Lib Dem's wondering where their members went

[mumsandaunties]

I just got this email from the membership officer of our local Lib Dem party.

I’ve been looking at our membership data for the last 4 year, and I’ve noticed a steady decline in our membership, and I understand that you were all once members during that time, but have since lapsed, or resigned.

You will all have different, perfectly good reasons for lapsing your memberships, but I’ve been asked by the Exec committee to understand what the main reasons are.

Hmm...what could it be causing people to leave? It's a head scratcher for sure.

Lib Dems response to this accusation.(initially told not to by civil servants but five months into post was first minister to meet Alan Bates)

Doesn't exonerate him at all.

The liberal democrats are supposed to believe in, strangely enough, liberal democracy. And that it itself is one of the things that pissed me off about them most. Liberal democracy is about consensus building and participation as equals. And a key part of it is the principles of checks and balances to avoid abuses of power.

This is where the current party really fucked it up and Tim Farron provides a really good example.

So Tim Farron has personal beliefs that are not in line with the public nor a 'politically correct' position BUT he identified this and understood his job was to represent the public and to act in line with the public and the public interest. So his voting record was somewhat at odds with his personal beliefs and he did not abuse his position of power to push his personal agenda.

That matches the principles of liberal democracy. Yet he was hounded out for wrong think.

The trouble is that the meaning of being a liberal has been distorted and corrupted and now it is taken by some to mean having a set of non negotiable beliefs which are 'approved' and expressing anything other than this is deemed a massive transgression which must be punished. This is a 'liberal identity' rather than being liberal democratic. Indeed an obsession with individual identity (and therefore prioritising virtue signalling over and above structural accountability and balancing the interests of multiple people) is really the mentality of the whole party. It's about showing you are doing the right thing rather than digging down and checking you aren't unintentionally making huge mistakes and covering them up. It's incredibly inward looking and narrow minded. Its black and white thinking which really should have no place in politics at all because that's not how the world functions.

This actually meets the definition of authoritarian ism where you are told what to think and any discussion is firmly crushed and eliminated by force rather than having a debate and winning hearts and minds through discussion and arguing your case on it's merits.

This process of discussion allows for difficult areas to be identified which helps avoid conflict and reduce the number of harms through unintended consequences. It has much greater levels of accountability and higher rates of public participation - it allows the public to feel part of democracy rather than told in a top down manner what they should think.

It hasn't ceased to amaze me how much the egos of people are present and how they have to always be right. To be honest I think there is a massive element of entitlement and middle class thinking in this which reflects the Lib Dem demographic and isn't great generally. It favours mansplaining and doesn't really support women as a direct result. And the party has an issue with sexism across the board with less female participation and representation than other parties. It has a reputation for still being white, male and stale which it really hasn't been able to shake for a reason.

Which brings me to the Nolan Principles.

Because the liberal democrats believe in the principles of checks and balances they should be really shit hot on The Nolan Principles. These are Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability Openness, Honesty and Leadership

There's an official expanded definition of this here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life/the-7-principles-of-public-life--2

There's a massive failing on these across all parties ATM and it's why there has been a massive loss in trust in politicians in recent years.

BUT these are particularly crucial and important to liberal democracy and this the Lib Dems really should be leading the way on this.

However with so many cliques and bullying so rife with in the party, it's utterly fucking up.

Ed Davey has demonstrated he had a massive conflict of interest by taking money on the side whilst a sitting MP. It really should be the case that you shouldn't have a second income to avoid this, especially if you are a cabinet minister.

He then appears to be dishonest about it.

This isn't an Ed Davey problem as such - there are huge numbers of MPs who are doing the same and I really think it needs to be stopped as it's damaging to democracy because it allows for lobbying and conflicts of interest which mean the public interest comes second to personal interests. And the Lib Dems should be the ones being shit hot on this on principle.

Then you have the women's right issues which are top down enforced without participation because you have a couple of cliques with too much power with the party and not adverse to bullying dissenters. And no accountability. An MP saying that if you have an opinion that a man is a woman you can't be in the tribe is the most fundamentally anti liberal democratic thing you can do. It's imposing your beliefs on others rather than talking through what you think and allowing a response.

