Conservative councillor joins Liberal Democrats in Derby
It isn’t only figures from national politics or outside party politics who are switching to back the Liberal Democrats. People from local politics are switching too, of whom the latest is Stephen Willoughby, a councillor in Derby:
A senior Derby city councillor has quit the Conservative Party to join the Liberal Democrats.
Stephen Willoughby said he can no longer support the party as it had become “unrecognisable” from the one he supported more than 20 years ago.
The Derwent ward councillor was first elected in 2007…
Lib Dem council group leader, Ruth Skelton, welcomed Mr Willoughby to the party council group.
She said: “Steve is one of many members of both Labour and Conservatives, who in all conscience can’t stay in those parties as both have shifted to the political extremes.
“The Lib Dems are welcoming former members of both the Labour and Conservatives who are not prepared to stand by and watch our country lurch to the political extremes.” [Derbyshire Live]
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Why are the LibDems seemingly marooned on 15/16%? I realise this is massively better than 2015 and 2017, but when I also read of the advances being made in London, the South-East and the South-West, I do wonder what the electorate might know in those places that I don’t know here (West Yorkshire).
Also, I see very little Twitter campaigning against the Labour Party. Is our strategy simply to allow the national media to alert us to Corbyn’s car-crash TV interviews?
David. You ask: ” … but when I also read of the advances being made in London, the South-East and the South-West, I do wonder what the electorate might know in those places that I don’t know here (West Yorkshire).”
The answer is that the advances being made in London and the South-East are in Remain-voting areas, where former Labour voters and former Tory voters who are Remainers are switching heavily to the Lib Dems because of our Stop Brexit policy. Hopefully there are one or two seats in West Yorkshire which voted Remain in the 2016 referendum and where the Lib Dems are also prospering.
Harrogate and Knaresborough is amongst the seats identified as being “in play”in the MRP seat analysis that I have seen.