My name is Bridget Harris and I am a recovering Liberal Democrat.

I used to work as a political advisor for the Lib Dems and latterly to Nick Clegg. I worked hard, I put up with a lot of rubbish, I believed in ‘the sake of the party’. I was loyal - dedicated, discrete. Everything a backroom advisor is supposed to be. Nowadays, I just call myself a liberal.

Bridget Harris used to work for the Liberal Democrats

But this week, it is with quite a bit of pain I have watched my former party implode so publicly once again over the handling of allegations of sexual harassment by Lord Rennard.

The issue has been the Lib Dem Lords’ appointment of Chris Rennard to the Party’s governing body, the ‘Federal Executive’ as the peers’ representative. (Keep up at the back).

To explain their actions, Lord Rennard’s most vocal defender Lord Greaves, posted on the activist’s website, Lib Dem Voice:

“The fact is that Chris Rennard is the most competent and effective election campaigner we have, and the person who knows most about how the party organisation has worked at national level and what a mess it is now. It’s that kind of thing that people voted for … It’s that kind of input that the FE needs.”

I’m sure there are many people who would agree with that statement. Lord Rennard was undoubtedly the party’s foremost campaigner for more than two decades. He could probably claim personal credit for the political careers of the 44 peers who voted for him.

But we need to unpick this a bit more - why has the rest of the party kicked up such a fuss at the appointment of this man?

The facts, as simply as I can put them, are as follows: Over a 10 year period a series of women made a string of allegations and complaints, about the behaviour of the then Liberal Democrat chief executive, Chris Rennard, regarding unwanted sexual advances and harassment.

I was one of them.

I first complained about his behaviour in 2003.

Much of that history was documented by a party-led investigation, headed by the businesswoman Helena Morrisey. In response to her findings (in which she criticised the party for failing to investigate Lord Rennard properly) Nick Clegg apologised, saying the party had ‘let women down’.

Lord Rennard Credit: Julian Simmonds

There was also a QC led investigation on the allegations specifically. The remit was to find if the complaints would meet the criminal threshold of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ and found that there was less than a 50 per cent chance of them doing so. Unsurprisingly, in a similar process, the police also didn’t find enough evidence to warrant a prosecution.

But Alistair Webster QC did find the evidence given by myself and the other complainants as ‘credible’ and that we deserved at the very least, an apology.

Lord Rennard, finally issued a statement in August 2014, where he ‘accepted’ the findings of Webster’s report, and also issued a qualified apology which admitted he may well have ‘encroached on the personal space of women.’

So let’s be clear about this – Lord Rennard, made a limited, qualified, admission, that our allegations were credible.

But these three investigations were far, far too late for there to be closure.

They were hampered by the party’s original failures: failures to deal professionally with the complaints at the time; failures to have robust workplace procedures; failures to document what had actually happened correctly.

The Lord Rennard inquiry happened on Nick Clegg's watch

Why did the Liberal Democrats allow this to happen?

I think Lord Greaves answers it himself - Chris Rennard was too important a figure to bring down so publicly. He was too powerful, his grip on the campaigning machine of the party, too influential.

It was inconceivable at the time to imagine, that the Liberal Democrats – the high-minded, morally unshakeable, defender of the weak - would be allowing its chief executive to invade anybody’s personal space.

But the only reason why Lord Rennard thought he may have had a chance at sleeping with me, was because he was such an important figure.

It was a classic case of abuse of power.

As the only significant parliamentary powerbase the Lib Dems now have, the Lords group clearly thought it was the right time to bring their friend back into the fold, despite his proclivities. I am sure they are content knowing that Chris might be a bit of a ‘naughty boy’ but retain a generational view that this is just a trivial matter.

It seems everyone else in the party disagrees. Activists quickly gathered a petition from members from over 120 local parties to demonstrate their frustration. The leader, Tim Farron, was forced into a position where he had to publicly call for Lord Rennard to step aside, once again.

Why is this still so relevant?

It feels, in the same week when true liberal values are being threatened and defended across Europe, the petty internal squabbles of this humbled party, are irrelevant. And largely, they are.

But the principles at stake are not. And that is about the core entitlement men and women can expect, of equality and protection in the workplace.

Every organisation must be aware of the power that is exercised by the people at the top, and have mechanisms in place to hold them to account. That is what liberalism is really about. And that is exactly what Lib Dem activists realised they had to do, this week.

It remains to be seen if the party will ever fully recover from the fall of grace of its most favoured servant. But at least the rest of us can heed the lesson.