One of the key parts of democracy is this exchange and being willing to hear things you don't like - purely because someone might have a real issue or point - but not necessarily be able to articulate it well in a manner which is deemed acceptable. In refusing to engage you disenfranchise people - that's appalling. And it undermines trust and democracy and leads to these people trying to seek out people who will listen but may have less pleasant aims and agenda.

This idea of accountability and participation is so central to liberal democracy. And it's been forgotten.

It's like the Labour party declaring socialism is not for them in a way.

The Lib Dems should be leading the way on this stuff because it's so central to core values. And indeed they should be held to higher standards on these points as a result (in the same way you should expect the Labour party to have the most socialist policies and position).

If a party can't get itself together on its central values and understand what they are and how they work they are useless and not fit for purpose.

Brilliant analysis, @RedToothBrush. I disagree strongly with Tim Farron's religious views and I understand why LGBT people would have some discomfort from knowing them, but the reality is that pretty much everyone we know has some views that we would find objectionable. We have to co-exist. I would trust someone like Farron, who - as you say - demonstrated his ability to put his own views aside, far more than those who centre everything they do and say in their "identity", rigidly defined. Ideologues frighten me, especially the ones who mistake themselves for liberals.

It's so short-sighted too. Do these idiots really believe that they have arrived at some definitive truth, which will never be challenged? In time, their views will be superseded and they will experience the same intolerance that they currently extend to others. That's why the only sustainable environment for a democracy is toleration.

Liberal democracy is about consensus building and participation as equals. And a key part of it is the principles of checks and balances to avoid abuses of power.

Yes it is. You don't have to like the people you're working with. You just have to be able to do business with them. That's the bottom line, and what the LDs have forgotten.

So many incisive points RTB - thank you.
I liked this which encapsulates Davey perfectly:

"It hasn't ceased to amaze me how much the egos of people are present and how they have to always be right. To be honest I think there is a massive element of entitlement and middle class thinking in this which reflects the Lib Dem demographic and isn't great generally. It favours mansplaining and doesn't really support women as a direct result. And the party has an issue with sexism across the board with less female participation and representation than other parties. It has a reputation for still being white, male and stale which it really hasn't been able to shake for a reason."

Julie Birchall in The Spectator

In a crowded field, the hypocrisy of Davey is in a class of its own. Over the past five years, he has called for the resignation of public figures a whopping 34 times – yet shows no sign of resigning or even giving back his honour, as the wretched Paula Vennells has had the grace to. Davey seems intensely relaxed about his own incompetence, appearing to believe that the world owes him a lush living; as the bankrupted sub-postmaster Jo Hamilton said to the Times:

‘Of course Davey should have been asking more questions. What did he think – we were just moaning? They’re called public servants but they do anything but serve the public.’

It’s interesting the people who Davey considers talking to and not talking to; at the 2009 Lib-Dem conference he called for a dialogue with the actual Taliban – or, as he put it, ‘time for tea with the Taliban’. What a shame he had no time for tea with suicidal sub-postmasters.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sir-ed-daveys-lib-dems-are-the-real-nasty-party/

Now I take the Spectator with a pinch of salt, but there is a real point here about calling for resignations for failing to live up to Nolan Principles and then not resigning yourself when caught out for having a massive conflict of interest and failing to engage with the public on an issue.

Tbh I see the whole Post Office thing as a massive institutional failure with many parties who could have had asked more questions who didn't. You've got the CPS not asking questions about the sheer number of cases, the level of appalling coding and programming which couldn't do basic maths and no one properly tested (the code is doing the rounds in programming circles and DH took one look at it and winced at how dire it was), the lack of management level accountability in Fujitsu and that's before you even get to the post office or politicians.

The problem is that there's now a public desire for a scapegoat to satisfy public rage which is centering on individuals - again that superficial virtue signalling thing - but no real desire to drill down into how and why it happened and so many people in power turned a blind eye for so long. It comes back to the point about arrogance and lack of engagement with the public and not wanting to deal with actual problems and instead being all about public relations and 'being seen to be nice'.

