So last month I wrote an article outlining my concerns about the direction the Liberal Democrats are headed. In short, my argument is that the party has shifted rightwards over the past two decades, following the flawed electoral logic of maximising parliamentary seats, and it is now facing a profound choice: replace the Conservatives’ historic place as the UK’s mainstream centre right political party, or re-embrace its egalitarian liberal heritage.
With the elections now out of the way, I don’t see anything that contradicts my basic position: the party continues to do well in places where it has been doing well in recent years, and continues to decline in areas where it took a knock during the coalition years. The areas it does well tend to be rural, formerly Conservative dominated areas and it continues to decline in areas that historically were dominated by Labour. In the latter areas, the Greens have completely eclipsed the party.
Even in places where the party was doing well in recent history, such as Hornsey and Friern Barnet (most of which represented by Lynne Featherstone until 2015) and Manchester Withington (most of which was represented by John Leech), the Greens have replaced the Lib Dems as the main challengers to Labour. Wales, with the exception of a single MS in the form of Jane Dodds and a smattering of councillors, is now a no-go area for the party.
Most of the feedback about my article which I’ve had from former colleagues within the Lib Dems has been positive, if not always in public. If anything, I’ve been criticised for understating my case. As some have pointed out, the extent to which the Lib Dems now represent the richest parts of the UK is quite striking; at the top end, Lib Dem MPs represent even wealthier areas than the Conservatives. No wonder Ed Davey has been quite as hostile to any suggestion of redistributing wealth as he has been over the last couple of years.
The main criticism I have received is that I was being unfair to the Lib Dems to suggest that the activist base has been replaced by disenchanted Conservatives to the extent that I did. I’ve certainly seen a fair bit of that locally, and I think you can overstate the degree to activists are representative at party conferences (back when I was a party organiser I knew a lot of activists who saw the whole exercise as a massive waste of their time), but that’s fair enough since I haven’t been to a Lib Dem conference in over 15 years now.
But if there are so many liberal activists who remain active in the party, I have a simple question: what are you doing? I’ve seen people complaining about the situation, but I have seen precious little organising. If it’s all being done internally and I’m just not privy to seeing it, then it will likely prove ineffective.
I was one of the people who founded the Social Liberal Forum, intended as a counterpoint to the insurgent Orange Book neoliberals. That organisation has undergone a lot of personnel changes since then — I no longer know anyone involved in it — and it has apparently, ugh, “professionalised” to become more of a think tank than a ginger group. Apparently that professionalism involves posting cat videos on Facebook. After polling day, when you would have thought they could afford to tone down the mindless hyping of the party, they posted a video praising the party’s increase in councillors and declaring “let him cook!“
Just before the 2024 general election, I did receive an email from them boasting that social liberals had “won the battle of ideas”, which I found extraordinarily complacent. In 2025, in a report to its AGM, the chair John Shreeve expressed some concerns about the direction of the party but declared that the organisation’s approach was one of “Seduction rather than Confrontation”. If that’s the case, then this approach has manifestly failed. I’m sure that all of the blowing of smoke up Ed Davey’s arse has been very pleasant for him, but it hasn’t resulted in a single policy change.
The only other group that exists to encourage the party to take a more egalitarian liberal approach to public policy is, as far as I can tell, is the Radical Association. They seem to say broadly the right things, and appear to actually organise inside the party rather than simply coo words of encouragement in the leader’s ear, but have been extremely quiet of late.
I really don’t mean to be dismissive of people’s efforts here; goodness knows I’m aware that getting the balance between outright opposition and critical support is tough. My own latter days of party activism during the coalition years was hindered by mental health issues and a sense of hoplelessness over the scale of the problem — back then the party leadership certainly wasn’t interested in debate. I’m merely pointing out that now is the time to start making noise, and to counter the narrative that this latest round of local election results is the unalloyed victory that Davey’s team is putting out.
I had hoped that Davey was considering standing down this month. It’s a perfect time — three years before the likely general election date — for the party to have fresh blood at the top and a healthy debate about it’s future direction. Certainly, this campaign has demonstrated that Davey’s bumbling “centrist dad” act and increasingly tired press stunts is no longer attracting the media attention that it did in 2024.
I now accept that is not going to happen voluntarily, and that he is going to face little or no pressure to do so from the parliamentary party to step aside. But that doesn’t mean that the party can’t start a meaningful debate about strategy, whether the leadership wants it or not.
I would suggest that a starting point would be to hold the party leadership’s feet to the fire over it’s increasingly narrow ambitions. It is no longer a party that represents the length and breadth of the country, in both rural and urban areas. More to the point, it no longer aspires to be, and the trend towards retreating into fewer and fewer areas has accelerated in recent years.
Even if the Davey approach works, at best the party has no more than a handful of seats it could gain in the next election; more likely, it will go backwards. Given how little the party seems to be achieving in terms of influencing the national conversation, with a record 72 MPs, I really can’t understand how anyone can consider this approach to be a success on any meaningful level.
The Lib Dems need their own rallying cry equivalent to “for the many not the few” or “One Nation Conservativism” (for the avoidance of doubt, I’m not suggesting that the party ramps up talk of being a “seriously, Ed, stop aspiring to be a “One Nation” party; the Tories were never that). Part of that means to stop going out of its way to alienate it’s own potential supporter base. It was absolutely ludicrous to see Davey equate the Greens with the “extremist” Reform on Saturday. A significant portion of those Green voters on Thursday were Lib Dem voters six months ago. Labelling them as extremist is the last thing the party should be doing to win them back.
As Alex Wilcock posted on Bluesky on Sunday, the Greens are “messy” not fascists. That’s an opportunity for the Lib Dems, not an affront they should be turning away from. I’m afraid to say that my own opinion over Zack Polanski has soured over the last six months; many of my worst fears of his leadership have been confirmed. He’s proven himself quite politically naive in this election campaign, and while the Greens have made significant gains there are signs that they could soon peak if they continue this slide into the worst and laziest habits of Corbynism.
A Liberal Democrat leader that aspired to represent the whole country would be actively courting most of the people currently excited to vote Green, and be succinctly pointing out Polanski’s weaknesses. They should not be whatever they can to put them off, for fear of upsetting the rich burghers of Henley. Sadly, Davey seems more interested in slamming doors in people’s faces than opening them at the moment.
So to sum up my message to Lib Dems is this: don’t take this hollowing out of the party for granted, and start making more noise. If the existing party institutions are failing to facilitate that, get involved in them, or make good trouble in your own local party. Draft motions. Demand more.
One important lesson I learned in the 2000s is that literally anyone can start a debate; you don’t need an organisation. Anyone can book a meeting room; anyone can organise.
Leaving it until the party’s autumn conference is too late. From what I’ve seen over the last month, there’s a lot more discontent with the party’s direction than is first apparent. It will only really matter if people start speaking out.
Oh, and for goodness’ sake, do better standing up for marginalised groups, especially trans people and immigrants right now. Liberalism should be for everyone, or it is not worth a damn.
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