Ending Equidistance Alan Leaman traces the story of the adoption and abandonment of the Liberal Democrat strategy of ‘equidistance’. On May , the Federal Executive of the failure of David Owen and David Steel to agree a common position on their attitude to the Liberal Democrats received and endorsed a other two parties. At times David Owen cam- statement from their leader, Paddy Ashdown, which paigned explicitly for a hung parliament which, formally ended the ‘equidistance’ from the he believed, would open the door to maximum influence for the Alliance. His argument in- Conservative and Labour parties that the party had evitably raised questions about how any influ- maintained during the general election ence would be deployed. Butler and Kavanagh campaign. The statement was subsequently accepted record: ‘As the election progressed it became plain …. that Dr Owen would be much more with little dissent by the Federal Conference in ready to do business with Mrs Thatcher than Glasgow on September as part of the would Mr Steel.’ Executive’s Annual Report. An historic change had The problem of two leaders was resolved by the merger of the Liberals and the SDP to been made, with minimum collateral damage in form the Liberal Democrats in , and by internal division or disaffection. This article describes Paddy Ashdown’s election as the unified par- ty’s first leader later that year. It took longer to the background to this decision, analyses some of resolve the uncertainties of the third party’s role. the surrounding debates, and considers its Paddy Ashdown had argued during his lead- implications for the future strategy of the Liberal ership campaign that the task of the Liberal Democrats was to replace the Labour Party as Democrats in the light of the general election the leading non-Conservative party of con- result. science and reform. It was a bravura campaign which helped to revive morale within a bat- A short history of tered and divided party. Ashdown successfully equidistance exploited the membership’s disillusionment with their experience of the election, Equidistance became a term of political art at when it had seemed that the limit of their lead- the time of the general election, adopted ers’ ambition was to come third. And his mes- by journalists and others to describe the re- sage was consistent, albeit uncomfortably, with fusal of Liberal Democrats to express any pref- the tradition of Liberal leaders since Jo erence between the Labour and Conservative Grimond who had spoken of their desire to parties. But its relatively short and recent ap- realign the left. pearance in the political lexicon does not mean But replacement as a strategic objective was that equidistance represented a new issue for already out of date by the time that it was the third party of British politics. launched. Under Neil Kinnock, the Labour Very few people have ever believed that the Party had begun to recover from its nadir of Liberal Democrats (or, for many decades, their the mid-s, and was also starting to change predecessors) were likely to be able to form a its character. The Liberal/SDP Alliance had government on their own – in the short term failed to eat into Labour’s core vote in those at least. So the party has often been plagued years of maximum vulnerability – why should by questions about how it would handle any the Liberal Democrats be able to do so as La- power short of an outright victory, particularly in the event of an indecisive election result leading to a hung parliament. Indeed, a large This article was originally published in proportion of the difficulties experienced by The Political Quarterly, vol. 69 no. 2, the Liberal/SDP Alliance in its general April–June 1998. election campaign came about because of the journal of liberal democrat history 19: summer 1998 3 bour clawed its way back? lic signal that the Liberal Democrats campaign unfolded, opinion polls Replacement was old-fashioned could have a role to play after the pointed to a hung parliament as the in another sense, too. It assumed that general election. There was a wide- most likely result, since Labour and there was only room in British poli- spread assumption that, in the event the Conservatives appeared to be so tics for two major parties, conced- of a hung parliament, Kinnock’s La- evenly matched. Inevitably, coverage ing that the Liberal Democrats could bour Party would be able to take a of the Liberal Democrats concen- only advance by pushing another weakened Liberal Democrat parlia- trated on this possibility. Press sto- party aside, thereby creating an al- mentary party for granted, and that ries speculated about the price that ternative, but still bi-polar, party Ashdown would have little negoti- Ashdown would demand for sup- alignment. Yet the Liberal Demo- ating leverage. porting a minority government or