Last night I received a very sad email, it was from Jeremy Ambache to let me know that he has resigned from the party. Doubly sad I guess because he, unlike me, supported the coalition. As someone who has devoted 30 years to the party his decision has not been taken lightly and cannot be dismissed as a fit of pique. Whether those on the right who are extremely comfortable with the way things are going, like it or not, as others have pointed out 68% of the membership see themselves as on the left of the spectrum and yet we find ourselves with a right wing leadership, even contemplating it seems, pacts with the Tories.
While I fully appreciate all Jeremy's concerns about the kind of decisions we are now party to and the lack of political leadership from our cabinet members, I have to say my personal view remains that I have to stay and fight for the values which lead me to join the party in the first place - I haven´t changed - the party hasn´t changed, but it will beyond recognition if we lose our core activist base. The fact is however much we trumpet the very real successes we have achieved in government, they are a bit like the bunch of flowers the abusing partner brings when he has punched his "loved one" in the face! Its difficult to see the good because of the damage that has been done and until our leadership gets that no amount of shouting about what we have achieved will have any impact at all.
2011 is going to be a tough year - ít may all end in tears, but for the moment I trust, however unbearable some of what is being done in our name is, enough of us will hang in there and see us through what hopefully will turn out to be a blip in the party´s history.
In the meantime I thank Jeremy for all he has done for this party and his community, I know he will continue to work for the things he believes in and I trust maybe one day, our party will again be a home for him.
2 comments:
As a supporter of democracy and electoral reform...
I sincerely hope people dissatisfied with 'their party' (which ever party it is), will campaign strongly to get AV in place of FPTP - and will consider running against their parties official candidates on our first AV based election.
Under FPTP people often daren't vote against the official candidate for fear of their parties vote being split and so a different candidate/party being 'let in'.
In practice this risk of splitting means unofficial candidates rarely run, as it is pretty hopeless.
Under AV unofficial candidates can get support without splitting their parties vote (a preference can also be given to the official candidate). This means being an unofficial candidate is no longer hopeless.
This should not be seen as an attack on a party - the people elected on a parties ethos (even if not with the parties blessing) will strengthen the parties by making them more representative, and so strengthen our parliament, government and democracy.
You make massive assumption that the AV vote will be won. I think it won't, and where will that leave the Lib Dems ?
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