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Liberator Questions Leadership Contenders 0 Liberal Gains Across 0 Are they up to the job? - Liberator questions leadership contenders 0 Liberal gains across Europe - David Grace 0 Tiananmen comes to Khartoum - Rebecca Tinsley Issue 396 - June 2019 £ 4 Issue 396 June 2019 SUBSCRIBE! CONTENTS Liberator magazine is published six/seven times per year. Subscribe for only £25 (£30 overseas) per year. Commentary .......................................................................3 You can subscribe or renew online using PayPal at Radical Bulletin ...................................................................4..5 our website: www.liberator.org.uk ARE THEY UP TO THE JOB THEN? .................................6..10 Or send a cheque (UK banks only), payable to Liberator has sent a questionnaire to Liberal Democrat leadership “Liberator Publications”, together with your name contenders ever since 1988 and full postal address, to: IN - OUT - PENDING ......................................................11 Liberator Publications Whoever becomes the next Liberal Democrat leader, they can look Flat 1, 24 Alexandra Grove forward to an overflowing in-tray. Sarah Green takes a look inside London N4 2LF WHAT THE BBC WON’T TELL YOU ............................12..13 England Liberals saw a renaissance in the European Parliament elections, despite the media emphasis on the populist right, says David Grace THE LIBERATOR COLLECTIVE IDENTITY POLITICS BEYOND BREXIT .....................14..15 Jonathan Calder, Richard Clein, Howard Cohen, Everyone at York was given a copy of Vince Cable’s pamphlet, which Gareth Epps, Catherine Furlong, David Grace, raises issues of realignment, political identity and the B word. Susan Sarah Green, Peter Johnson, Wendy Kyrle-Pope, Simmonds discusses why Tim McNally, George Potter, Stewart Rayment, Kiron Reid, Harriet Sherlock, Mark Smulian, TIANANMEN AND DARFUR William Tranby, Claire Wiggins, Nick Winch COME TO KHARTOUM ..................................................16..17 The bloody crackdown on democracy activists in Sudan was Liberator (ISSN 0307-4315) is printed by encouraged by other Arab dictatorships as a waring to their own Lithosphere people, says Rebecca Tinsley Studio 1, 146 Seven Sisters Road, LONDON N7 7PL “WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?” .....................18..19 LIBERATOR Losing contact with ordinary voters cost Labor an Australian election everyone expected it to win. Steve Yolland reports 0 was founded in 1970 and is produced by a IT’S MORE THAN MONEY .............................................20 voluntary editorial collective. Inequality is not just financial, liberals should tackle unequal power too, says Oliver Craven 0 acts as a forum for debate among radical liberals in all parties and none NO CASH FOR SCHOOLS.............................................21 A funding crisis has emerged in education. John Bryant suggests some ways to solve it 0 welcomes written contributions on relevant topics, up to 1800 words POOR PERFORMANCE ..................................................22..23 Have the Liberal Democrats got anything to say to people in poverty, We reserve the right to shorten, alter or omit any and would they listen anyway? Geoff Payne sets the scene for this material. year’s Social Liberal Forum conference DATA PROTECTION IT WASN’T JUST BREXIT THAT WON IT ...................24 Howard Sykes looks at how local election success set up the European We hold subscribers’ names and election results, and even got some national help addresses to fulfil our contract to provide LETTERS ...........................................................................25..26 copies of Liberator, and to contact them about their subscription. We do REVIEWS ..........................................................................27 not pass details to third parties - unless required by law - with the exception Lord Bonkers’ Diary .........................................................28 of our distributor, who deletes the files used for address labels after use. To alter or remove your details or discuss any Cover: Christy Lawrance enquiry please contact: [email protected] INTERNET Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.liberatormagazine.org.uk Blog: http://liberator-magazine.blogspot.co.uk Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/ groups/6806343091 ROUND OBJECTS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT Did the Lib Dems really, as some claim, toy with Last summer something close to panic consumed using the f-word before settling on Bollocks to the party leadership about what was to become Brexit as the euro election campaign slogan? Change UK. It was well-known that Chuka The choice paid off. As a simple and direct slogan it Unmunna was running an informal whipping was unimprovable and unmistakable, and a welcome operation among dissident Labour MPs and that contrast to past general election campaigns that have this was probably the precursor to a new party. tried to emphasise complicated ideas based on the It was also feared that this novelty would seduce party’s copious repository of unread policy documents. hordes