crats, like their predecessors, believed Ashdown, then, used his March entering a coalition. He began to that this two-party system itself speech in Nottingham to spell stress that electoral reform at West- needed to be broken. They spoke of out his general election position, and minster was the essential starting the multi-party world which would to toughen his stance in advance of point for any discussions. flow from the introduction of a pro- the coming campaign. ‘Is Labour Equidistance survived as the Lib- portional voting system. As the La- better than the Tories? Or are the eral Democrat position during the bour Party exhibited its first signs of To r ies better than Labour? The an- general election campaign, but real interest in constitutional reform swer is simple. They’re just as bad as only just. Leading Liberal Democrats (marked also by the establishment of each other!’ It was at about this time managed to stick to the line that they Charter ), the logic of this analy- that Ashdown started comparing the were just as likely to cooperate with sis pointed Ashdown in a different other two parties in television inter- John Major’s Conservatives after the direction from the rhetoric of his views to being ‘run over by a train election as they were to link up with leadership campaign. In practice, re- placement was still-born, and quickly forgotten. At first, Ashdown’s instinct was to By the end of the 1992 campaign, adopt a clearly anti-Thatcherite po- equidistance appeared battered beyond sition. For the first years of the Lib Dems’ life, few people were inter- repair, especially since the prospect of a ested in any position he took, as the hung parliament seemed to have new party struggled for attention and against extinction. But, as Mrs squeezed the Liberal Democrat vote in the Thatcher passed her tenth anniver- final days before polling. To many leading sary as Prime Minister, Ashdown told a Liberal Democrat conference in Liberal Democrats, moreover, equidistance that, whatever happened after felt like a fraud. the following election, ‘she will have to go.’ In the event, the Conserva- tive Parliamentary Party got there or by a bus. The result is just the Neil Kinnock’s Labour Party, despite before him. Mrs Thatcher was re- same.’ what was perceived to be a growing placed by John Major as leader of In the event of a hung parliament, list of policy overlaps between the the Conservative Party in Novem- Ashdown said, the Liberal Demo- two opposition parties. Even Scot- ber . crats would be guided by policies tish Liberal Democrats, who had The Liberal Democrat position and not by personalities. He told his drawn up plans for a Scottish Par- for the election was first for- party conference that he was not es- liament in direct negotiations with mally set out in a key passage of pecially attracted to the idea of Labour through the Constitutional Paddy Ashdown’s speech to his par- working with either of the ‘two old Convention, and who therefore were ty’s spring conference in March parties’, but would do ‘what is right under pressure to accept that the . He had been careful to wel- for stable, effective and reforming agreed devolution package should come Major’s rise to the premier- government.’ There was a little-no- take precedence over all other con- ship, remarking that it might herald ticed hint here of strategic tensions stitutional reforms, insisted that pro- a ‘more rational’ style of politics. to come. Was there any real prospect portional representation for West- Ashdown had eschewed Labour’s that putative partnership with the minster was a higher priority. Only tactics of branding John Major a Conservative Party could provide a reform at Westminster would en- ‘Thatcher Mark ’, and he was criti- reforming government of the sort trench a Scottish Parliament, they cal of Neil Kinnock’s inflexibility in that Liberal Democrats would find argued. Since Labour was opposed the face of a changing Tory party. attractive? to electoral reform for the House of Kinnock himself was giving no pub- As the general election Commons, this enabled the Liberal 4 journal of liberal democrat history 19: summer 1998 Democrats to unite around the municated a determined and distinc- The job of the Liberal Democrats proposition that both other parties tive approach to politics. Above all, in the coming Parliament, he said, could be treated equally. his party survived an election which was threefold: ‘to create the force To outside observers, however, might have led to disaster. Only a powerful enough to remove the To- equidistance came to look more like few years before, the Liberal Demo- ries; to assemble the policies capable fiction than fact. For some, this was crats had languished in single figures of sustaining a different government; simply because the Liberal Demo- in the opinion polls.