Britain’s third party could remain in government for decades
If you lived in Germany, or West Germany, between 1969 and 1992, it did not matter how you voted, you got Hans-Dietrich Genscher in your government. Genscher served as foreign minister, then vice-chancellor, in the Social Democratic government until 1982, and then in the CDU-CSU government. He became a permanent fixture of German postwar politics, not by switching parties, but by leading the Free Democratic party.
The FDP, part of the Liberal International, never won a parliamentary majority, or anything like it, but held the balance of power under the German Additional Member System. It switched sides, and changed the national government.
The advantage of Britain’s first-past-the-post system is that it avoids the messy compromises of coalition, and the unsavoury back-room dealings which exclude the public, and result in policies without a mandate. Yet here we are: a coalition government, a programme without a mandate, and a liberal leader in office without winning power. Nick Clegg must look at the long political career of Genscher and dream that he, too, will still be in government in his 70s.
That will depend on many things, not least whether Britain’s polity is so finely balanced that governments with big majorities are a thing of the past. But it also depends on whether the Liberal Democrats believe themselves to be a natural party of government. They do not need to think of themselves as a party capable of winning a majority; only that they deserve to remain as part of a coalition. They certainly have to trust in an electoral strategy which delivers enough seats to hold the balance of power. And, like the FDP, they have to be unfussy about with whom they get into bed.
As Lenin argued in the party purge of 1923, ‘better fewer but better’. Clegg’s party self-purged after 2010. By the end of 2011, a quarter of the party had left, with membership falling below 50,000 for the first time. There are now more pagans in the UK than Liberal Democrats.
Those without the stomach for the fight departed: members, activists and councillors (although, curiously, not those with a hope of ministerial office, the MPs). Those left behind were a combination of true believers, like David Laws, and those holding their noses, like Vince Cable.
It has taken two years, but they have scripted a narrative to answer their own soul-searching: ‘The Tories are nasty, but we’re stopping them being even nastier. When they’re not looking, we’re sneaking nice things past them.’ It would work just as well if they went into coalition with the Labour party: ‘Labour is profligate, urban, authoritarian and run by the unions. We’re stopping them doing things you don’t like, and forcing them to do things you do.’
At his press conference at the end of July, Clegg issued a brochure called A Record of Delivery: What the Liberal Democrats have achieved in government. It is a Walter Mitty-like description of a government cutting crime, reducing taxes, restoring freedoms, creating jobs, banning Trident’s replacement, building homes, protecting pensions and introducing same-sex marriage. This is their election strategy writ large: take the credit for everything good, blame their ‘partners’ for everything bad. In local government, they do it over potholes; in national government they do it over macroeconomics. The tactic is identical.
Labour folk take great delight in opinion polls showing the Liberal Democrats in single figures, lagging behind the United Kingdom Independence party. We like the jokes about Liberal Democrat conference 2015 being held in a telephone box, or a taxi drawing up, and the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party getting out of it. We enjoy Liberal Democrats performing disastrously in parliamentary by-elections. They came sixth in Barnsley Central, seventh in South Shields (behind the British National party), and in Rotherham their candidate Michael Beckett came eighth, with 451 votes.
But talk to Liberal Democrats, and they seem unperturbed by national polls or lost by-election deposits. Their strategy is not based on winning everywhere, it is based on winning the seats they hold. In the English county council elections earlier this year the Lib Dem vote held up where they hold the parliamentary seat. In the Eastbournes, Leweses, Richmonds, Sheffield Hallams and Yeovils of this world, national polls count for little. What matters is local campaigning on micro-issues, a support structure of councillors and community activists, and an incumbent MP.
The only time that this has been properly tested in this parliament was the Eastleigh by-election. Here, despite an MP in utter disgrace and national media opprobrium heaped on the Liberal Democrats, they won the by-election, even without the incumbency factor. Labour came fourth. If they can win Eastleigh, where the MP was heading towards Wormwood Scrubs, why not the seats where the MP is hardworking and popular?
Political scientists talk about the ‘Genscher factor’ to describe small centre parties holding the balance of power without ever winning a majority, or even coming close. It is one German import we can probably do without.
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I lived in Germany for five years during that time and well remember the infamous switching of allegiance by the FDP in 1982.
You cannot make a direct comparison between a federal democracy like Germany which elects its government by means of a form of proportional representation which favours coalitions and develops its policy largely by consensus.
By the same token let’s not try to compare Genscher with Clegg. Genscher was a major influential figure in European and world politics whereas Clegg is not.
The Labour Party must send out a strong signal of its intent for the next election otherwise the spectre of Lib-dem coalition politics will, indeed, be with us for many decades.