Political

Tim Farron gives teaser of his plan for rebuilding the party

As mentioned when Tim Farron launched his aim of getting the Lib Dems to 100,000 members by the next general election (see Tim Farron wants 100,000 Lib Dem members by next general election. Is he wise?), he’s intending to publish a more detailed plan for reviving the party’s organisation.

In a smart piece of media management, however, Tim Farron squeezed out another round of coverage for his overall intentions for reviving the party’s grassroots before actually publishing the details.

This time it’s an interview with The Independent:

Front-runner to replace Nick Clegg as Lib Dem leader says party needs to return to grassroots

…“We ended in a situation where people did not know what we stood for. We need to get back to the grassroots. We have to start in local government rebuilding there right away and you do that by making the party a campaigning party on the ground.

“That means finding issues that fire us and make us all passionate and inspired and using them to go out there and rebuild a movement – something which we haven’t been doing over the last few years as we’ve had our minds fixed on other things.”

Mr Farron suggested this would mean changing the party’s structure both in Parliament and beyond.

“This is about us understanding that all political parties are pretty much still cast in the Edwardian model,” he said. “You’ve got a headquarters, you’ve got some staff and you’ve got a bunch of members who pay subs and go to conference once or twice a year. Obviously Lib Dems are more active than most but we need to be a movement.

“Now we have the ability to go out there and fight for liberal ideals.”…

Mr Farron said he wanted to learn from campaign groups like 38 Degrees that mobilised their members to fight specific campaigns but stressed he wanted everything the Lib Dems did to be rooted in communities on the ground.

Much of this echoes what I’ve been writing for several years (for example, see John Prescott: a Liberal Democrat role model? and Treating supporters as active participants).

The test, however, isn’t just whether a leadership candidate says the right things but also whether they can deliver on them.

Tim Farron wants 100,000 Lib Dem members by next general election. Is he wise?

The headline Lib Dem membership target sounds good, but to be successful Farron must have the right answer to two questions. more

Tim’s track record on building up the party’s grassroots organisation is mixed.

In his own constituency, he has led the building of a fearsomely effective campaign organisation (one that is so good they even with neighbouring local parties pulled off a good result in a Police and Crime Commissioner election).

As Party President, his record at growing the party’s membership pretty modest. A long-term decline in party membership was turned round in perhaps the toughest circumstances to pull off a turnaround, but the overall growth was modest.

More widely on reinvigorating the party’s approach to community politics, again he talked a good game when Party President – but his talk of helping to revive Community Politics didn’t result in much happening.

His speech in the debate at conference on the motion I helped get on the agenda and get passed was much better than my own; Tim Farron’s oratorical talent was in full flow. But little happened after. In his defence, events rather got in the way, especially the succession of party disciplinary issues which soaked up huge amounts of party management time. Yet if he’s leader, events will get in the way of plans too. That’s the nature of politics and you have to be able to cope with it.

Overall then, that mixed record as Party President means it’s not a simple case of saying ‘look at his record, he’s clearly the person for the job’.

One advantage of a contest for party leader is that the very act of having a contest forces the next leader to be sharper with their ideas and more clearly formed with their plans than if they are simply crowned without challenge.

I’m very much hoping that when it is published Tim’s plan is a good one – but it will be to all our benefit if that plan gets closely scrutinised and questioned, with Tim kept on his toes refining and improving his plans, all through the contest.

Whether it is him implementing them or Norman picking up the best ideas to run with in the end, the more party members test the details of the plan, the better the outcome will be.

 

Keep up with news on the Lib Dem leadership race

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments and data you submit with them will be handled in line with the privacy and moderation policies.