[Politics] The Liberal Democrats

[davywavy]

There was a point, about a year ago, when the Liberal Democratic Party were the hippest, most jivingest party in the country. Bouyed by Nick Clegg's failure to make a complete tit of himself on national television, LibDem supporters were jubilant, opinion polls briefly put them in second place in the election, and "I agree with Nick" was a catchphrase for, oooh, the best part of a week.

Speaking personally, I've never really considered voting for the LibDems. I always thought they had some really good ideas, but they also had far too many policies which read like they'd been written by someone who'd been kicked in the head by a horse - and it looked like most of the electorate agreed with me, because come the election they'd slipped back to their usual third place. It's arguable that the defection of the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative partty to UKIP had a greater effect upon the outcome of the last election* than did any agreeing with Nick, but thanks to the vagaries of the electoral system we ended up with a Liberal Party in government for the first time in as long as anyone who is young enough to still have all their marbles can remember.

Since then, I've been generally impressed by how the coalition has worked out. I didn't vote for either of the parties involved, but overall I've come to the conclusion that of all the possible outcomes of the election they've turned out to be probably the least worst. George Osborne's economic shortcomings have been bolstered by David Laws and Danny Alexander telling him what to do, whilst the more 'kicked-in-the-head-by-a-horse' LibDem policies have been curtailed by David Cameron laughing until he cries every time they're mentioned. Moreover, the LibDems have got several policies through which most certainly wouldn't have happened under a solely Conservative majority - the raising of the tax threshold to 10k (which is a brilliant policy and will do more to get people into work and out of the poverty trap than Labour managed in 13 years and with all the tax credits you can eat. I'm hoping the economics of raising it to 14k will be in place before the next election), and the ending of the detention of migrant children, for example. Additionally, they've got a shot at their dream of electoral reform.

Despite their successes, the outright rejection of the LibDems by their voters has been impressive to watch. If I'd been a LibDem supporter before the last election, I'd be pretty much delighted at this stage of procedings but it appears I'm missing something about the Liberal Democrat Supporter mindset - and it's what I'm missing that I want to explore. Y'see, I'm generally an optimistic, glass-half-full sort of chap and I find that the world goes my way so rarely that I'm delighted when it does. The outrage from Libdems that their party hasn't been able to acheive their ideal world in eight months flat as part of a compromise government just leaves me baffled, and I'm starting to wonder what the average Liberal Democrat actually wants...
Nick Clegg once said something to the effect that the Libdems weren't a party of government, but their role was to act as the conscience of government and that comment makes me wonder if the LibDems (or their supporters) really ever wanted to get into power, with all the compromises and failures which being in power entails. As I didn't vote for either of the two current governmental parties, I'm aware of the smug self-satisfaction which comes from being able to believe anything I like whilst never having to engage with the consequences of seeing those beliefs enacted or challenged - and I'm kinda coming to the conclusion that the LibDems were the party for people who wanted to feel like that.

It's all really blown up over the pledges, signed by many Libdem candidates, to oppose university tuition fees. Pledges which, in the event, many of those who are now MPs have been unable to keep, to their obvious distress. Higher tuition fees have been coming ever since Polytechnics were allowed to start pretending to be universities in the early 1990s, Tony Blair decided that anyone can go to university no matter how thick they are and finally Gordon Brown getting the economy alone in the changing rooms and saying it had a real purty mouth. It really strikes me that blaming the Libdems for having to break that promise is like being angry that someone who promised to buy you a pint turned up at the pub having been mugged and their wallet stolen. Like Vince Cable wearily said - he's having to live in the real world now.

But this is a serious question to all my Libdem-supporting pals out there. What are the Liberal democrats? Or what did you think they were? Are you a political party, with politics being 'the art of the possible', with all the the grubby compromise that entails? Or were you just the biggest pressure group in the country all along who happened to get unlucky and find yourselves in over your heads when it came down to it? You've got more of your policies enacted in coalition than you otherwise ever would in a million years - why aren't you happy? What were you expecting to happen? What would you like to have happened?
What, in other words, did you actually want in the first place - because I'm darned if I can figure it out from your reactions.

^{*There are twenty seats where the number of UKIP votes exceded the number of votes which would have swung them to the Conservatives. If Cameron hadn't gone back on his EU-referendum promise, I reckon we'd've had an outright Conservative majority.}

Comments

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

By the way, if you want to talk about principles getting in the way of realpolitick, UKIP is an excellent example of this. The reason Cameron wouldn't hold a referendum on Europe is because he might lose. Withdrawal from Europe would be total economic suicide, and no matter how much we may dislike the European government's wastage, and the Court of Justice of the European Union's shameless power grabs, severing our ties with Europe would kill dead many British businesses reliant on trade with Europe, not to mention cutting off our principle source of cheap labour.

