We need to talk about the Lib Dems

The reality of who the Lib Dems are likely to be as a party after the next election is an underrated factor in our political conversation.

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Obviously this weekend everyone else is talking about the Tories. About Liz Truss’s presumtive cabinet and what the Tories will be like once they have Boris Johnson’s talent-free cabinet without their sometimes popular leader.

I don’t have a lot to add to that conversation. I don’t think either Sunak or Truss can turn around the sinking ship that is the modern Conservative Party and I am absolutely sure that neither of them have the right understanding of the hell the country is about to be pitched into or the solutions to get us out of it. I think the Tories are doing everything they can to lose the next election. Sometimes parties just get that way. It feels a lot like Labour in 2008. When it just didn’t feel like anything was really going to change the narrative and the party was about to be out of power. We thought for a quick reset. Well… that went well.

But like in 2010 when Labour finally limped away, elections aren’t always as clear as they feel. And 80 seats is a big majority to lose outright, however hard the Tories are trying.

So while Labour are in a good position to win an election, they may not do so outright. They may well end up as the largest party, reliant on some sort of deal with another, smaller party.

This could be the Scottish Nationalists. It would be perfectly valid from a UK Labour point of view for this to happen, just as the Tories under Theresa May worked in partnership with the DUP. But Scottish Labour and the SNP are in opposition to each other in too many places throughout Scotland for there to be a harmonious relationship. And south of the border, memories of Cameron’s highly successful (if even more ironic) fear campaign of chaos with Ed Miliband led by Alex Salmond, run deep. UK Labour have loudly ruled out any form of cooperation with the SNP.

Which probably leave the Lib Dems. All Labour member’s absolute favourite option. No honest, guv, we just love them and in no way blame them for cheerleading the austerity that their coalition enforced leading to, well, pretty much everything we are experiencing now. No siree, not at all.

The Lib Dems, of course, absolutely love Labour. In no way do they loathe the socialist bones off us worried that our leftist tinge might rub off on their tasteful beige clothing.

Ok Sarcasm over. Because in the end, these two parties may well have to find a way to come to an accommodation. after an election. Not before - before all the electoral pact weirdoes get overexcited.

In order to do so, it is worth Labour people thinking about who a Liberal Democrat party, enlarged enough to make a viable parliamentary confidence and supply partner, would look like.

Labour don’t always have the greatest understanding of how broad a party the Lib Dems are. This is largely because when Lib Dems are their nearest opposition, they are nearly always attacking Labour in local government so usually in metropolitan areas. Our experience of Lib Dems is them being a bit ‘holier than thou’ when hard choices are made on public services (driven by centrally enforced austerity usually) or being even more identity focused than Labour.

But the truth is that of the top 20 Lib Dem target seats, 18 are currently held by Conservatives. And this as well as Ed Davey handily beating Layla Moran in their most recent leadership contest has had an impact on the kinds of candidates they are choosing and stances they are highlighting. The Lib Dems know their greatest path to success runs through the cringily called ‘Blue Wall’ and so are going to run an election campaign that will allow soft Tories, those sickened by the Johnson years and repulsed by Truss to vote for them as a moderarting force on a Labour government. A safe way of telling the Tories they’ve become too radical, too rule breaking, too, well unconservative. The Lib Dems are going to do best, by offering small c conservatism to small c former Conservative voters who have had enough. It’s worked exceptionally well for them in byelections this cycle and there is little reason to think it won’t be their most successful approach to the next election. Afterall, the Lib Dems tend to do well when Labour doesn’t scare this particular segment of the electorate.

But what does this mean post-election for who the party is, which direction they are facing and what they do with whatever power they weild?

Well first of all, it means that the party will be made up of more people who look and think like Ed Davey and recently elected Richard Foord than like the kinds of young or online activists that Labour are used to. The blue haired ultra-liberal Lib Dems you meet on Twitter are not going to be in charge of a party looking to forge these kinds of electoral inroads. And a party that fields the kinds of candidates likely to not just win byelections, but win over these voters at more difficult general elections are not going to care about some of the issues that Twitter Lib Demmery obsess over (except electoral reform, all Lib Dems obsess over that).

They will not be very left wing. In some ways that could be a gift for Starmer. He and Rachel Reeves have made a virtue out of making some relatively leftish policies look and feel exceptionally centrist (which pisses off those parts of the Labour left who are more about vibe than impact). In doing so they have also made quite radical promises of economic intervention on climate change also feel like a pair of sensible shoes - even if they are Birkenstocks. In doing so, they have probably created the space to allow Lib Dems to support such policies in a confidence and supply deal in a hung parliament.

The question is can Labour be pushed further left that this - on areas like nationalising utilities and rail, for example - and keep up a pact with the Lib Dems as they are likely to be constituted? How far can the light blue facing Lib Dems afford for Labour to go before their electoral maths doesn’t allow them to follow? What can be agreed up front without a coalition agreement (a. Neither side is going to want a formal coalition and b. Even if they did, the Lib Dems wouldn’t be stupid enough to get that cornered and snowed at once all over again)?

A lot of these questions will depend on the electoral maths at the election. But also on the conditions nationally and the way Labour play the narrative.

I understand the nervousness the Labour leadership has right now that if they go too far, they could blow it. The fear of the Tories pinning the strikes and pushing a back to the seventies story is real and not to be misunderstood.

However, the Tories are in power and are proving beyond any doubt that our current economic system is simply not working. If it ever worked it only did so in favour of a few and if there was ever a trickle down, it was at best a mild drizzle which has long since dried up. People want different solutions now. They want things that might have once been seen as radical. But they want them to be seen as common sense. We want to catch our breathes - not have it taken away. So while there is plenty of scope for Labour to shift the policy window, they need to do so while maintaining the narrative of common sense and centrism.

This has the advantage of showing that more left wing policy actually looks like common sense rather than revolution. But it would also have the added side effect of allowing the Lib Dems to fellow travel more than they might be comfortable with if Labour’s cheerleaders and out riders were still just Novara media.

So that is why the (admittedly from my perspective) rather delicious spectacle of Kier Starmer putting Owen Jones back in his box where he belongs was more important than just Twitter beef. It was a way of demonstrating to voters that Labour was focussed on what matters to them - not to ourselves. To the pool of voters who were put off by Corbynism, but have now turned from Toryism in equal disgust. The big, big pool of voters in the middle - the ones we have to win to govern. The ones we want the Lib Dems to win where we can’t.

The Lib Dems need Labour to be electable to thrive. But Labour need the Lib Dems to thrive to be in with a hope of being elected. So while we really, really don’t like each other, we do need each other. And so we need to remember that when we start to talk only to ourselves.

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I run a political and communications consultancy called Political Human. Please get in touch if you are looking for political or media consultancy advice, strategic communication and campaign planning, ghostwriting, copywriting, editing, training or coaching.

You can read some lovely things that some of my clients have said here.

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What I’ve been up to

No new pieces this week but we do have exciting news about Triggered.

We will be returning to the London stage on the week of 21st November. I am very much hoping that ticket details will be available in time for the next newsletter! WATCH THIS SPACE.

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A final appeal. This newsletter takes quite a while to think about and write. I know things are really tough all over at the moment, but if you can spare some cash to say you’ve appreciated it, I can’t tell you how much that would mean to me right now.

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Questions, comments and arguments are very welcome. Insults will get you summarily blocked on every platform that no longer hosts Donald Trump. I’m at emmaburnell@gmail.com or on Twitter (far too often) at @EmmaBurnell_.