The Liberal Democrats’ conference in Brighton is an opportunity to celebrate of the party’s best result in terms of MPs elected for more than 100 years. Understandably, few enough of those gathering here are reflecting on this also being the anniversary of the publication of the Orange Book.* Why revisit painful memories?
Being the curmudgeon that I am, though, I have found myself reflecting on this mostly forgotten anniversary. In an ideal world I might have spent time preparing a carefully researched paper on the impact of the Orange Book on Liberal Democrat politics, but procrastination and other commitments got in the way. So what follows is more a personal reflection with an element of justification for why I am somewhat immune from the euphoria about the Lib Dem revival of 2024.
For those not familiar with the intricacies of Lib Dem internal politics, the publication 20 years ago of the Orange Book, a collection of essays by prominent Liberal Democrats, triggered the nearest the party has come in recent decades to outright factionalism - between ‘economic liberals’ or Orange Bookers and ‘social liberals’, especially during the years leading up to the formation of the coalition government in 2010.
There are many reasons why Lib Dems might prefer it not to be mentioned. Those who wrote chapters or at some level welcomed its renewed call for economic liberalism, and who remain active in the party, may feel embarrassed about any association with its the subsequent trajectory of its co-editor and driving force, Sir Paul Marshall, who went on to become a Brexiteer, Tory donor, GB News investor and now as new owner of the Spectator.
This seems to vindicate those who saw it as a kind of neo-Thatcherite Trojan horse within the party. The left of the party will probably not wish to waste time trampling on its grave and as we all unite in celebrating revival and success why would anyone want to revive memories of past factionalising?
Its original launch before the 2004 conference was cancelled, primarily it seemed because David Laws, then a high profile front bench MP, had written a chapter advocating public health insurance, which was directly at odds with party policy. This might have been less of a problem at the start of a new parliament when the party might reasonably have been openly debating its future, but was ill-advised in the last autumn conference before a likely general election. It also appeared that other contributors hadn’t seen the chapter and didn’t agree with it.
The irony was, given the way the title was adopted as shorthand for a revisionist, free-market versiono of Liberalism, that much of the book was quite mainstream. David Laws’ introduction, which made a case for personal and economic, alongside political and social, liberalism, was controversial, as was Vince Cable’s chapter on liberal economics, ironically given his later status as the left-wing conscience of the coalition. Mark Oaten, also a bête noir of the party’s radical/activist/left wing, wrote a fairly anodyne chapter on crime albeit with the provocative title ‘Tough Liberalism’, but the other contributors, Susan Kramer, Chris Huhne, Ed Davey were hardly apostles of iconoclastic revisionism. And Steve Webb’s chapter on family policy appeared positively Fabian.
While I remember its publication as provoking a fiercely hostile reaction from much of the party, I was surprised to download the relevant edition of Liberator magazine (No. 298) to find a range of reactions and comments, including an article by David Laws himself. Even that scourge of ‘the right’, the late Simon Titley, was quite measured in his criticism, commenting that it ‘may spark a serious debate’ even if he then concluded the the book was part of an internal Lib Dem putsch and ‘more of a lemon’ than an orange.
It did, though, spark debate. There were two sort-of ripostes in the form of Liberator’s collection of essays Liberalism: something to shout about and Reinventing the State edited by Duncan Brack, Richard S Grayson and David Howarth. (Grayson was to join the Labour party during the coalition years). Two of the latter’s contributors had also written chapters in the Orange Book. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) published Beyond liberty: is the future of liberalism progressive?, with contributions by journalists, academics and leading Lib Dems, including some who had contributed to other volumes. Unsurprisingly given the IPPR’s historic closeness to the Labour party it appeared to be if anything pushing the Lib Dems in a Blairite direction. There was also the rather pedestrian Britain after Blair from the Orange Book stable.
Yet the arrival of the coalition made it all irrelevant. While the decision to go into government with the Conservatives may be seen as the culmination of an Orange Book project, there were plenty of people from the left of the party who were willing to participate in and support the coalition, relatively few high-profile defections and none among MPs. Despite unhappiness about austerity and individual measures of the coalition, few seemed to argue that we shouldn’t have entered into it.
The years after the 2015 debacle were a fight for survival with debates about political philosophy more or less irrelevant. While the Brexit referendum vote was catastrophic of itself, it did seem to give the Liberal Democrats a new sense of purpose as the one consistently pro-European party. And while the 2019 campaign ended in disaster, it did at least tee up some promising second places, which created a platform for the success of 2024.
Yet if this year’s general election saw an electoral revival for the Liberal Democrats, it hardly marked any kind of Liberal intellectual renaissance. There has been no recent wave of publications by leading party figures setting out their worldview. We still have the Social Liberal Forum and Liberal Reform as ginger groups in the party representing rival views on the merits of economic liberalism, but one could hardly describe the party as a ferment of ideas just now.
Instead the Liberal Democrats have ended as a party not much different from Labour in outlook, but which for reasons of history, demography and current local strength holds the ‘main alternative to the Tories’ franchise in certain constituencies, enabling it to win seats when the Tories are at a low ebb.
All of which, to get back to the Orange Book, suggests to me that ideological and intellectual disputations count for very little in determining the party’s electoral fortunes. We struggle to obtain much media coverage anyway or to get any detailed understanding of our policies. So it seems to be enough for the Liberal Democrats to appear a bit like Labour but a little less tribal or political to that we appear a safe alternative to vote for and can boost our parliamentary representation in a bad Tory year. All of which is fine but as a political raison d’être hardly inspiring.
While there are a few different reasons I give for joining the then Liberal party back in 1985, one is being inspired by a Jo Grimond article in which he argued that while the free market was more successful than socialism at delivering economic growth, it produced unequal outcomes and the challenge for Liberalism was to find ways of redressing that balance. Which sounded like something I could sign up to and so I joined the Liberals hoping to find a lively intellectual debate going on about this.
In fact by that stage Grimond was regarded by Liberals as having gone a bit eccentric and right-wing in his old age and that conversation was not happening. Yet debate about how the Liberal Democrats can offer something distinctive has occasionally threatened to break out and the publication of the Orange Book was one of those occasions. It seemed positive that books were being published, ideas debated. But sadly not now and the Liberal Democrats appear to have reverted to being (to borrow a phrase I vaguely remember hearing Nick Clegg use once upon a time) a collection of left-of-centre people who for one reason or another don’t like the Labour party.
So while it’s great that the Liberal Democrats have their highest number of MPs in over a century and thereby helped to deliver a richly deserved drubbing to a destructive Conservative government, I can’t help wishing that the party had something more distinctive to offer than simply being a vehicle for beating the Tories in areas Labour don’t seem able to reach.
* Although David Laws did wryly mention it at the Liberal Democrat History Group fringe meeting today.
