The major outcome of the political silly season has been the squeezing of Liberalism, or rather Liberalism being stretched thin by the polemics of the parties to the left and right.
In Canada the Conservatives were victorious at the 2011 Canadian Federal Elections. In spite of Mr Harper's victory, the Canadian Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois showed that coalitions of parties representing the full left spectrum can get together over the issues in common and achieve things without losing their separate identities.
In spite of this the Liberals suffered at the ballot box, with the party's support being pulled apart and drawn off by the groups to left and right. The NDP on the other hand found itself in the role of official opposition. It is a role the New Statesman suggests could foster strong international cooperation beneficial to both the NDP and the British Labour Party (Fox, 2011).
As Labour have something to gain from Mr Jack Layton's party, they also have something to learn. Liberals too may have lessons to learn from their sister-party on the other side of the Atlantic.
Mr Layton's New Democrats and the formerly Mr Ignatieff-led Liberals spent their time in office up to the federal election fostering a spirit of cooperation. On numerous occasions they presented a 'United Left' to oppose Mr Harper's policies and to eventually pass a no-confidence motion after finding him in contempt of parliament (BBC, March 2011). The diversity and fragmented nature of the left has often been its weakness but the Canadian parties showed how it can also be its strength.
John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty (Mill, 1859) about truth and its divided nature:
'Conflicting doctrines, instead of being one true and the other false, share the truth between them, and the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth.'The divided left parties appeal between them to a wider core support than one single united left could on its own. Being divided allows these parties to put at their core something specific to them and key to their followers. This allowed the Liberal Party and the NDP to maintain their separate identities while cooperating for a common cause.
And such politics are central to coalition governments. For the Liberal Democrats their two truths are broken promises & compromise. The popular opinion of broken promises is not untrue but lacks the definition of the heretical opinion: that compromise demands tough choices.
But how can these two truths be reconciled? That is the question the Liberal Democrats face and the seemingly diametric division of the opposed ideas links to Liberalism's greater problem, that of overcoming the polemic discourse of politics. Lord Mandelson suggested that the Yes to AV Campaign, supported by Lib Dems, had picked the wrong fights and fought them badly, saying that:
'The groundwork was not done... and I think [the public] didn't see why AV... was really the solution to many of the problems they feel are in our political system.'Could it be that Liberals need to be more cynical in fighting their corner? The party has already begun to attempt a reforging of its separate identity and to make clearer what its fighting for (BBC, May 2011; Brogan, 2011).
(Mandelson, 2011)
Labour can certainly be considered guilty of some cynicism in their approach. At these most recent elections they adopted a tack of treating voters much like Mr Denis Healey once treated the party members that subsequently broke away to form the SDP (Crewe & King, 1995). They smeared their opponents and turned to their supporters with a 'You've got nowhere else to go'.
Those tactics split Labour then and in Scotland, where they were faced by a seemingly credible left alternative, Labour were ditched. The SNP, as the Lib Dems before them, picked up support by being (as Lib Dem Deputy Leader Mr Simon Hughes put it) a radical left alternative to Labour. The Lib Dems were the alternative until the coalition made that no longer appear to be true, driving voters away. Mr Clegg failed to understand his followers and Labour underestimated theirs.
Both have had a hard lesson in these elections. But have they learned anything? The Lib Dems where certainly punished harshly enough to not forget the past year in a long time, but Labour where strangely fortunate in their timing to have only been punished in Scotland. When presented with a credible alternative the Labour vote fragments as voters from across the left flock to the it. First the Lib Dems and now the SNP. Mr Clegg didn't understand his following, but the SNP's Mr Salmond appears to be wiser to the matter. While he continues to play the credible alternative those votes will be hard for Labour to recover.
To do so Labour must change. Its problems lie at the same core as those of Liberalism. Its own determination to drive home its polarising message breaks the support of fellow left parties through fear that it might monopolise those numbers itself. However this breeds resentment amongst its growing following creating numbers willing to jump ship at the first sight of something better. It also robs Labour of political allies when the chips are down.
So if Labour can gain a real ally in NDP leader Mr Jack Layton, so too can they learn something from him. The left is a diverse house and Cooperation is its strength. And with it comes more room for the constructive debate that Liberalism thrives upon.
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References:
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- Canadian 2011 Federal Elections:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13259484
http://www.elections.ca/home.aspx
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13264580
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13271083
+ Benjamin Fox's 'Canada’s realignment of the left'; May 2011;
+ BBC's 'Canadian government falls after no-confidence vote'; March 2011;
+ John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty'; 1859.
+ BBC's Peter Mandelson on AV; May 2011;
+ BBC's 'Clegg fights back with NHS pledge'; May 2011;
+ Benedict Brogan's 'Forget AV – Nick Clegg is winning the big battle'; May 2011;
+ Ivor Crewe & Anthony King's 'SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party';
Oxford Uni. Press, 1995.
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