Despite the turbulent events of British politics in recent months, there are some things we can still seem to rely on. Nigel Farage comes and goes and comes and goes, Jeremy Corbyn wins a Labour leadership contest, and the Liberal Democrats feel optimistic at their annual party conference. Following their role in the 2010 coalition government, the Lib Dems seem to be taking the advice of Dr Seuss: don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
At least this time, there are some genuine reasons for optimism. The party’s membership rose following the European Union referendum, and again following the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader a few days ago. In the 2016 local elections they made a net gain of councillors for the first time since 2008, as well as gaining a council. They were up 45 seats on the last comparable result, and compared to other parties the Lib Dems’ performance was impressive. Since those local elections, near enough every Thursday night has brought yet more council by-election gains. So far, the Lib Dems have gained 18 seats since May 5th 2016.
This is a part of a concerted effort by the Liberal Democrats to emphasise community politics and the ‘where we work, we win’ strategy. As is now well documented, there is good reason for this. The Lib Dems have done well in the past winning council seats, winning councils and then winning parliamentary seats, representing a ‘creeping Liberalism’. With Tim Farron, a renowned electoral campaigner, as leader this represents a sensible campaign strategy. If you live in an area with a Lib Dem local presence, prepare yourself to be surrounded by FOCUS leaflets and questionable bar charts.
However, there remain bigger reasons for pessimism. While the Lib Dems will undoubtedly be glad to finally be making gains again, as Lib Dem blogger Mark Pack has noted, at the current rate of progress it will be 2044 before they reach their 2008 peak. Alongside this, while the party gained constituencies in this year’s Scottish Parliament elections, they did not gain votes, and the electoral slide in the Welsh Assembly continued. More importantly, the Lib Dems’ national poll ratings remain dire. They are polling roughly the same they were at the last general election and Tim Farron has yet to capture voters’ attention. The Lib Dems not only lack the stature of a governing party, but now lack the innocence of a protest party too.
The 2010 parliament and the 2015 general election showed the weakness of the national Liberal Democrat vote. From the moment they joined the Conservatives in coalition, their poll ratings fell and kept on falling. Their 2015 general election message, to provide a head to a Conservative government and a head to a Labour one, was not particularly inspiring. As former leader Nick Clegg wrote in his recent book, this message reduced the Liberal Democrats to ‘a kind of insurance policy… rather than the protagonists of [the party’s] own beliefs and values’.
Where does this leave the Liberal Democrats now? The local progress is positive for the party and can help the party in future elections. Indeed, even at the 2015 general election the incumbency effect remained strong for the party, and stronger for the Lib Dems than the Conservatives and Labour. It was simply overwhelmed by the national tide. The Lib Dems have an incumbency effect but lack incumbents. In parliament, their strongest influence will have to come from the House of Lords and the 108 Lib Dem peers, rather than the 8 MPs in the House of Commons.
Figures within the party are trying to boost the party’s message to the electorate. Instead of just trying to rebuild local electoral support, two Lib Dem campaigners have suggested that the party needs a new core vote based on centre-ground economics and tolerant attitudes to immigration and internationalism. Tim Farron’s conference speech last week was a worthy effort to provide one: if you are angry at the vote to leave the European Union, or with the government’s response to the refugee crisis, then in the Liberal Democrats you have a party standing up for you. It is uncompromising and upfront: an attempt by Tim Farron to wave his hands in the air until somebody pays him some attention. It is the only choice he has, as for now his party lacks a profile and an audience. Take London, for example, where much of the potential Lib Dem core vote resides. In the 2016 mayoral election won by Sadiq Khan, the Lib Dems polled just 4.6%.
Given the turbulence of recent months, it feels not just naïve but frankly ridiculous to try and make a prediction. Nonetheless, it seems likely that the Lib Dems’ defeats in various local, sub-national and national elections in recent years will take an awful long time from which to recover. The party also has to face up to what happens should it recover. Another twenty years of hard campaigning, only to lose it all in an unpopular coalition, does not provide much inspiration. Whatever their objectives, the time and effort required will be vast.
Craig Johnson is a PhD student in the School of Geography, Politics and Society at the University of Newcastle. His latest article on the Liberal Democrats, co-authored with Dr Alia Middleton, is available to read open-access in Electoral Studies. He tweets @cjnu1.
Image: Liberal Democrats CC BY-NC-ND
