Lib Dems we are, but approve Cameron policy on Lanka

Ranga Jayasuriya spoke to Paul Speller, Head, International Office of Liberal Democrats, the junior partner of Britain’s ruling coalition and Jonathan Fryer, Liberal Democrats’ London Chairman about the past and future of liberalism and Sri Lanka.

What is Liberal’s position on Sri Lanka, the allegations of war crime leveled against the government and the suspension of the GSP Plus preferential tariff concessions?
“We are part of the government. So, our policies would be part of the government policies. We are in favour of reconciliation, peace process and building an all inclusive society,” says Speller who is also the Head of the International Office of Liberal Democrats. There are 13 Lib Dem members in the EU parliament. He adds: “They prioritize human rights and take human rights to the fore front. They also take note of satisfactory changes in post war conditions’’, is the rejoinder.

Quite a long wait for the British Liberals - 80 odd years they sat in the Opposition until this year’s general election when they joined the Conservatives to form a coalition government. The Liberals were close to extinction and in 1951 they were able to poll a mere two per cent of the vote. There had been quite a number of ups and downs in their checkered political past and they finally made a come- back.
“What did they learn from being in the opposition for so long?” “The important thing when spending years in the opposition is not to forget your principles,” says Speller. “At times, even Tony Blair and the Conservatives moved to the centre but we were already there. As a centre party we felt we should keep our distinct liberal identity. We had to stick to our principles and politics became the politics of the centre. People also realized that it should not be one party or the other”.
The Liberal party merged with the social democratic party of the breakaway Labour MPs to form the Liberal Democrats in 1988. What lifted the Lib Dems from poor electoral showing in the past was a change in the way the party mobilized its resources in the election campaign - shifting from blanket coverage of every constituency to concentrate resources on winnable seats.
In 1983, Liberals won almost as many votes as the Labour, but under the Britain’s first-past-the-post system, Liberals won only 20 seats against Labour’s 200.
The tactical concentration of resources since the nineties has been successful and this won the Liberals more seats. The last election was a paradox. Liberals won more votes (23%), but five seats less than the previous election (57 vs 62).
Liberal Democrats have been campaigning to change the electoral system and a referendum scheduled for next year, will decide whether Britain moves away from the first-past-the-post system. The proposed electoral system is a combination of PR system and the first past the post system.
According to one opinion poll, Liberals would have won 79 seats instead of 57, had the new electoral system been in place. If the election is held under the PR system, which, in fact, Liberals wanted to implement, Lib Dems would have won 161 seats.
Fryer says that the Liberals don’t want to change the system because they could win more seats. “We want to change it because it is outdated as the first-past-the post-system was introduced in the previous century.”
Liberals also want an elected Senate. The current House of Lords comprises of appointed members representative of various expertise as well as 93 others who inherited a place in the Senate. But would elected members of a future senate be equally enlightened as their predecessors were?

Enliightened

Speller argues: “In the end, people make the choice and their selection is enlightened by definition. They have the power of people and are backed by them. Of course, not every MP is enlightened, but at the end that doesn’t matter. Democracy means that people choose a person who represents them; it doesn’t matter whether that person is educated or uneducated, black or white, tall short, fat or thin, female or male. Yes some will be enlightened, some may not be.”
Liberalism is on the move in Europe with varying success. But, why doesn’t it make a dent here in this part of the world? At least, it is the popular narrative that Liberalism in Europe is centric. “For liberalism to take root, you need a system where there is space for a third party to operate. It had been quite difficult even in UK,” says Fryer.
But, that Liberalism is an exclusively European phenomenon and is misleading - and it had been so 30 years back, when the only liberal party from the southern hemisphere was the tiny South African Liberal Party.
When dictatorships began to fade in Latin America, liberal parties sprung up there. And the headquarters of Liberal International organisations based in London conducted an aggressive campaign to promote liberalism worldwide.
Today, liberal parties are in the government in the Philippines, Thailand and in Singapore. Rajiva Wijesinghe, former president and current International Secretary of the Sri Lankan Liberals is now a Member of Parliament of Sri Lanka. Speller says that Indonesia may decide to join the Liberal International soon. “We love to have a sister party in India, but we don’t,” he adds. He adds that liberalism has made a comeback in Germany, Sweden, UK and Holland.
“Politics has moved to the centre. Everybody talks about market economy.”
About the coalition, he says that Lib Dems were able to agree with quite a broad range of issues with the Conservatives.
“They are no longer a very right-wing party they use to be.”
Liberals were considered to be the party of limited government.
But Nick Clegg, Liberal leader and deputy prime minister argued differently recently at the House of Commons: “A liberal state cannot be equated to a particular level of government spending as a proportion of GDP... It is perfectly possible to have a state that spends large amounts in a manner that is liberating...” Is it a new line of thinking? Fryer says liberalism has been through a process of evolving and would continue to be so. After all, government intervention to provide minimum welfare was a long standing Liberal idea running into early 1900. It was the Liberal government of Herbert Henry Asquith that founded the basic welfare state in Britain. But, would the Liberals be undermined by the overwhelming Tory presence in parliament?
Speller says: “We have a general agreement with conservatives which we honour. However, we want to bring distinctive liberal ideas to the coalition. We want to continue to be a progressive party. We aren’t going to stop being a progressive party to be in the coalition. We want to maintain our liberal identity. It doesn’t mean we want to cause trouble. What it does mean is that we will argue for liberal policy bills; at the end the coalition would decide what it does.”
Lib Dems have 22 ministers in the government. Nick Clegg, the leader answered prime ministers’ questions in the house of commons because David Cameron is in the US, and this is the first time a liberal leader answered prime minister’s question since 1922.

Future

What would be the future of liberalism? The world is becoming liberal— Liberalism is making progress in Thailand, Philippines, Senegal and South Africa. People are no longer buying those black and white solutions. Liberal values are appealing and people like them. But, it is the fear of the unknown that is keeping people from voting for the Liberals.
Speller says, “When they go to the polling booth, they think, yes, I like that, but still I better vote the other way. Because, I am worried where it would lead. Therefore our task is to persuade people that his is not a wasted vote, but a vote for progressive ideas.”
Despite the recent election success, an acid test lies ahead for British Liberal Democrats.
“We always have intellectual strength, but now liberalism is the proof that it works in practice; certainly in UK, the future process is also to show that we are good at governing as well,” Speller quips. So will there be a liberal government by 2015? This is an over optimistic expectation.
“We certainly would have more MPs, but a Liberal government is most unlikely,” says Fryer. “We won’t see a liberal government until we have a proportional representation system and in the end it would be a coalition.’’
Speller adds: “If we win the referendum next year, perhaps you will witness quite a different thing in UK. UK is slow to change. But, something is happening.”