Liberal Democrat discipline is gone, and the convulsions will deepen
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Version 0 of 1. After a long period of extraordinary discipline the Liberal Democrats are having a nervous collapse. The prominent dissenter Lord Oakeshott resigns from the party. In his farewell statement, Oakeshott reveals that his old friend Vince Cable knew about his latest manoeuvres aimed at destabilising Nick Clegg. Cable is in China on a trade mission, seemingly declaring loyalty to his leader every few minutes and condemning Oakeshott. He must have had little time to meet anyone from China. Back in the UK, Shirley Williams suggests that Clegg contemplated resignation. Clegg insists he did not. Polls of party members erupt on a daily basis. There was much speculation before the local and European elections that either David Cameron or Ed Miliband would be under intense internal pressure. It is Clegg who is feeling the burning heat. Each part of the sequence, a cross between a shootout at the OK Corral and an early scene from this summer's reunion of Monty Python's Flying Circus, would not alone raise the temperature to a point of danger. Oakeshott has been calling for Clegg to go for years. It is not surprising that after these dire election results he sought to fire a more deadly bullet. Cable's relationship with Oakeshott is comically ambiguous. The two are close, yet whenever Oakeshott makes his insurrectionary moves Cable disowns him – keeping his distance this time by heading for the other side of the world. Again, the two have danced or not danced in this way for some time, most recently at last year's party conference. And perhaps Williams misunderstood what Clegg had told her or others about his future intentions. The polls of party members do not show a majority wanting Clegg out. But it is the sequence as a whole that is extraordinary, after years of surprising calm, a series of episodes that reflect and fuel a sense of whirling internal unease. The Lib Dems are capable of being ruthless with a leader. They dumped two in the last parliament, when their prospects were glowing compared with the current bleak situation. But this time the dissenters, and indeed the loyalists, have a more fundamental problem. Although the party faces a torrid time and more traumatic electoral losses under Clegg, there is no obvious alternative route. The primrose paths towards the general election are blocked. Sometimes in politics, parties become trapped. They know they are in deep trouble, and yet other options are even more dangerous. Before the last election, dissenting Labour MPs called on Gordon Brown to go or be removed – as if that would halt the party's march towards electoral doom. But the act of regicide required to bring about the change would have been more damaging to Labour and with no guarantee after a bloody leadership contest that a new holder of the crown would be any better. Now it is the Lib Dems who are trapped. Imagine if they force Clegg out, or even if Clegg changes his mind and stands down. Does a new leader disown the partnership with a rightwing Conservative party that is the cause of their electoral anguish? Do MPs who have been proclaiming the virtues of coalition for four years suddenly say there are problems with this particular one? Cable's social democratic instincts might reassure some of the lost support, but he is also part of the coalition cabinet. Most of the parliamentary party voted for the early sweeping reforms implemented eagerly by Tory ministers rooted on the ideological right. The immediate past has happened. It cannot be unmade. Long before last week the party was being punished brutally in elections. Then its victory in last year's Eastleigh byelection gave the Lib Dems false hope. The latest disastrous results are more typical of what has been happening to the party since 2010 in local and byelections, especially in the north of England, where they used to command considerable support. Their only option is to accept the contortions of the past and continue to press their case as best they possibly can. Clegg is much more assiduous now in highlighting differences with the Tories and has started to exude a degree of genuine, pained integrity that counters the fatal caricature of a figure unworthy of trust. But the party cannot seek a path that is not available to it. Some senior figures who have their private criticisms of Clegg and who expect him to resign after the electionhave come out in support. There is not yet a tide of MPs and members that will bring him down, and I doubt there will be. But the near-iron discipline has gone and will not return. Other contentious issues will surface. Cable has always been publicly loyal to Clegg, but has put the case for ending the coalition early. That might become more of a thorny theme as Clegg sits next to Cameron for next week's debate on the Queen's speech – the deputy prime minister and prime minister in a relationship that is testing the nerves of both parties with, suddenly, the Lib Dems much the nervier of the two. There are deeper currents causing the nervousness, ones that prompt anxious introspection in all three main parties. The coalition was an early indication that the old three-party system was breaking down, the one where either Labour or the Tories governed and the Lib Dems picked up easy protest votes from the impotent convenience of eternal opposition. Now a fourth party, Ukip, soars threateningly. I predict that Clegg will lead the Lib Dems into the general election – the coalition will probably stay the course until 2015, but there will be no second Con-Lib coalition even if there is another hung parliament. Both parties have had more than enough of each other. Twitter: @steverichards14 |