This article focuses on the LibDems but the fundamental concepts apply to UK politics generally.
On the 6th January 2020 Daisy Cooper assumed office as a Member of Parliament for St Albans after more than a decade of local campaigning. A huge victory for the party and shows how years of determined effort can pay off.
In the coming days, MP Daisy Cooper will bring a bill to the House of Commons to “End the use of prison for women, except for the most serious and violent crimes.”
Despite being a bill by the Lib Dems- it is obviously discriminatory and illiberal: men and women should be treated equally before the law. That’s liberalism 101.
This bill, which is currently being promoted by the central party, is sure to fail. (Hopefully without a great deal of press attention). Parliamentary arithmetic is against it, and fundamentally it’s a bad bill which the government will see no reason in adopting (to steal the credit).
More importantly - party members are appalled that their party could be advocating an illiberal change to the justice system. This may well have scuppered Daisy’s chances of winning the LibDem leadership contest.
So, how did such a genuinely brilliant local MP get it so wrong on a national policy issue?
The big issue is that the skills to become an MP are different to the thought leadership required to translate liberal social democracy into a political force.
Local politics is about local issues, and MPs represent a local constituency.
Rightly or wrongly, the truth is that a prospective parliamentary candidate’s policy on bin collections will have more impact than their policy on, as in this case, sentencing guidelines for the justice system.
The LibDems are a smaller party that has to win every vote and is funded by members (rather than unions or a few wealthy individuals).
With the big think tanks, and political institutions focusing on the big party’s (that are most likely to form a government), smaller partys have a much harder job of doing both local politics and national politics at the same time.
To be blunt - Daisy wasn’t elected for her policy positions on justice- she was elected as a representative of St Albans.
How do we stop local MPs failing on national issues?
Well for a start, MPs are individuals who the public have chosen. The answer isn’t to stop them pursuing bad ideas but to flood them with good ideas. (With Mark Pack’s election as libdem party president I‘m hopeful that the next wave of ideas will be focused on winning votes rather than having interesting but niche fringe debates).
We can examine the rise of the Scottish National Party (SNP): Scottish Nationalism is a single issue, with a simple message, that everyone in the SNP can rally behind. This makes it easier for local activists and politicians to work on local issues on the ground, yet tune into national policy when needed.
How do we “fix” the small party problem for the LibDems?
In simple terms - the party has to get bigger.
In the same way that the party is funded by its members, policy development is going to need to come from its members as well.
More members who are more engaged and active will lead to more, and better thought out, policy.
All party members have a role in this - in being friendly and welcoming. And also in trying to include new members as much as possible.
If you’re not yet a member of the Lib Dems, you can find a local party to get involved with here and join the party here.
If you are a member and/or an activist, mark pack (party president) runs a newswire here.
If you want to know the recent Lib Dem policy positions, the 2019 manifesto is here.
If you have specific ideas about policy development, get in touch with me here and I will do my best to help connect you to the right person or group.
Lastly (but not leastly) if you want to volunteer generally for the libdems, you can get in touch with the central party here.
