What the Welsh Liberal Democrats are for - a reprise

Written by Peter Black and published in Liberator on Mon 15th Oct 2007

The challenge

The outcome of the 2007 Assembly elections was both frustrating and disappointing for the Welsh Liberal Democrats. Despite increasing our vote share in the constituencies, despite fighting a very professional all-Wales campaign, we failed for the second time to increase the size of our Assembly Group past six.

I have no desire to re-open the debate that the party entered into following the election. The outcome of those discussions was that we voted to go into a rainbow coalition with Plaid Cymru and the Tories only to see the nationalists walk away and sign up to a deal with Labour.

Our problem last May was our failure to connect with voters. We failed to make it clear to them what it means to be a Welsh Liberal Democrat. We went into the election with a detailed manifesto containing hundreds of radical policies, many of which we shared with the other parties. Although we pulled out three particular policy areas to major on in the election, these issues were not presented clearly or effectively and they turned out to be the same issues that the other parties were promoting as well. We failed to make them relevant or unique to us because we did not relate our positions to the day-to-day experience of ordinary voters. In other words we did not use our manifesto as a campaigning tool.

One reason for that omission is that we have spent too long mistaking our activity in the hallowed corridors of the Assembly for campaigning. Whilst the work we do in the Assembly is important, for a political party it can never be a substitute for honest groundwork and visible local community involvement. In many cases we did not get out into communities to deliver our message to voters. That has not been universal, because in those areas where we did work and where we did have a localised message that resonated with people, our vote not only held up but in some cases dramatically increased. It was the rest of Wales, the vast majority of communities where that did not happen.

In this respect we could learn a lot from Plaid Cymru. Our elected Parliamentarians and Assembly Members should be taking a lead, getting out onto the streets with other activists to talk and listen to people about their concerns and ideas. We should be using the real experience of our constituents and framing our policies in a way that they can identify with. In other words we need to put into practice on a national level what is at the heart of Welsh Liberal Democrat philosophy, devolution, localisation, community empowerment, real, genuine interaction with communities.

At a UK level we have a distinctive agenda based on civil liberties, freedom and the environment. Although we have tried to carry that agenda over into a Welsh context as yet we have failed to make an impact.

The opportunities

As a party we have to recognise the opportunities that now present themselves to us and make the most of them. The red-green coalition that has taken the reins of power in Cardiff Bay is based on a One Wales document that is vague in many parts and uncosted in others. It dodges important issues such as the future of nuclear power for the sake of political expediency. According to One Wales all the answers to Wales' problems lie with the government, not with the people who keep Wales going. It fails to address key policy matters such as class sizes for 7 to 11 year olds and the higher education funding gap between England and Wales. It relies shamelessly on gimmicks such as grants for first time homeowners and free laptops for kids that do not deal with the problems they are intended for, whilst squandering vital resources.

Plaid Cymru have sold their soul to the Labour Party. Since signing up for government that have voted down motions that would have reiterated their previous opposition to new nuclear power stations and to replace the Council Tax with a tax based on people's ability to pay. They have also abandoned policies that would have given us fair votes for our councils, renewable electricity energy targets for Wales, extra police officers on our streets and measures to deal with student debt.

We are in opposition, but we are far from insignificant. With 6 out of the 19 opposition Assembly Members we will have far more opportunities to scrutinise and to set the agenda both in the Assembly and in the press. We also lead four major Councils with a population of about a million people and are delivering improved services and better governance to them. That is a strong record to defend next May.

In May Labour recorded their worst result since 1918, they will be defending their record in government both in Cardiff and at Westminster and Plaid Cymru will be tied into that.

The Tories might have embraced the Welsh consensus but at their heart they remain committed to a right wing, market-led agenda which is out-of-touch with the views of the vast majority of the Welsh electorate. That is evident in their support for foundation schools and hospitals and their championing of PFI as a catch all solution to public service delivery irrespective of the evidence to the contrary. It is also the case that Tory proposals for tax cuts at a UK level could well lead to less money being available for services in Wales.

