Liberal Democrats threaten to split

A group of senior shadow cabinet ministers have been weighing a split from the Liberal Democrats over a 'rightwards trend' in party policy, the Independent has learned.

The shadow ministers, all current Liberal Democrat parliamentarians, do not include anyone currently in the party's leadership board. The Independent understands that conversations about dissatisfaction with the policy direction that the party's leadership had taken started as early as late April, and have continued into June.

Trouble in paradise

While polling suggested that the Lib Dems were likely to form government or opposition after the last general election, they did so without the benefit of prior experience. Downing Street and Millbank Tower have passed between Solidarity, Labour, and Conservative occupants for years – with the odd Coalition! or Libertarian entrant for variety – but the Liberal Democrats have not found themselves leading a government or official opposition since the Wagbo government collapsed in January 2019.

Entry into official opposition was a triumph for Waffel-lol, effectively leading a turnaround of a party that just a year prior held a tenuous one-seat lead over Unity, a Youmaton-led centrist party that did not survive to see a second election. In doing so, she has leapfrogged the traditional juggernauts of Labour and the Conservatives to seriously challenge Solidarty's long-held polling lead, appearing likely to overtake them before the next general election.

As the party's success has grown, it appears that the long-dormant tension between the Orange Bookers and more centrist party members has re-emerged, freed of the more pressing concern of electoral wipeout or embarrassment. Any party leader struggles to constrain factionalism in a growing party. But the irony of the opposition leader's struggle to dethrone Solidarity – themselves a Labour faction that split off – will not be lost on her.

'Most conspiratorial'

As the Liberal Democrats struggled to move into their new role as the main right-wing opposition to the Solidarity government, tensions started to run high over trade policy. Sources told the Independent that the Lib Dems' Sheep and Wool (Innovation and Resilience) Bill – a largely inoffensive proposal that has only drawn serious objections for continuing a theme of the opposition setting up too many Quangos – was originally something different altogether.

"It was originally quite protectionist," a shadow minister told me. "Waffel came out against the Bill." Concerns were raised that the proposal was insufficiently committed to free trade, and the World Trade Organisation would take issue.

While free trade has been a cornerstone of economic liberalism, watering down the sheep and wool bill sparked fury amongst the ranks of more left-leaning shadow ministers.

"I'm on the verge of resigning from [shadow] cabinet," one said.

A split in the works

Unhappiness in the ranks continued with the introduction of the Economic Growth (Tax Burden) Motion, which called for a reduction of direct taxes – such as income tax and corporation tax – in favour of a shift towards indirect taxes, such as VAT.

"Personally, I'm worried about what I see as a rightwards trend with the tax motion," said one potential splitter.

Things reached an inflection point last week as concrete plans were set in motion to split off from the Liberal Democrats and reform the Social Democratic Party.

I'll get right into it. We're considering forming a new party, the SDP.
7th June 2024

Further criticism was levelled over the party's financial proposals, as well as a party discussion about Prince Andrew, the disgraced royal whose title of Duke of York was stripped by a Solidarity-written Act of Parliament in 2022.

One MP who was approached to join the new party told the Independent that they had ultimately declined. The MP who instigated the move remains in the shadow cabinet and the Lib Dem parliamentary party, and it is not known if any of the group still intend to move forward with their plans, or when they might set them in motion.

All of this will create a headache for Waffel-lol, who polls suggest stands a good chance of leading her party into No 10 after the next general election if the Conservatives opt to form a coalition or Labour continue to decline to lend support to another Solidarity government.

As the party surveys the electoral landscape, it will be difficult not to justify a continued rightwards motion to bring voters disenchanted by the Conservatives' decline into the Lib Dem fold. But doing so risks further alienating its parliamentarians who already feel as though they do not have an ideological home in the party.

Liberal Democrat leader Waffel-lol said:

The Liberal Democrats have always been a broad tent party, where we welcome the views and ideas of people from both the right and the left. We should not stifle the views of either wing. Has there been a relative rightward shift to its past? that’s undeniable however there is more to the party than just select individuals. Speculating on merely proposals by individuals as a guarantee of a right wing shift is not necessarily reliable as they’re merely proposals and haven’t yet been voted on by the party or ran through the proper process for approval yet. Furthermore, we always welcome everyone’s ideas and opinions and there is just as much a left wing shift in areas, as there are right wing. So it is not fair to present the party as favourable to one side. I am fully aware that there are areas that both the right and the left disagree and frankly each have their concerns however to see these appropriately addressed, speaking up, communicating these and putting forward alternative ideas is far more effective than going to the press.