Now is not the time to woo the Lib Dems

By Sarah Hayward / @Sarah_Hayward

At a hustings in Camden’s Irish Centre a week before the 6th May the loudest cheer of the night went to Green Party candidate Natalie Bennett. This is no mean feat when you’re sharing the platform with local institution and near national treasure, Frank Dobson (who got a few cheers himself).

All Natalie had to say was:

“I can guarantee, I will never go in to coalition with the Tories”.

The context was a question exploring whether the Lib Dems nationally would, as they had locally in Camden, go in to government with the Conservatives. The Lib Dem candidate was a poor performer in hustings generally (to the extent that I did once feel sorry for her, but usually just cringed), and she was completely flummoxed by what seemed to most – post TV debates – the most obvious question of all.

One reason she was flummoxed was because since the Lib Dems started to do well against Labour in Camden, back in the 2002 local elections their most successful tactic had been campaigning against Labour from the left. But she knew, given all the national indications she couldn’t put herself in the position where she’d publically distanced herself from the Tories, and had she indicated she would, it would probably have involved undermining some of the Lib Dem councillors in marginal Lab/Lib wards. So she hadn’t prepared the wiggle room she needed. Which given the speed with which the Libs fabricated the ‘stability/national interest/it’s labour’s fault’ message after the election I still find surprising.

The problem was, for the Camden electorate, the Liberal Democrats relied on being able to be perceived as left wing. They did this through a lot of underhand and often down right dishonest campaigning. And while there’s a slight of hand that can be done if you go in to power with the Tories on the local level that’s a whole lot more difficult when you’re propping up a Tory Prime Minister.

I recount this story, because in recent days both Brian Barder and Hadleigh Roberts have used LabourList articles to press for Labour to try to court Liberal Democrats and all I can say is that this would be a disaster at the moment.

Anyone who’s campaigned against Liberal Democrats locally will know the ‘techniques’ they use. I did not see a single leaflet in the run up to May that acknowledged that they ran Camden Council. If you’d just moved to the borough you would assume that Labour did. Which meant that we had to work doubly hard to counter the blame for their regressive policies like selling off council housing, raising the price of meals on wheels by 20% in one hit, and cutting summer play schemes on four of the most deprived estates in London.

On top of this we have strong evidence of them plumbing the depths of gutter politics that colleagues in Brent, Islington, Southwark and other boroughs recognise all to well when I recount the stories.

In power in Camden their agenda was regressive and ruthlessly Conservative. In campaigning in Camden (and elsewhere) they are prepared to use tactics that make even the most hardened Labour and Conservative campaigners blush.

I don’t know what the Liberal Democrats stand for, they campaign left (in some places) and act right, and many of their members and even councillors don’t know what they stand for. They are instrumental in a Conservative government that is capping housing benefit levels way below normal rents, privatising the NHS, ripping funding out of falling down schools. Nick Clegg with easy duplicity said he changed his mind about the need for cuts before the election but didn’t bother to tell the people he was asking to vote for him. They’ve done all this for a referendum on AV that they may not get and almost certainly won’t win. With the biggest irony of all being that the Liberal Democrats don’t even support AV – they want greater reform.

What’s worse is that they are not supporting what is an economic necessity (however much they’ve fallen for their own propaganda), but a Conservative ideological drive to the right. Leading economists don’t believe that Cameron and Osborne need to cut this quickly or this deeply. It’s driven by dogma and will hurt the poorest hardest. That’s not what Lib Dems in Camden campaigned for, or told the voters they were for.

I have no doubt that there are some good people in the Liberal Democrats (the law of averages says there must be). And I have no doubt that there are some social democrats in the Liberal Democrats. Comrades, you’re welcome. Come and join us.

But, through the leadership debates, I want us to develop a progressive left agenda that appeals to progressive left people. When we’ve developed an alternative offer that will show up the cuts as dogmatic and unnecessary, then is the time to look around and see who might join our fights. It might be some Lib Dems, it might be some Greens, it might be Plaid or the SNP. But I seriously doubt it will ever be Nick Clegg or any of the other Orange Bookers who, had it not been for Thatcher/Major social policy, would probably have been Tories anyway.