Charles Kennedy: he was left of Labour, maybe, but always a true liberal

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/02/charles-kennedy-left-labour-true-liberal

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Charles Kennedy deserves to be remembered for a lot more than his wit on chatshows, his drink problem and his premature death. He was a highly effective and successful party leader. His core ideals – a belief in social justice and a committed, practical, internationalism – remain as relevant as ever. They are now, however, sadly in short supply.

There will be a lot of retrospective “what if” political histories: what if he had remained as party leader? What if his instinctive opposition to the formation of the coalition had been heeded? We simply don’t know. And it is more productive to reflect on what he did, what he stood for and why those things matter now.

Related: Charles Kennedy, former leader of Liberal Democrats, dies aged 55

He was defined politically by the Iraq war as much as any other event, just as it defined its principal protagonists, Bush and Blair. Charles emerged as one of the leading opponents of the war, and the only party leader to speak and vote against it. He was bombarded with advice from outside and inside the party to support the Blair government; it was said, in particular, that a party leader would never be forgiven by the public for criticising a military intervention in which British service personnel were being killed in action.

But he was unpersuaded and constantly said: “the case has not been made”. He went against the conventional wisdom and opposed the war. Those of us present will never forget the debate in parliament when he was denounced – mainly from the Conservative side – for treachery and treason, among the more printable accusations. He showed political courage and good judgement in sticking to a position that was ultimately vindicated.

The bigger picture was a strong, but practical internationalism centred on the European project. From his earliest days in parliament he spoke up consistently and strongly for full-blooded British commitment to EU membership. He was, I think, looking forward to the forthcoming referendum debates and his clarity and conviction would have shone through.

In the early Blair-Brown years, when Labour successfully colonised the centre ground, Charles took the Liberal Democrats into territory described as “left of Labour”. This reputation was underlined when we were joined in the run-up to the 2005 general election by a defecting leftwing Labour MP, Brian Sedgemore, and others with similar views.

But this was also the period when the Orange Book, edited by David Laws, to which I contributed, was produced as a counter view, with more economically liberal arguments.

As our party’s shadow chancellor at the time I had doubts about the wisdom of promising a range of free things – university tuition and personal social care, for instance. But it is wrong to portray Charles as a socialist. He had come into parliament as a social democrat and remained one. Like me, he joined the SDP in the early 1980s when Labour was anti-Europe, anti-Nato and was looking back nostalgically to the era of state control and trades union power. For those of us who were attracted to the ideals of social justice, and wanted an alternative both to Thatcher’s Conservatism and to what Labour then offered, the SDP then the Lib Dems offered a way forward.

Charles retained a set of beliefs which has enduring value but are no longer fashionable

Charles retained a set of beliefs which has enduring value but are no longer fashionable: a strong commitment to progressive taxation and redistribution of income and wealth and a belief that the country deserved good public services and, unapologetically, should be asked to pay for them through taxation. It was clear for those reasons that he did not like the direction of travel that the coalition was taking, and in some respects I shared his concerns. I recall when I spoke up for the Liberal Democrats to have a distinctive, centre-left voice in the coalition he went out of his way to offer me support.

The other strand in his political philosophy was liberalism. Again this was often unfashionable. I recall that during the 2005 election when the Tories were whispering, very loudly, “are you thinking what we are thinking?”, Charles was quite unequivocal: “Yes, the immigration of black and brown people has been good for Britain, economically and culturally; and no, hanging and flogging doesn’t solve the crime problem.”

The question remains as to why someone who was right on the big issues, who was a great communicator and who took the Lib Dems to levels of parliamentary representation never reached before or since, could not have continued as party leader.

Even after the long and traumatic events of the coalition and the defeat of a few weeks ago the events around Christmas 2006 remain vivid to me. I had to go to explain to him personally that his problem with alcohol was becoming impossible for the party. He occupied a lonely office high in the Commons above the chamber, and he simply denied that there was an issue. There was no anger or recrimination in his voice, but he refused to acknowledge there was a problem. He did leave soon after that, when a letter from a majority of the shadow cabinet asked him to go. It is sad that he never recaptured the political heights despite bursts of brilliance, and never found a new political role big enough for his talents.