Yesterday London Liberal Democrats packed the congregational church in Kentish Town for an autumn conference that was a mixture of celebration and determination. The celebration was largely because of the brilliant European election results in May, when the party topped the polls in London, sending three MEPs to Brussels.Moreover, the region’s membership at 24,000 is three times what it was a decade ago — and many new faces were at the conference. These included Luciana Berger MP, formerly Labour but who will be standing for the LibDems in Finchley and Golders Green when the election comes around. She gave a short speech recounting this political journey and was clearly pleased to have found a welcoming new home. Luisa Porritt, a Camden councillor who was elected an MEP in May and who is now Deputy Leader of the 16-strong LibDem group in the European Parliament, briefed the meeting on what she and her colleagues are doing to encourage continental counterparts to help keep Britain in the EU.
Deputy Leader Ed Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton, highlighted the work that the parliamentary party is doing to stop Brexit and urged everyone to go on the People’s Vote march next Saturday — and to bring along family and friends. For me, one of the most striking parts of the conference, however, was the impressive line-up of women PPCs who are standing in what are now winnable seats in heavily Remain parts of the capital: Rabina Khan, Humaira Ali, Hina Bokhari, Munira Wilson and Sarah Olney. There was a time not that long ago when the party’s MPs were embarrassingly uniformly male and white but these days the LibDems reflect the make up of multi-cultural London much more and that should be clearer still after the general election. That is likely to be the next challenge on the electoral horizon, but the conference was also focussed on the London Assembly and Mayoral elections next May. Caroline Pidgeon spoke of her work on the GLA, notably regarding transport, and mayoral candidate Siobhan Benita gave an inspirational keynote speech outlining her main priorities, ranging from a preventive approach to knife rime to the decriminalisation of cannabis.
Thanks to crowd-funding from supporters, London Liberal Democrats have for the first time been able to put together a party political broadcast for the London mayoral election. That goes out today (Thursday), though party members who are well plugged into social media were able to get a sneak preview yesterday. The film rightly focuses on the LibDem candidate, Caroline Pidgeon, and her policies (unlike the weird Green Party video of children, which never even shows you their candidate) and features a good ethnic and age mix of other people, representative of multicultural London. Caroline presents herself as an ordinary Londoner and is seen in everyday situations, such as buying groceries in a street market and playing with children in a nursery. But the point that is subtly put over is that whereas Caroline shares the concerns of ordinary Londoners, on such issues as the lack of affordable housing, expensive public transport coupled with worsening traffic congestion, and the high cost of childcare, she is actually extraordinary, as the only mayoral candidate of any party or group who has been at City Hall for the past eight years, holding Mayor Boris Johnson to account. Moreover, she was a hard-working London borough councillor before that. She comes over in the PPB as knowledgable, responsible and caring and the film itself is vey professional, without being slick. All in all, an excellent initiative. Let’s hope millions of Londoners watch it and respond to Caroline’s distinctive messages!
ITV and LBC are to be congratulated for staging an hour-long live debate this evening (Tuesday) between the five principle candidates in next month’s London Mayoral election: Sian Berry (Green), Zac Goldsmith (Conservative), Sadiq Khan (Labour), Caroline Pidgeon (Liberal Democrat) and Peter Whittle (UKIP). The show’s two hosts were robust enough in their questioning to hold people’s attention and there was some opportunity for audience members to participate. Peter Whittle soon proved to be a one-trick pony, ‘curbing immigration’ being his answer to virtually everything. But the other four were better prepared and better matched. The main topics for discussion were security/counter-terrorism, housing and public transport. Sadiq Khan stood up firmly against claims of having some dodgy Islamist associates but was unable to persuade people that freezing London Underground fares was economically feasible. Zac Goldsmith was very suave and had the advantage of being able to boast of having the ear of the Conservative government between now and 2020, though earlier in the day he had been embarrassed by showing a rather sketchy knowledge of the London Underground system. However, Zac’s Achilles heel is that he is favour of Brexit, which is a rather loopy position for a prospective London Mayor to adopt (yes, I know, Boris Johnson QED). Sian Berry was cool and collected, and were it not for the fact that the Greens’ policies would put London’s vibrant economy into reverse gear, in many ways persuasive. Caroline Pidgeon, physically well-placed at the centre of the quintet on stage, had obviously rehearsed the points she wanted to get across, including a one hour bus ticket, half-price tube fares before 7.30am and a continuation of the Olumpics precept, but hypothecated for council house building — all good, clear campaigning issues. She rightly avoided endorsing any other candidate for LibDem voters’ second preference. Her task, as London Liberal Democrats have always been clear, is to get as high a LibDem city-wide vote as possible to ensure that she is not the only LibDem London Assembly member elected in May.
