Chief Executive of Radix UK since 2019, Ben is a political strategist, writer and broadcaster. In 2021, he led the merger between Radix think tank and the Big Tent Ideas Festival and he continues to take overall responsibility for Radix Big Tent’s growing programme to promote system renewal.
Former Chief of Staff and Campaign Director for then Liberal Democrat Leader, Tim Farron MP, Ben was also previously Chief Executive of the Movement for Reform Judaism and prior to that a Partner at City Public Relations firm, Luther Pendragon.
Lib Dems can shift the political gravity, if they want to
“Rarely has there been so much space on the political spectrum for the Lib Dems and so little appetite on their behalf to fill it.”
This is what I wrote at the weekend in the wake of the Tommy Robinson march, which, with the odd exception of Peter Kyle, filled many of us with horror. I was angry that all the main Parliamentary parties seemed so ready to dance to the far right’s tune, accepting the narrative that asylum seekers are illegal immigrants, immigration is necessarily ‘bad’ and the solutions are to be found in the waters of the English Channel rather than in the conditions which lead people to flee their homes in the first place. With every failure to draw a line in the sand, the centre of our political gravity is shifting further and further right.
It seemed to me that the Lib Dem leadership had absented itself from the summer’s debate around immigration and small boats despite being in a unique position to challenge this essentially dishonest narrative. There is not a single seat in which Reform are runners up to the Lib Dems and in only two seats are Reform even within 20% of the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems’ main challengers in the seats they hold and aim to win next time round, are the Conservatives, but the Conservative voters in these seats are to the left of the party, which is why they didn’t defect to Reform last time round.
As a result, the Lib Dems have a freedom to express liberal views about immigration (and a lot else) without it costing them electorally, while at the same time shifting the broader political debate.
So, I wrote a blog for Lib Dem Voice calling on the Liberal Democrats to be bolder on immigration and agreed it should be published yesterday, in the run up to the party’s conference.
I argued that the Lib Dems should say Britain desperately needed migrants to build new homes, maintain our NHS and provide the carers to look after our ageing population. I said they should explain that migrants could pay their own way by working while they waited the outcome of asylum claims. And I urged that we should treat refugees fleeing wars and terror as we would want to be treated ourselves, and that this is the very core of British values and fair play.
I spent yesterday at a workshop to consider how we might strengthen our democracy - phones off - so I missed Ed Davey’s interview in which he did, indeed, make a number of these arguments. If only I had published a day earlier, I would have looked prescient and influential; instead, I probably looked out of touch.
The question is whether Ed’s interview yesterday represents a shift in the Lib Dems' overall positioning or merely a tactical tweak designed to garner some media coverage in the run up to the party conference.
Their press team has certainly had a number of hits over the past few weeks, from the refusal to attend the Trump banquet to the SpongeBob meme in response to Musk’s weekend rant.
At the general election, Davey earned cut through with his centrist dad stunts in which he was prepared to make fun of himself in exchange for a bit of airtime. These photo opps were vaguely linked to more serious points Davey’s team wish to make – whether about the sewage crisis or tougher water regulators – but the punchline was often lost.
The latest range of communications could represent a return to the same media strategy, but based around more serious content. It may not entertain the press pack as much as a falling off a paddleboard, but it has the potential to get the party heard. The question is whether the party is now willing to say something of substance.
At that workshop yesterday which caused me to miss Davey’s immigration interview, the point was made that we are continually setting politicians up to fail. None of the measures to “stop the small boats” can offset the overwhelming push factors of war, famine and climate change which drive refugees to our shores, so with every failure, resentment grows, further fuelling the hard right.
As a result, if mainstream politicians accept without question the narrative that the only solution to Britain’s problems is to stop the boats, then they will continue to fail and those prepared to offer ever more draconian and hysterical solutions will continue to advance.
The question for the Lib Dems this weekend is whether they are now ready to occupy the vast political space which is open only to them by offering an alternative liberal narrative to the challenges we face as a country, or whether they will revert to type with retail offers designed to shift a few extra seats into the Lib Dem column, but incapable of holding back the incoming tide of populism.
Ben Rich is the Chief Executive of Radix Big Tent, the system change think tank. He is the former Chief of Staff of Tim Farron MP when he was leader and a current member of the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Policy Committee
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