Welsh Liberal Democrats are not ideologically opposed to public private partnerships but we need to evaluate each contract on a case-by-case basis to ensure that we get value for money for the taxpayer, are able to protect the rights of workers and deliver top quality services.

Our principles

This is our chance to refine a distinctive, dynamic and radical message that will have wide appeal in future Welsh elections. At the heart of that message are the Liberal Democrat principles of fairness, honesty and justice. We are committed to tackling poverty and inequality, to taking the hard decisions that will improve our environment and our quality of life, that will remove barriers and offer people the educational and employment opportunities to better their lives and which will open up government and make it more transparent and accountable.

The Welsh Liberal Democrats are a party that believes in strengthening communities by giving people the power, the knowledge and the confidence to improve their own lives. Our distinctiveness lies in our liberalism, our messages reflect our principles:

We need to play to our strengths as champions of freedom, civil liberties and individual empowerment. Not so easy in an entirely Welsh context but certainly there are issues about ID cards and whether they will be used to access services, the way we are policed, the DNA database and the management of personal information by government and its agencies which can be used as the basis for campaigns.

We need to make the most of what is left of European funding to create a knowledge-based economy in which we have a proper science policy, in which investment in research leads to the creation of high quality jobs, encouragement for the growth of indigenous small businesses and where we take the green agenda and offer greater support for businesses which are developing environmental technologies, particularly renewable energy. We should also look at how we are developing recycling and ensure that there are mainstream markets for recycled products as well as facilities here in Wales to carry out that process.

In the area of social justice we should concentrate on removing the barriers that prevent people fulfilling their potential including inaccessible health care, bad housing conditions, a poor environment, inadequate educational achievement and lack of training. We need to create opportunities for those individuals by putting in place a support structure that will enable them to grow. This will include better child care, preventative health measures and the ability to access education and training without a punitive financial burden being imposed on them.

Safer communities are also a major issue. We need to provide the resources so that neighbourhoods can be adequately policed but also we need to tackle anti-social behaviour directly by working with young people and providing facilities for them so as to assist the police in encouraging them to vacate the streets.

Finally, we need to empower communities and the individuals that live in them by opening up government, making it more transparent and accountable and giving people a greater say in the decisions that affect their lives and that of their family. In particular we need to work with communities to maintain vital local services such as the local Post Office that helps to provide cohesion and a focal point for community life. We also need to ensure that governance structures are fit for purpose, accountable, transparent and representative. That requires as a minimum fair voting for local government.

None of this is new, it is standard fayre for a Liberal Democrat, but as I discovered when I first published my pamphlet, our positions on these matters are not commonly known. I do not want to be trapped in the position of arguing that it is not our message but the way we are selling it, but it is clear that we are not telling people often enough or loud enough what we stand for. Nor do we always stand up on controversial issues and advocate the liberal position. Instead we opt for the safe middle ground in the hope of minimising the number of people we might alienate.

What we are for

Despite not being in government the Welsh Liberal Democrats have a major role in prosecuting a liberal agenda. It should form the basis of our campaigning and of our work in ensuring that the new coalition government is giving the best deal for the people of Wales. We may be able to agree with other parties on some common elements but taken as a whole this is a unique Welsh Liberal Democrat vision, which values the individual and the inter-locking communities we live and work in. It is about empowering people, not dictating to them, about using the levers of government to remove barriers and create opportunity, not to run things from the centre. It is about working with local people to take on vested interests where that is necessary.

It is our strength as campaigners, enablers, environmentalists, civil libertarians, federalists, and social reformers that define what the Welsh Liberal Democrats are. Our time will come to implement these reforms as part of a left of centre Assembly Government but in the meantime we should use our position in local government to promote this agenda, whilst using our ideas and principles to redefine the role of the second opposition party in the Assembly as the one that can best reflect the aspirations and needs of people in their communities.