Advertisement

Stephen Bush: Lib-Dems should offer a middle way but they’re scared of power

Third party: The Liberal Democrats conference in Bournemouth: PA
Third party: The Liberal Democrats conference in Bournemouth: PA

There’s a story that occasionally does the rounds on Facebook about a religious man who is caught in a flood. As the waters rise, he declines to be rescued by everything from a raft to a helicopter, and drowns as a result. Arriving in Heaven, he demands to know why God let it happen. God replies that he sent a host of vehicles to save him, and he refused them all.

Liberal Democrats might be inclined to feel the same way. Two out of 10 Labour voters don’t like Jeremy Corbyn, while a quarter of people who voted Tory in June dislike Theresa May. Voters consistently place themselves a notch to the Left of the centre — and put May well out to the Right, and Corbyn well out to the Left. A quarter of British voters not only wish that the referendum had gone the other way but believe that we should simply overturn the result.

No wonder that so many say they want a new party entirely: one that is a little closer to the centre-ground and is unapologetically pro-European.

Yet the Liberal Democrats tick all of these boxes, but voters just aren’t interested. For some, the sins of their time in coalition, particularly their vote for tuition fees, looms large. But even among voters who approved of their time in office, they are a minority party. What — you can imagine someone saying in the depths of Liberal Democrat HQ — gives?

Part of the problem is the British electoral system. Although it is easy to meet supporters or even MPs from the big two parties who are unhappy with their current leaders, few dislike both parties equally. A vote for a party they like risks giving power to one they absolutely loathe, so better to stick with one they can just about tolerate.

But the other part, though less flattering to the Liberal Democrats themselves, is that we can detect a fundamental lack of seriousness in Britain’s third party. There are obviously exceptions — Nick Clegg is one, and Vince Cable another, though the two have very different politics in some regards — but a party that really wanted to win power wouldn’t have gone into the last election so badly prepared to deal with basic questions about what its then leader, Tim Farron, thought about everything from the right to an abortion to equal marriage, and whose campaign became an extended theology seminar rather than an argument for centrist politics as a result.

Voting for a party other than the big two is a big risk — and if the third party can’t convincingly act as if it’s a risk they really want you to take, no wonder they can’t break through.

Stephen Bush is special correspondent at the New Statesman