Last week Sky News revealed that a ‘Lib Dem adjacent’ think tank – the Britain Project - is expected to be launched at the party’s Autumn Conference.  The news follows on from the launch in March of Verdant, a progressive economic think tank aligned to the Green Party, and the setting up in January 2026 of Prosper UK, a campaign vehicle for one nation Conservatives attempting to drag their Party’s policies back to the political centre.

Some might expect the CEO of a think tank that sees itself as “of the radical centre” to be concerned by others parking their think tanks on its lawn.  In fact, I believe increased ‘think tankery’ has the potential to help us all.  

Radix was established in 2016 in the wake of the Lib Dems’ disastrous 2015 election results.  Despite having as its Policy Director, the former Lib Dem News Editor and Policy Committee stalwart, the much missed David Boyle, it was never intended to be Lib Dem adjacent.  Indeed, its founders regarded the party as finished and were much more interested in spreading radical centre ideas across the wider political spectrum. 

The Big Tent Ideas Festival was set up a year later by the former Conservative Science Minister, George Freeman MP, and Tony Blair’s former Head of Office, Baroness Sally Morgan.  Their aim was to provide a new platform for ideas from outside the Westminster bubble to help the country move beyond the previous year’s Brexit Referendum.      

The two merged in 2022 becoming a registered charity (the Big Tent Foundation) and over the next couple of years identified complex system change as the focus of Radix Big Tent’s work.

So, unlike the new wave of think tanks, Radix Big Tent not only is, but is required to be, politically independent, working across all the main Parliamentary parties.  Our fellows include current and former Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem politicians, while our Investment Systems Council also extends to SNP Parliamentarian, Kirsty Blackman.  Our staff will be at all the main party conferences this year, including Reform UK and the Green Party, and would be delighted to meet with any others who might be attending.

But this different positioning doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from each other and work together in areas of common interest.   Indeed, we have already had preliminary discussions with Verdant about investment system reform and Prosper UK about housing delivery.  I hope the Britain Project – whose founders include our fellow Monica Harding MP – will be similarly open to collaboration.

Notwithstanding this, these new think tanks will need quickly to learn the hard lessons that it has taken us half a decade to master at Radix Big Tent.   

All political parties have their own policy-making processes and think tanks - whether aligned or not - need to be clear how they will add value to public policy development rather than just duplicate existing work.  

Furthermore, they need a diversity of funders to avoid being ‘captured’ by a particular political interest: the Lib Dems’ previous think tank, CentreForum, which was bankrolled by hedge fund manager Paul Marshall - who went on to support Brexit and found GB News - provides a salutary warning in that regard. 

Finally, they need a clear theory of change.  For years, the Lib Dems have been leading proponents of site value rating with almost no political cut through; a Lib Dem adjacent think tank will need to have a strategy to convert new ideas into policy and political action.  Otherwise, it will just be another publishing house for glossy reports to sit on a shelf.

Radix Big Tent has made plenty of mistakes and gone down a number of dead ends during my time in charge, so it is not for me to set out for these newcomers the strategies appropriate to each of them to overcome such obstacles.  Nevertheless, we have found ways that work for us:

We have the advantage of being able to work with radical thinkers across political lines, so that we have been able to influence the government of the day whatever its colour, rather than having to wait for our ‘client’ to take power or needing to change our stripes with the political wind.

We have – touch lots of wood – a wide range of funders, from charitable foundations, to commercial sponsors, to individuals, avoiding dependence on a single source.  

And we can increasingly point to ways in which we have influenced the political agenda: from our Housing Commission recommendations, two thirds of which have been implemented by the current Government; to our New Capital Consensus programme, which is transforming the language used to understand the investment system; to our resilient democracy project, which - working with others - is helping to shape the content of the Representation of the People Bill.

The criticism of Keir Starmer - that he was overly cautious and ineffectual - was perhaps unfair, but his inability to tell a coherent story about the policies he was implementing was his downfall.  

In contrast, Andy Burnham seems to be a great storyteller: the risk he faces is that he will not have the policies to deliver on the stories he is telling.  

Supporting the new Government in delivering these policies is a task for all think tanks and we will all benefit from the widest possible range of creative solutions to the challenges the UK faces.  All power to Verdant, Prosper UK and the Britain Project – we look forward to working with you.

Rate this post

Leave a comment

Please login or register to leave a comment on this post.