It's the whole reason people voted LD on mass in 2010 because of dissatisfaction in other parties before then switching to UKIP and then other personalities who were perceived as 'not like those politicians' only to be shown up as exactly the same. It's a deep deep flaw in British politics across the board.

But it's one, that the LDs should be leading the charge on, but are facing a right farce coming into an election year - which will be focused on time and time again by the Tories and Labour as part of campaigning.

Its all just so avoidable too. It's depressing.

Great article by Julie. This bit resonated:

"His passionate, almost parasexual attachment to his knighthood – like Starmer’s – is enough alone to make him a laughing stock, even if he hadn’t stated last year that women can ‘quite clearly’ have a penis. (The TERF line about politicians ‘If they’ll lie about what a woman is, they’ll lie about anything’ came back irresistibly to me here.)"

Wouldn’t that be great!! Not only that but everytime I see her name I do my exercises! We would all have stronger pelvic floors by the time another election came around!

MPs having jobs that they did before becoming an MP and that they would return to afterwards
used to be the norm.
Michael Heseltine running his printing business is a case in point.
It means he has ALWAYS mixed with normal people.

Sadly too many MPs live entirely within the Westminster bubble now.

@RedToothBrush
It's the whole reason people voted LD on mass in 2010 because of dissatisfaction in other parties before then switching to UKIP and then other personalities who were perceived as 'not like those politicians' only to be shown up as exactly the same. It's a deep deep flaw in British politics across the board.

There's this deep belief that politicians seem to have now more than ever that they are right, and the public are stupid. An issue generates massive public outcry and backlash, and instead of paying attention and listening the politician calls them all bigots and feels very smug with themselves for telling the bigots off. Never do them seem to think "hang on there's a lot of people saying this, maybe I should ask them why they are so upset?"
It feels that they are proud of their ignorance and being out of touch with the general population. Who would want to stoop to the level of us voters anyway?

I give this example because it's specific to the Lib Dems. During the Brexit shenanegins Jo Swinson genuinely thought the Lib Dems could win the 2019 general election and that it would be a sufficient mandate to overturn the Brexit referendum. She didn't even hold her own seat let alone win the election. How far out of touch do you have to be to have genuinely believe that? How far out of touch with the electorate do you have to be to lose your own seat as leader of a political party? The Lib Dems have always benefitted from protest votes, but to not understand the protest element is to think like a small child. It would have been one strategy to try to convert protest votes into geniune support but it takes a special level of head up your own arse with your fingers in your ears to misread things as spectacularly wrong as Swinson did. But she believed she was in the right and that blinded her to anything other than believeing her own farts were the most fragrant.
That's just one example. There are many, convicted double rapist being a gender is another. These people are morons. Please stop voting for them.

One of the biggest motivaters for British voters is NOT to vote FOR someone but to base their vote on voting AGAINST someone else. I firmly believe this negative thought process is much more common than making a positive vote for any party. Think about how many people are thinking of voting Labour at the next election, not because they have any enthusiasm for Labour or Labour Policy, but because they want the Tories out (and this is a dynamic Starmer needs to be wary of - how motivated are voters who are actually only luke warm to Labour? Thats one for a future thread later this year when we hit full election fever though...)

Ironically the LD KNOW this and use this as one of their Key Strategies come election time. You know all the 'only two parties can win here, vote LD to keep Labour/Tories Out' leaflets...

And yeah it also doesn't seem to be properly registering with the LDs how important this is currently because they are SO adamant about Being Right v Wrong Think. They'll happily lose seats just to prove their point because of this level of arrogance.

I voted Lib Dem in 2019 (for the 1st time ever, normally Socialist Party voter) as the only thing I truly cared about was opposing Brexit with all my might. Wrong decision, and pointless too. (I left the UK in March 2020 because of Brexit/election result). Horrified by what the Lib Dems have been revealed to be.