Success in the 2017 general election is a roving benchmark. Jeremy Corbyn is hailed as a hero by his party for losing well, far in excess of expectation. Theresa May’s leadership is in crisis because she won so badly, throwing away what looked like an insuperable advantage.

Tim Farron quits as Lib Dem leader Read more

It is hard to measure the Liberal Democrat performance on such a variable and relative spectrum. Tim Farron improved his party’s position, but not by much. Their tally of seats increased from 8 to 12, which is a surge of 50% in the most generous account but not an event to move the needle on any political seismographs.

Yet Farron has not made electoral under-performance the basis for his resignation. He cites the impossibility of combining a devout evangelical Christianity with his public duties as leader of a political party. Forced to choose between political diplomacy – phrasing his beliefs in ways that do not offend his party’s target audience – and uncomplicated faith, free of media interrogation, he has chosen the latter.

It is certainly true that Farron’s awkward responses to questions about the morality of homosexuality spoiled the start of the Lib Dems’ election campaign. In the crucial first days of the contest, it seemed that the theology of gay sex was the only issue on which the leader was expected to pronounce, when he wanted to have a conversation about Brexit and how appalling it would be. On Europe he took a brave position that might well be vindicated in time, but it did him too few favours on 8 June.

For a small party facing a squeeze between two much bigger players in a polarised race, there are not many opportunities to land a message with the electorate. Farron’s cavilling and hesitations cut through to the audience he badly needed to impress: the Tribe of Remain – metropolitan, urban, young, liberal, wholly relaxed about diverse sexual orientations in a way that, for all his intellectually cultivated tolerance, the Lib Dem leader plainly was not.

The tone of Farron’s resignation statement made his choice sound rather like a martyrdom. “To be a political leader – especially of a progressive, liberal party in 2017 – and to live as a committed Christian, to hold faithfully to the Bible’s teaching, has felt impossible for me,” he said.

But it needn’t have been this way. By his own omission the awkwardness arose not necessarily from his beliefs but the clumsy way in which he handled them, and the perception of moral squeamishness. His voting record was liberal, his manifesto was liberal – and yet somehow his adherence to the doctrine contained in the very name of his party came across as hesitant. It seemed to be in conflict with the portion of his heart devoted to Christ. And that kind of contortion does not look like strong leadership.

The awkwardness arose not necessarily from his beliefs but the clumsy way in which he handled them

There will surely now be a renewal of debate about the compatibility of conspicuous Christianity and high office that surfaces routinely in British politics, like a half-observed religious festival. Alastair Campbell’s famous prohibition on Tony Blair “doing God” in public will be paraded again as evidence. And yet the trial of Timothy the Martyr also seems quite specific to a set of expectations applied to the Lib Dems. Theresa May is a devout Christian, the daughter of a clergyman, but any tension between her politics and her innermost interpretation of scripture remains largely unexplored. When asked, she managed to close down speculation about any ethical discomfort that gay sex might provoke in her with answers that were more succinct and unequivocal than Farron’s. So her relationship with the Almighty was never raised as a potential disqualification for the job (although there might be other issues jostling for that distinction). Meanwhile, the prime minister is in the midst of negotiations on a government pact of sorts with Ulster’s Democratic Unionist Party – a reactionary vehicle founded in Protestant fundamentalism.

But, of course, the DUP does not claim to be liberal, and nor does May. Farron’s problem was not that his creed could never be squared with the policies of his party – there is a long and noble history of liberal Christianity. His problem was that the culture of contemporary liberalism is avowedly secular. And in the election just passed, the Lib Dems needed more than ever to pitch themselves as the party of judicious moderation, of being in-between, of standing neither for the radical left nor the reactionary right. The only available space for Farron on the political spectrum was as the rationalist, evidence-led, centrist compromise candidate; sombre and serious, not happy or clappy. He had to be the opposite of zealous, evangelical and pious. And whatever his political inclinations, arguments on Brexit or voting record might have been, that was one pose he could never credibly strike.