Libertarians and The Lib Dems

On my travels across t’interweb, I’ve come across a blog with an address that includes the words “reluctantly Lib Dem”. Now, I can understand why Liberal Democrats might be reluctant members of their own party – hell, Nick Clegg appears to be one of those reluctant members, and he is leading the party! But what did surprise me about this particular blog is it is written by a self-proclaimed Libertarian Liberal Democrat.

Now, there will be some members of the LPUK who will appalled by the concept of a Libertarian being in the Lib Dems. However, I have some sympathy with this position. After all, I am a Libertarian – part of being that is being both a Liberal and a Democrat.

My real problem with the Liberal Democrats, though, is that they are neither Liberal nor Democratic in anything other than name. Even the more Liberal wing of the party – the authors of the fabled (in some circles) The Orange Book - are statist politicians through and through. Take Nick Clegg’s position on the EU. He correctly identifies many of the EU problems, including the lack of accountability and the failure of the EU to communicate exactly what they exist for and what they are spending all of our money on. But rather than advocating withdrawal – or even just a more aggressive stance towards the EU – he wants a leaner, meander, extra supra-national level of bureaucracy with influence over this country. His instinct isn’t to reduce the levels of national and international government; rather just to reform them. This is clearly at odds with the natural instincts of a Libertarian.

Likewise, Vince Cable – Lib Dem media darling and the stand-up comic of the House of Commons – argues for less regulation and points out the inherent contradictions in having bodies created to manage the transition of companies from the public to private sectors now offering careers for life. I’d agree – the number of regulators in this country is astounding. But the point of departure for me from Cable’s view is down to the solution he offers – he argues for a super-regulatory body to supervise the work of the other regulatory bodies. Who regulates the regulators? Why, yet another regulator, of course! Cable’s inherently contradictory position shows the Liberal Democrat instinct is to deal with any problem that occurs through state intervention, whereas a Libertarian viewpoint would be to reduce the scope of government wherever possible.

Even for those more right wing members of the Liberal Democrats, the state will remain the answer to all problems. It is the bedrock of the part. You only have to look at the history of the party to see that. They were created by a merger of the Liberal party and the Social Democrats. The Liberal party were the equivalent of the Labour party in their heyday, and it was the Liberals, under Lloyd George, who began the whole process of creating the monolithic and bureaucratic Welfare State in this country. The SDP was created by the Gang of Four – a group of typical Labour party members who fled that party as the could not stomach the sixth form socialism of Michael Foot. Yes, there were less radical that the 1983 vintage Labour party. But they were in the Callaghan Labour government – an administration that had no issue with the expansion of the state.

So the ideological and historical background of the Liberal Democrats is fundamentally state-centric. I can understand why a Libertarian might be tempted to join that party, until you subject that party to close analysis. The Lib Dems are no more Libertarian than Labour or the Tories, and no-one is ever going to be able to change the state-centric outlook of Britain’s third party.

It is time for me to slip into broken record mode again, but there really is an alternative to the statist main parties in this country. Yep, time for a plug of LPUK. And I’m sure that some people will read this and think “well, LPUK is a tiny party.” And you know what? They’d be right. But one of the key ways in which LPUK will grow is through Libertarians actually joining that party. For me, it is a no brainer. On the one hand, Libertarians have parties they can join and where they will forever have to compromise their views and be in a small minority. On the other hand, they can join a party in alignment with their views and help to build up that party. No-one is going to convert Labour, the Tories or the Lib Dems to the Libertarian cause. The best way forward is to grow the ranks of the tiny Libertarian party in this country. By actually joining it.