This post is triggered by a few blogs I have read by Lib Dems some of which are linked to here.  This post here - for example – is one of the most laughable pieces of rhetoric I have ever read. Whining that opposition politicians are daring to oppose your Government (or in fact the bit of your Government it suits you to claim) is as pathetic as it is ridiculous. Honestly, it’s such a caricature of all the worst traits people complain of in Lib Dems, that if Nick Perry didn’t exist, the Labour Party would be accused of inventing him to make them look bad.

More thoughtfully, Mark Thomson has laid out his thoughts 0n the betrayal narrative here and here. But I think Mark too misses the point. In both of these posts, Mark writes as if Labour’s calls of betrayal are about a sense of betrayal felt by the Labour Party. I can’t speak for all of my party, but I didn’t feel the Lib Dems betrayed Labour, but vindicated what we had been saying to their left-leaning voters. And that’s the point. It’s those voters who are feeling betrayed or are likely to feel betrayed over the next few months and years. I’ve already met several Lib Dem voters of my acquaintance who have sworn “never again” and it’s exactly those kinds of voters who Labour can and should be appealing to. Will this bleeding of voters be the  cost to the Lib Dems of being backed into the corner they have been fighting for all these years? The result of the inevitable mixed feeling that coalition government will bring?

The problem the Lib Dems have is that they have always been two rather different parties one of liberals and one of social democrats forced into an alliance purely for electoral advantage (which is probably why the one thing that unites them is an over-prioritisation of voting reform). The party leadership – as happened with Labour – is increasingly to the right of the membership (a huge percentage of whom identified themselves as Left of Centre before the election) which I can tell you from experience leads to disaffected members and ex-members pretty quickly – particularly when you enact right wing policies. For Labour it was our civil liberties agenda and the war, for the Lib Dems it likely to be the cuts.

The Lib Dems may soon find that they consist of two groups. the economic liberal wing – led by Nick Clegg and their remaining leftist partisans led by Simon Hughes. Lib Dems often accuse me of partisanship, and it’s true. But it’s just as true that the Lib Dems have partisans too.  But “my party right or left” is only going to remain true for the rump of supporters who will always be there, not the millions of voters who felt the Lib Dems were the left wing alternative to the Tories in their area. These supporters are a good target for a reinvigorated Labour Party, and focusing on an appeal to them will help keep Labour fresh and moving on from the worst of New Labour authoritarianism. Moving beyond – for example – the tough justice stance of Alan Johnson and Jack Straw to the more nuanced position being heard from Ed Miliband.

Let’s be honest. The Lib Dems were faced with a complete Hobson’s choice after the results of the election. Going into some form of coalition with the Tories was probably the only thing they could have done. But having decided not to opt for confidence and supply, they will have to realise that they will be judged on the whole actions of the Government.  In the first of his posts I linked to, Mark had this to say of the Labour Leadership Contenders: All the main contenders are very closely associated with the previous discredited government. Which is true in parts. But if Liberal Democrats are going to say that any member of a Government should be judged by all the actions of that Government, they need to realise that will be true of them too, and can’t simply try to claim credit for the “good” parts of the budget.

Tags: Alan Johnson, betrayal, Condems, Ed Miliband, effective opposition, Jack Straw, Lib Dems, tribalism

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