The 2019
General Election spelt disaster for the Liberal Democrats. Despite an increase
in the vote share, they had a net loss in seats, losing their newly elected Jo
Swinson to the grip of the SNP. The campaign started with the always unrealistic
mantra that Jo Swinson was running to be the next Prime Minister and ended in
the party once again trying to find purpose in the ever-changing political
landscape. As the leader of the Liberal Democrats requires to be an MP, Swinson
resigned, and now, slightly later than billed due to the Coronavirus pandemic,
two candidates are fighting it out to be the replacement; Ed Davey and Layla
Moran, both offering an alternative future to Britain’s third party.
Ed Davey is
the current co-acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, having previously being
the deputy leader under Swinson after she defeated him the July 2019 leadership
election following Sir Vince Cable’s retirement. Davey is of the Clegg era ‘Orange
Book’ Lib Dem, a believer in the political equidistance of Labour and the Conservatives.
Davey’s vision of the future is returning to the Clegg days, having a socially left
and economically right stance, with particular focus on the environment in policy.
Davey is a critic of social democracy, the raison d’etre of the Labour Party,
but also of the anti-internationalist agenda of the current Conservative Party.
The election of Davey would offer a return to the old traditional Liberal
Democrats, people located in areas like the South West of England that would
always vote Lib Dem. The issue with this statement though is that following the
collapse of the Liberal Democrat support base in the 2015 general election, after
the party’s coalition with the Conservatives, this support base, the voters
that always vote Lib Dem, have dwindled into the abyss. Davey’s association
with the coalition of which he was Energy Secretary will haunt him and
subsequently his party under his leadership, a blocker in another attempt to
make the Liberal Democrats relevant again. However his approach could sustain liberal
Conservatives that continue to be annoyed with the somewhat blasé attitude of
Boris Johnson and his anti-European stance, but it is unlikely that centrist
Labour voters will remain with the party following Keir Starmer’s election of
leader of Labour, as he will be closer to their political outlook than that of
the centre-right leaning Davey. Thus, Davey’s approach will find it difficult to
liberate the Liberal Democrats from their small number shackles by appealing to
their now non-existent traditional voters, still haunted by the coalition Davey
was part off.
Lalya Moran,
education secretary is the other contender of the race to be the next Lib Dem
leader. Moran was a critique of the Liberal Democrat revoke policy of Swinson
and wishes to spread the party’s mantra from the sole European rhetoric that
briefly served the party well under the beginnings of the Swinson leadership. Moran’s
main selling point in her campaign is that she does not have the links that
Davey has to the coalition. Having been an MP since 2017 she stands the best
chance of ridding the party of this dark shadow that even in the catacombs of
Brexit they could not escape. Moran’s
campaign has also been targeting the concepts of education and political culture.
She has been engulfed in the recently reawakened culture war following the incredibly
sad and brutal murder of George Floyd in America and the questions surrounding
the legacy of the British Empire and the status of the Police that has
followed. This ‘woke’ agenda of Moran could see the Liberal Democrats gain more
support from the so-called ‘Liberal Left’ (although the term liberal is not appropriately
attributed to the group as the term is contradictory when used in the same
field as ‘cancel culture’ amongst other view points), especially after Keir
Starmer has been somewhat distanced at times in his approach to the Black Lives
Matter movement as to be careful to regain the socially conservative red wall working
class that has been lost to the Conservatives in the recent general election.
The ‘woke’ agenda however has the potential to alienate the more liberal
Conservatives gained in the last election, who although not keen on the leadership
of Boris Johnson, do not wish to be tangled in identity politics. Thus, Layla
Moran’s leadership also has its struggles with regaining prevalence, whilst gaining
attention from the Twitter left, her style risks losing other potential voters
who find themselves on the other end of the so-called ‘culture war’.
The battle
of the future of the Liberal Democrats seems to be shaped as a return to the
old or start afresh, go closer to the centre or lean more to the centre-left of
where the party originates from. The return to the equidistance of which Davey
supports was when the party was most successful, gaining over 50 seats, but the
subsequent coalition has tarnished this approach. Moran’s starting anew allows
the Liberal Democrats to breath again after five years of being tied up to their
part in austerity and tuition fee increase. Davey’s approach will lose Labour
centrists that turned to the party to avoid a socialist government of which
Corbyn was offering, and Moran’s will lose the globalist Conservatives that
Boris Johnson has fended off, albeit not the same extent as Corbyn had with
those from his party. Davey’s approach could bring back the traditional voters
form the South West and Moran’s approach could bring the Twitter Left to her
party, but both are hard to measure. What can be measured however is who is
currently voting Liberal Democrat and which leader is likely to sustain the most,
crucial before they try and expand their electoral support. The question could
thus be posed as ‘How many voters that turned to the Liberal Democrats in 2019
were Labour supporters and how many were Conservatives?’. According to YouGov, of
the Liberal Democrat support in 2019, 9% were former Labour Voters and 7% were
former Conservative voters, suggesting that Davey’s approach has more to lose at
first glance. However, although difficult to know for certain, polls indicate
that one of the main reasons for voters to abandon Labour to the Liberal
Democrats was due to Corbyn as well as a stricter remain message regarding
Brexit. The issue of Brexit has been more-or-less electorally sorted as has the
issue of Corbyn, whilst on the other hand the Conservatives are still under the
same leadership with a similar agenda post-Brexit as to the election of message
of ‘getting Brexit done’. This would suggest that Moran may well lose these
Labour votes anyway, although as stated she could gain different left-leaning
associates who feel Starmer is not pushing for social equality enough. It is also
important to note that 15% of the Liberal Democrat support came from the
Greens, vocal critics of the Liberal Democrats’ role in the coalition and thus
it is unlikely that they will support Davey, who served as a Cabinet secretary in
the coalition and still defends its record. Thus, looking at electoral data,
despite Davey returning to a once successful strategy, Moran looks like she may
do the best out of the two, however she too is unlikely to put the Liberal
Democrats back on the political map in any meaningful way.
Polls seem to
indicate that Davey is set to win the leadership, having already gained more
support from Liberal Democrat MPs than Moran (5-3), but either way the Liberal
Democrats are set to be a long way from achieving their heights that they once
had in the age of Cleggmania and ‘I agree with Nick’.
