defeat in 2005. But whereas Ashcroft made

a series of blunt recommendations in a 122-page document on the back of research and polling, Davey simply told us that his party had paid insufficient attention to issues other than Brexit

at the last general election. What Davey overlooks is that the December 2019 vote was a proxy second referendum on the European question and that the party’s promise to revoke Article 50 —

and hence cancel the result of the 2016 vote — was an avoidable, and self-inflicted wound. Added to that was the claim by Joe Swinson, Davey’s predecessor, that she could become Prime

Minister. That lack of credulity may have, in part, led to the loss of her East Dunbartonshire seat. The question the Liberal Democrats now need to consider is: what are they for? With just

11 parliamentary seats and at 6 per cent in the polls they could easily be dismissed as an electoral irrelevance. The party which first rose under the leadership of the earnest and

highly-capable Paddy Ashdown from 1988-99 carved out a distinct identity which appealed to well-heeled and comfortably-off voters in seats like Richmond Park. The party reached its zenith

under the stewardship of Charles Kennedy, winning 62 seats at the 2005 general election on the back of its principled opposition to the Iraq War. However, the veneer of decency could not

hide the use of unscrupulous campaign tactics for example their electoral handbook _Effective Opposition_, which instructed party campaigners to “be wicked, act shamelessly, stir endlessly”.

It also encouraged them to adopt different positions in particular regional areas depending on who their main opponents were. The party also opposed all public service cuts. But the allure

of going into coalition with the Tories in 2010 and the grubby compromises of power caught up when they resiled from their pledge not to increase tuition fees. That decision saw the party

decimated at the 2015 election when it returned a paltry eight MPs. Their leader, Nick Clegg, who had referred to students opposed to the rise to £9,000 as “dreamers”, was not forgiven. He

lost his own Sheffield Hallam seat in 2017. The party that had lauded itself as paragon of virtue had been exposed. But the party is in danger of drawing the wrong conclusion from that

experience. The lesson is not that they should forget about seeking to hold the balance of power in any future government, but that they should protect their red lines. Securing a

meaningless referendum on AV as the price for forming a coalition with the Tories was less important than keeping a pledge to students and too cheap a tradeoff for their subsequent support

for the lowering of the rate of tax for top earners from 50p to 45p. Davey, who served as Energy Minister in the Cameron-Clegg government, has stated that he would never countenance entering

another coalition with the Tories because they have moved too far to the right. That seems like a bizarre position to box oneself into at least four years out from a general election,

particularly in relation to Mr Johnson who wears his ideological clothing lightly. If the Liberals are to avoid being reduced to a pressure group or a trivial appendage to the Labour Party,

they must seek to exercise power. Their new leader may also wish to reconsider his position on culture war issues, such as the self-inflicted furore by the BBC over whether to scrap the

singing of Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory from the last night of the Proms. Davey has stated unequivocally that he does not wish to get involved in “silly games”. But as Jeremy

Corbyn found when he chose not to sing the national anthem at the Battle of Britain memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral in 2015, these things matter to the majority of people outside the

liberal-left metropolitan bubble, and in quite a few seats where the Liberals are in second place behind the Tories. Those voters hold the key to the Liberal party’s fortunes. While Brexit

may be settled for now, the public mood may change over time, particularly if there is disruption in the event of “no deal”. That could benefit the pro-European, internationalist-minded Lib

Dems. The party could also provide an outlet for Tory-supporting middle and high income earners who are disgruntled by the inevitable tax rises coming their way. That could turn seats like

Esher and Walton where the Liberals are now only 2,742 votes behind the Tory incumbent Dominic Raab who had a majority of over 23,000 in 2017. But simply waiting for events to unfold is not

enough. The Liberal Democrats must craft a new narrative. The “Orange Book” Liberals including Chris Huhne, David Laws, Vince Cable, Clegg as well as Davey himself, published their

prescription in 2004 which emphasised personal choice and the use of market-based solutions to solve key public policy challenges. The situation now is different and requires fresh thinking.

Therefore the real challenge for Davey and his party is to decide what their guiding philosophy will be. Whatever course they take there is a long hard road ahead.