Labour’s performance in the European elections was even more dismal than many predicted: overtaken by the Liberal Democrats, it achieved third place with just 14% of the vote. One analysis suggests that between 2.5 and 3 million of those who voted Labour in 2017 defected to one of the pro-Remain parties, while a YouGov poll estimates that just four in 10 Labour members voted for the party.
It would therefore have been reasonable to expect that the Labour leadership would have spent last week reassuring those who deserted it over its ambiguous Brexit position that it had heard their message. But instead, it chose to expel Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communications chief and a longtime member, for revealing that he voted Liberal Democrat. Just when Labour should be trying to attract the votes it lost to the Remain parties, it sends a signal that these people aren’t welcome. As Campbell said, he was voting tactically, like tens of thousands of other members who supported pro-Remain parties, to try to get the party to change its stance.
Since his expulsion, which he is appealing against, several former cabinet ministers and MPs have gone public and said they didn’t vote Labour. Labour is hardly likely to expel them, which makes the decision regarding Campbell look petty. And it compares dreadfully with the party’s lackadaisical approach to dealing with complaints of antisemitism, which prompted the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to launch a formal investigation into antisemitism in the party.
The overwhelming beneficiary of Labour’s losses were the Liberal Democrats. In an extraordinary revival, they won 20% of the vote, coming second only to the Brexit party. That result is unlikely to fully hold up in a general election, in which the first past the post electoral system puts far more pressure on voters to back one of the two main parties. But in a fragmenting party system, there is every chance that resurgent Liberal Democrats could again find themselves coalition kingmaker, just as in 2010.
While it can be argued that the party benefited more from Labour’s failings than its own vigour and ingenuity, some of its success has come deservedly as a result of the clarity of its Brexit position. Where Labour has fudged, the Lib Dems have been long been clear that they are a Remain party that backs a confirmatory referendum, with staying in as an option.
That clarity does not extend to the rest of their platform. Ed Davey, one of the two contenders to replace Vince Cable as leader, has defended the party’s record in coalition with David Cameron between 2010 and 2015, arguing that it softened the impact of austerity. Their track record belies this convenient retelling of their time in government. The Liberal Democrats championed regressive increases in the personal tax allowance that disproportionately benefited more affluent families and cost billions of pounds a year, a gap plugged with cuts to tax credits and benefits for low-income families with children.
The speed with which they dropped their signature pledge to scrap tuition fees to support the tripling of fees in 2012 made them look opportunistic and devoid of principle. They failed to use the substantial power they wielded by dint of the fact Cameron relied on their votes in parliament in order to extract significant concessions on toxic policies such as the bedroom tax and the hostile environment. Instead, as part of the unlikely “quad” alliance alongside Cameron and George Osborne, Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander exuded an air of chummy coexistence with the architects of austerity, rather than leaders of a party fundamentally at odds with the regressive Conservative agenda, pushing for change at every opportunity.
So as they celebrate their success and elect a new leader, the Lib Dems must distance themselves from their lamentable record in coalition and come clean about their vision for Britain, outside of Brexit. In an increasingly fragmented system, they are more likely than ever to end up as powerbrokers. Voters deserve to know more about what they stand for.