of Lib Dem voters and most of the party’s While this might be hard to replicate in a general major donors. This drove some of the more foolish election (‘Bollocks to not putting a penny on income ideas about supporters and non-MP leaders tax for the NHS’ doesn’t have the same ring) the idea rejected at York (Liberator 395). of having a few clear messages and putting them with Indeed, a few people who should have known better conviction can be. called for the party to cave into the TIGgers. Bollocks to Brexit also showed the party being They now look extremely silly, while those who were confident about saying something controversial and merely worried look to have unnecessarily lacked sticking to it, rather than listening to those who think confidence. it should never say anything definite in case somebody, Change UK managed to launch with no policy or somewhere, is offended. objectives beyond opposition to Brexit, no organisation Although the Lib Dems did almost ‘win everywhere’ and with a stance towards the Lib Dems of arrogant in the euro elections because of the proportional disdain - “step aside amateurs, some real politicians system, the thinking behind the Bollocks to Brexit are here” rather as elements of the SDP did long ago. campaign was quite different from those where the The new party’s European election result was party has been afraid to take a clear position in case it humiliating, and it soon after collapsed in the doesn’t ‘win everywhere’. remarkable sight of a party with no ideology still Repeating this clear approach in a general election managing to have a split. - on Brexit or anything else - will almost certainly Ex-leader Heidi Allen has indicated that she favoured alienate someone, but so what? tactical voting for the Lib Dems and she and her If the party is to establish the core vote of reliable associates may be on their way into the party, or some support that it needs it cannot do that by exploiting sort of deal with it. transitory local grievances or seeking to neither offend If so, any such deals should be local decisions, not a nor inspire. That approach, as has been seen, leaves national carve-up of the kind done with the SDP. the party with a paltry vote on which it can depend The five remaining in Change UK are by no stretch and means it has to put in huge amounts of person- of the imagination liberals and sit for seats where it power to win almost every vote afresh at each election. scarcely matters to their prospects whether or not the So if the recent campaign has alienated Brexit Lib Dems oppose them, and so may soon clear off to supporters that should be cause for neither surprise lobbying companies and think tanks. nor concern. Let them be alienated from the Lib Dems, Only one useful purpose possibly remains to the for the same reason that liberals are alienated from rump of Change UK - as a receptacle for Tories who the Brexit party and Ukip. cannot stomach a hard-Brexit leader, should one be A more pressing concern is how to hang on to the elected, but who do not wish to join the Lib Dems. support gained in the euro election. Some of it of Chuka Umunna’s defection to the Lib Dems is course depended on the strange circumstances of the welcome but he’ll have to work to prove he is any kind election and cannot be retained - it would be rather of liberal - and his vile suggestion that national service surprising if Michael Heseltine and Alistair Campbell should be restored must go. were out canvassing together for the Lib Dems - but The confidence displayed in Bollocks to Brexit is a much could. happy contrast to the panicked lack of confidence the Those who have voted Lib Dem once are more likely leadership displayed last summer towards an incipient to do so again than those who never have, and those rival, and since May’s elections the party is starting to who see the Lib Dems talking straight about their believe in itself again. concerns are even more likely to. Which is why, if the disaster of Brexit does happen, there should be no hand-wringing about ‘moving on’. The Lib Dems have shown what having confidence in what they believe can achieve, and should then become the party of ‘back in’. 0 3 LETTER OF THE LAW hinted that while it thought what the Lib Dems If a public election were counted on a different planned for diversity was praiseworthy it was pushing basis to that stated in advance there would be at the boundaries of legality. understandable outrage that voters had been Less than a week before voting closed - but quite misled. some time after it opened - legal advice was finally This though happened in the voting for Lib Dem secured. candidates on the European election lists, following This not only ruled that zipping was not permitted a legal challenge to the diversity criteria due to be when the only MEP was female anyway, but that employed. the other diversity criteria were also barred on the The problem goes back to a joint meeting at the grounds they were in potential conflict, for example spring conference in York of the candidates and that a disabled woman might be moved down to make campaigns committees, which decided to use ‘zipping’ way for a BME man.
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