SEIMER1234

And, breathe.

Yes, after a long tough term, and an even tougher week of campaigning, the Eleventh General Election is over, and the result are known. Yes, coalition building is going on as I write, and the dawn looks set to break on another fresh new term. How exciting.

However, I take this time to pause and reflect, on the shoddy state of liberalism in the UK at the moment, and what we as libertarians must do to prevent the same happening to our ideology and party.

Firstly, we must look at what happened to the liberal parties. They lost a collective 5 seats this election, and the Lib Dems are now the 4th largest party in the country, behind the Tories, Labour and LPUK. The classical liberals remain the 5th largest.

For two parties that after the last GE formed a government, this is a damning inditement of what has been, in many eyes, a term marked by chaos, confusion and broken promises from the two parties. The Liberal Democrats broken promises did not largely come from their time in government, yes most certainly they had government policies that conflicted with their election promises however these did not amount to a true betrayal of their ideology. Instead, the Liberal Democrats threw their supposed “liberalism” out the door, by joining the TLC opposition made up of far left, avowedly socialist parties. The Liberal Democrats threw their vision of a liberal Britain out the door once it because politically beneficial. And then, we have the Classical Liberals, whose betrayal is much clearer to see. The broken promise that perhaps defined the failed Liberal government was their u-turn on another referendum. It was a U-turn that would haunt them, and, some would argue, be the downfall of their government. The Classical Liberals all too often looked like they had been taken captive, with a leadership that stayed silent when Liberal Democrats pursued illiberal left-wing policies, perhaps best illustrated by PM Wagbo’s anti-nuclear weapons sentiments displayed on Twitter. While this did lead to backlash on the Classical Liberal back-benches when I myself tweeted asking Twisted to state his opinion on Wagbos comment I received radio silence. For far, far too often, the Classical Liberals abandoned their principles to appease a Liberal Democrat party that knew full well, in this supposed “coalition of equals”, one party was much more equal than the other.

However, that is not the reason I am writing this article. I am not writing this article to outline the flaws of the liberal parties. I am writing this op-ed to warn my own party of what happens when we abandon our values. While I still believe, I truly do, that the ideology and policies of the LPUK are the same now as it was when I joined, I too was unable to ignore the sensationalist, extreme campaign and twitter antics that we saw over the general election. It’s clear to me that there was a change in our rhetoric during the general election, a change for the worse. It’s a change which to far too many has confirmed their view of our party as far right. The LPUK can not abandon our values of personal and economic freedom, and we can not allow our rhetoric to mirror that of the far right.

If history has thought us anything, it’s that a party abandoning its values leads to electoral oblivion. The LPUK must heed that lesson. The LPUK must continue to offer a socially and economically libertarian vision for the United Kingdom’s future, in the same way, the Liberal Democrats and Classical Liberals must offer a socially and economically liberal vision. Our nation can not slip back into a two-party system of Tories vs Labour. Our discourse needs a liberal and libertarian alternative to the ideologies of the establishment parties. The LPUK, Lib Dems and Classical Liberals must dare ourselves to do better and to stand up bravely for the ideals we are elected on.

This piece was written for The Daily Telegraph by seimer1234 MP as an opinion editorial. The views expressed are not necessarily representative of those of The Model Telegraph Media Group, its editors or its proprietors. The MTMG thanks semier1234 for his opinion editorial.

Seimer1234 is the President of the Libertarian Party UK and the incumbent MP for Buckinghamshire.