It’s nearly Easter – but don’t count your Lib Dem chickens yet…

By Hazel Nolan

I can’t help noticing that there has been plenty of talk recently – especially amongst Labourites – on Twitter & other forums about the effects of an almost certain double defeat for the Lib Dems in the local elections and the AV referendum.

Many have argued that it will cause the Lib Dems to change leader and withdraw from government. There may well be a new leader before the next election, but I wouldn’t count on either happening anytime soon.

If the Lib Dems do get demolished in the locals – as all of the elections and opinion polls leading up to May 5th indicate – and they lose the AV referendum (as I suspect will happen) what incentive do they have to leave government?

Only a party that has had a collective political lobotomy would, after just suffering two crushing defeats, sign up for an immediate third – and potential annihilation.

Of course the Lib Dems have shown how tactless they are already.

Firstly by signing a pre-election pledge that they knew they wouldn’t deliver on.

Secondly their biggest mistake has been timing – agreeing to push through a spectacular U-turn on tuition fees before AV.

Surely they must have known that they would need to rely on their pre-election good will to get AV passed? The timing of their arrangement with the Tories shows that they are either tactless and naïve, or else politically weak.

If the fate for the Lib Dems is an electoral wipeout I think the more likely scenario is that they will cling to power at whatever cost, in the vain hope that the Tories economic policies will pay off, the economy will recover and with it their electoral hopes. They will attempt to ride out the storm caused over NHS reform and tuition fees in the hope that the electorate will have a short memory and the government a long term.

The longer the Lib Dems stay in the Tory-led government the more members they’re hemorrhaging, and the easier it becomes to maintain party loyalty. The members they are losing are the ones who find the current coalition unpalatable. Thus the chance of a revolt from within is increasingly dependent on a less divided Lib Dem membership.

After all they maintained enough party discipline to vote through tuition fees – motivated by a hope that getting AV through will save them. If they lose AV, we shouldn’t be in the least surprised to see them lose a few members to either Labour or as breakaway independents. However the fear of losing their seats will give them enough collective discipline to keep the coalition afloat.

This is similar to the experience of the Greens in the recent Irish government. In the Irish case the Greens eventually did say “enough is enough” and forced a general election (an important side-point is what happened to the Greens in the election that ensued, i.e. full electoral wipe out).

However, in contrast to the Irish Greens, the Lib Dem’s coalition partners – crucially – still enjoy relative popularity with their electorate.

This means the Tories can effectively hold the Lib Dems to ransom, by pointing out that if they go to the polls the LibDems would get wiped out and the Tories could potentially be returned with an over all majority.

I’d happily eat my words if I’m wrong, but it looks like the road ahead is long. There’s plenty of work to be done in the meantime, and Labour shouldn’t allow ourselves to get too distracted from the important task at hand – re-evaluating where we are and we’re going.