Did you know that the accession regulations for the new EU states are actually more restrictive than the policy adopted by the UK. The UK made it easier for eastern European workers to come here than they had to. In truth, it's questionable if our service industry could survive without that pool of cheap labour.

Expecting the electorate to understand that it's too late to pull out of Europe would be political and economic suicide.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

My reasons for wanting a referndum on Europe are political, not economic. As you know the legislative and the executive bodies of the EU are appointees, not elected. Speaking personally, I have a preference for democracy and being able to directly select the people who make the laws I live by. As I can't do so with the EU, I want out.

I'd rather be more free than more rich.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

It's not quite as black and white as you paint it. The elected parliament does have a role in legislative policy. The Council of Ministers is comprised of elected politicians from national government. Really it's only the Commission that has a major role in the legislative process with no electoral input. They are more of a civil service than a body politic anyway, although the distinction is somewhat grey, I'll admit.

Europe could certainly stand to be more democratic, but it's not entirely undemocratic.

I don't think it's a question of being free or more rich. I suspect it's a question of it being freer and mired in poverty caused by economic isolation. Countries aren't keen to come into Europe because they see it as a gravy train (although there's some element of the stronger economies subsidising the weaker ones, just as there is on a smaller scale on a national level), they want in because it opens up access to an enormous market that it's otherwise much harder to penetrate. In a world dominated by America, China, Japan, and Russia, increasing the scale of our economy is the only way to stay competitive.

I have no great love for the European Union, but I see it as a necessary evil.

I see it as a necessary evil.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'd say you're half right.

Re: I see it as a necessary evil.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

I wish Blighty was still powerful enough to go it alone. After all, we're culturally right on the extreme of the European norm. But past glories will not keep us fed and housed, although our financial industry still provides a nice cushion due to the historical head start we got.

Your comment made me laugh though. I still think it's easier to see how we could manage by sacrificing quantity of education for quality, than it is to see how we could get by in an economic wasteland where everyone else has unfettered access to much bigger markets than we do. But I don't think either of us knows enough economics to make the argument one way or another in a truly informed manner.

Re: I see it as a necessary evil.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You're assuming that I think we're 'powerful enough to go it alone'. I'm not overly concerned about unsustainable power relationships in that sense. So long as we keep the Navy gong long enough to extract all the oil from under the Falklands before we let go, I'm cool with that.

There's plenty of less powerful people than us out there who go it alone and seem to do alright. We're a trading nation. I see nothing wrong with staying one. The EU will need a big offshore trading hub, and we're prime candidates for that. Given the choice of being a little richer as a part of the Eu, or walking away from the power I'd rather have y'know, that democracy thing I mentioned earlier.

But it isn't going to happen.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I've said it before, I'll say it again. When I get a vote for the commission and the president, I'll reconsider. Not before.

I can't vote for the president, the executive, or the legislature, and every promise I've been given that I'd be asked what I want has been broken. "Not entirely undemocratic"? Sure.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

But every seat on the European Council is elected (as they all come from the elected governments of the member states) and you vote directly for the Parliament. Both of these are part of the legislative process. The Commission largely produces administrative rather than policy law. It's a rare European law that doesn't involve someone you voted for in the legislative process.

(The European judiciary, on the other hand, seem to be something of a law unto themselves, but that's the way civil law systems work.)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

However, the parliament is the rubberstamping organisation for the commission, who...

Oh, you can see where I'm going with this. I understand that democratic accountability is unfashionable in the EU these days, but don't expect it to make me happy.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

I understand. But I think this answers your original question. Imagine a Tory-UKIP coalition that mysteriously signed a treaty in favour of further European integration. This is pretty much what the Lib Dems did to many of their voters in supporting the increase in tuition fees. And this is why they are angry,

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I doubt I'd be angry. In fact, I doubt I'd be even surprised. This is politics, after all.

[beeblebear.livejournal.com]

"Speaking personally, I have a preference for democracy and being able to directly select the people who make the laws I live by."

At this point, I feel like pointing out that our own House of Lords plays a very large part in making the laws we live by, is unelected, and has done far more to protect our freedoms in the past decade than our elected Parliament.
In fact the Lords have been protecting our democracy from the actions of the elected government. The Lords stopped the ruling that the police should be able to hold people for 90 days without charge, and even better - amended the fuck out of the Executive and Legislative Reform Act which would have allowed Any Minister to make Any amendment to any pre-existing act of parliament after consulting whoever they see fit for 3 weeks.

ie, the lords stopped a bill that would have allowed the cabinet to do anything they liked without consulting parliament. Critic called it the abolition of parliament act, and the British news entirely ignored Labour's attempt to entirely circumvent democracy.