Though the Liberal Democrats had a well-attended in-house launch for the LibDem European Referendum campaign at the party conference in Bournemouth last September, this afternoon a more public-facing event starring party leader Tim Farron, London mayoral candidate Caroline Pidgeon and Catherine Bearder MEP took place in central London at Bounce — a venue whose name the party can only hope has some kinetic effect. Against a backdrop of keen young people brandishing IN diamonds of various hues, Tim declared that the Liberal Democrats have always believed in EU reform, not the status quo. But that does not mean “IN, but”, he clarified. The party will be enthusiastically campaigning for reform with Britain firmly engaged in the EU, unlike half-hearted Labour and the divided Conservatives. Caroline Pidgeon stressed that whereas most of the issues likely to be raised on the doorstep between now and May 5 are likely to be more local issues, such as housing and transport, she is a convinced European who understands the value of London as Europe’s premier city. Catherine Bearder at one moment draped herself in a chiffon Union Flag scarf to make the point that a true patriot realises that it is in Britain’s best interests to be at the heart of Europe. The party’s INtogether campaign will now roll out across the country — and, one hopes, across social media. You can follow it, and indeed join in, via @LDINtogether.
Though we don’t yet have an official date yet for Britain’s IN/OUT EU Referendum, the hot money is on 23 June — or at least that is what the attendees at yesterday’s London Liberal Democrats’ EU Referendum Rally were told. That assumes that David Cameron will get what he considers a satisfactory response to his four key demands for EU reform from his 27 EU counterparts, either at the European Council on 18 February or possibly at a special Council meeting later that month. Otherwise the timetable might slip and we would be looking at a referendum in the autumn instead. Personally I hope it is in June, with the London, Scottish, Welsh and local elections out of the way but the weather in principle benign, therefore encouraging people to go out to vote.
We already know the Referendum question: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”, to which the alternative answers are “remain” and “leave”. The big challenge for Liberal Democrats, as the political party most enthusiastically in favour of Britain’s EU membership, is to enthuse the “remain” voters, which will mean appealing to their emotions, not just relying on statistics. That is what UKIP does so effectively on the other side of the argument. There was a galaxy of LibDem stars at the rally at Friends House in London yesterday, including Sir Graham Watson (former Leader of the ALDE Party), Catherine Bearder MEP, Baroness Sarah Ludford, London Mayoral candidate Caroline Pidgeon and the man charged with runing the LibDems’ EU Referendum campaign, Iain Gill. But for me, the most fascinating contribution was from Tom Smithard, the party’s Strategy Research guru, who showed detailed results of polling about the referendum and related issues among LibDem members and voters, as well as among Conservative and Labour voters for whom the LibDems would be a second choice. The headline issue was that essentially the electorate is made up of three roughly equal groups: those who are strongly in favour of the EU and therefore are likely to vote to stay in come what may; those who are strongly against who will do the opposite; and a third group of those who are undecided. The pro-business, cross party Stronger in Europe campaign will be targetting the last of those three groups, which means that the LibDems should focus on the first, ensuring that the “remain” voters actually do vote, including as full a polling day operation as possible, just as we do when an ordinary election is taking place, the difference this time being that literally every vote will count.
Given the drubbing that the party received at the General Election in May — losing all but one MP, Tom Brake, in London — London Liberal Democrats were in amazingly high spirits at their AGM at the University of West London today. But then LibDems are the perennial Minions of British politics; knock one over and (s)he immediately bounces back up. One reason for the good spirit was undoubtedly the large number of new members that have joined the party over the past six months, of whom there were a goodly number present at the one-day conference. But the main reason was the relished challenge of the London Mayoral and Greater London Assembly elections in six months’ time. Current Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon, who is number 1 on the LibDem top-up list for the Assembly is the party’s mayoral candidate and has had good media coverage for her work on the Assembly, not least in the field of transport. She gave a short but rousing rallying speech, and the Number 2 on the list, Emily Davey, spoke on housing, which is her speciality and is rightly being promoted as the top issue for concern in the capital. Number 3 is Merlene Emerson and it would be wonderful if she were elected too; the LibDems have had as many as 5 Assembly members in the past, and as an ethnic Chinese, Merlene would add some much needed diversity to the ranks of LibDem elected politicians.
I spoke about the EU Referendum, which David Cameron has said will happen some time before the end of 2017, but which the Westminster village believes could come as early as June or July next year. I had stayed up until the early hours of this morning following the news of the horrific terrorist attack in Paris. In my speech I mentioned how pleased I was that Donald Tusk, President of the European Council (and former Polish Prime Minister) had in his message to French President Francois Hollande not only expressed solidarity with the French people but also declared that the attack was an assault on Europe and European values. How often does David Cameron talk of European values, I asked rhetorically. While obviously working closely with the Stronger in Europe campaign, the LibDems must be leaders in campaigning for Britain to remain in the EU — as Tim Farron showed he was willing to be, in a skype link from the Welsh Liberal Democrat conference in Swansea. We need to be talking about Europe on the doorstep and putting it in our literature during the GLA campaign. More than anywhere in this country, London benefits from our EU membership, whatever the oafish Boris Johnson may say to the country, and it is essential that we do not allow a Brexit by default.
Jonathan Fryer 