History suggests divisions in Labour and Brexit could transform party politics
The Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party have always had an intertwined history. The Liberals bore Labour, and then Labour bore the Liberal Democrats in turn.
Having departed from Labour in their ‘Orange Book’ years in the Lib-Con coalition they are now reviving their old act of latching on to the Labour Party.
However, they can no longer approach Labour from the left as they did with Iraq; in the current climate only Trotsky could do that. They are now approaching from the centre, to try and recapture both the centre-left and shy conservatives, either disillusioned with Corbyn or with the Conservatives’ approach to Brexit.
But will it get them back to power in the southwest and in bellwether constituencies for the Lib Dems, such as Cambridge?
If it wasn’t for the Liberal Party, it would be unlikely that there would be a Labour Party or a welfare state. The 1903 Pact between the Liberals and Labour, masterminded by Ramsay McDonald was one of the key contributing factors to the demise of the Liberals in retrospective years.
It was two Liberal intellectuals who were central architects in the formation of our now cherished welfare state; William Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes.
One of the reasons why the Labour government of the 1920s was such a failure was its ardent pursuit, particularly by Philip Snowden, of the neo-classical obsession of balanced budgets. Keynes transformed the Labour party’s notion of economics, by moving beyond this neo-classical fanaticism.
Then there was Beveridge, whose report on Social Insurance and Allied Services in 1942 invited our notion of the benefits system. The Liberal legacy is interwoven into the fabric of the Labour party and the welfare state.
After the Second World War the Liberals very much wandered in the wilderness until the Social Democratic Party gave them a path to back to being germane. The SDP and the early years of the Liberal Democrats under Paddy Ashdown were pitched very much on the centre-left/right faultline.
Tim Farron is trying to revive this age, and in many respects these are very similar times.
The SDP was born out of Labour divisions, was pro-Europe, actively pro-business, and pitching for Labour votes on the centre. In the 1983 General Election it achieved 25.4 per cent, only 2.2 per cent less than Labour’s 27.6 per cent.
Early indications are that history could be repeating itself with a string of council by-elections in solid Labour seats going to the Lib Dems on massive swings.
In North East Derbyshire, a seat held by Labour in parliament since 1935 the Labour share of the vote went down by a whopping 33.2 per cent, with the Lib Dems up 37.4 per cent.
In Sheffield Mosborough Labour lost three councilors in another seat Labour has held on a constituency level since 1935, as the Lib Dem vote went up by 34.2 per cent.
And last night the Lib Dems took seats from Labour in Plasnewydd in Cardiff Central, a traditional Labour-leaning seat, by an increase of 15.4 per cent.
These are Labour heartlands where the Labour Party should be solidly ahead. A trend is emerging and Farron must be hoping that it continues.
The major difference now lies between Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. In the 80s Thatcher was pro-Europe and an advocate of the common market. Now the Conservatives couldn’t be further away from this position.
Farron is trying to speak directly to shy liberal conservatives in the suburbs and the south-west when he declares the Conservative Party
‘no longer supports business, no longer understands the need for calm economic pragmatism – but instead pursues the nationalist protectionist fantasies of the Brexit fundamentalists who have won the day.’
Farron hits on a key weakness of the Brexit fallout for the Conservatives: do they put the will of the British public on Brexit above business interests?
Liam Fox’s comments on businesses being ‘lazy’ offers an insight into the rhetoric that will start pouring out of fanatical Brexiters’ mouths if they don’t get what they want.
David Cameron only just won the 2015 general election. What supported his victory was the Liberal Democrats imploding in the south-west. For Theresa May to win, even after the boundary changes, she needs to hang on to Lib Dem voters.
Can Farron get enough of the shy conservatives and Labour centrists together to seize the middle ground? We shall see. It wouldn’t be the first time Labour and the Lib Dems have swapped roles, and it might not be the last.
Sam Pallis is a Labour member on the executive of his local CLP and an active Young Fabian. Follow him on Twitter.
See: Lib Dems could replace Labour as opposition, says Tim Farron at party conference
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13 Responses to “Lib Dems are winning seats Labour held since 1935. Has the ‘revival’ begun? ”
Derek Emery
Labour have moved hard left into the long grass to minimise their attraction to ordinary voters. Some ordinary voters will turn to the Lib Dems – the next party right along the political spectrum.
Lib Dem politics are not right enough for most. They do not map into the wants and needs of the many in social group C, D and E who are conservative with a small c, and are against mass immigration and internationalism because they have been the biggest losers for decades. See Brexit voters are not thick, not racist: just poor http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/brexit-voters-are-not-thick-not-racist-just-poor/
…This rebellion wasn’t caused by racism or a paroxysm of infantile anger. It was considered. The workers spied an opportunity to take the elite that despises them down a peg or two — and they seized it. They asserted their power, and in the process, blimey: they changed the world…
Boffy
“This rebellion wasn’t caused by racism or a paroxysm of infantile anger. It was considered. The workers spied an opportunity to take the elite that despises them down a peg or two — and they seized it.”
Really? In that case it was the biggest exercise in cutting your nose off to spite your face in a very long time, as they put in place an even more right-wing, even more anti-working class section of the Tory Party than were in office before!
Moreover, those “ordinary” voters (whoever they may be) you refer to, had the opportunity to the vote for the Lib-Dems as an alternative to Labour in 2015, but instead the Liberals got annihilated. They had the opportunity to vote for them in 2016, after Corbyn became Labour Leader, but in the London Assembly elections they came fifth!
The Liberals and the Labour Right keep talking about this mythical centre ground, and keep telling us that elections can only be won upon it, but in every election over the last few years, it has been shown to be a fantastical construction in the heads of career politicians and journalists who live in the same establishment bubble. If they really believe what they say they would have already gone ahead with a repetition of the SDP/Liberal lash up of the 1980’s, but they won’t because they know its a fantasy.
It had a better chance of success in the 1980’s, because of the specific conditions, but look at the actual support for parties during that period, and you will see that Labour continued to have the largest support, up until the Falklands War. All the SDP did was to take enough support away from Labour to prevent it winning, and thereby as the Liberals and SNP had done in 1979, it acted as support for the right-wing Thatcherites, just as Clegg acted as support for Cameron.
But, having fulfilled that role the SDP/Liberal lash-up in the 1980’s disappeared, having put Thatcher in office, and Clegg’s Liberals have disappeared having put Cameron in office, and thereby making way for May, Johnson, Davis and all the other reactionary throwbacks.
David Davies
If we turf out the Blue Labour tories out of Real Labour, the re-establishment of a cogent opposition will emerge under JC. No one will ever believe the LibDoom again, after Clodd reneged upon everything that he believed in to get what he thought was power.