Three-Way split : Can the Lib Dems reunite?

YouGov
May 16, 2011, 1:03 AM GMT+0

Nick Clegg described it as like walking through fire. But he couldn’t persuade his party to follow him into the flames. On Thursday, Liberal Democrat MPs split three ways on the highly contentious issue of university tuition fees. Now the question is whether the party itself will ultimately split and whether the Coalition Government will survive.

Right from the moment when the Tory-LibDem coalition was formed last May it was clear that the issue of tuition fees was going to be one of the most difficult for the two parties to handle, and especially for the Lib Dems. The party had campaigned in the general election on a platform of opposing any rise in such fees. But the Labour government had set up an inquiry under Lord Browne to investigate the best way to finance universities and it seemed likely that it would recommend raising fees. The Tories were of that view anyway. The political fix agreed was that Lib Dem MPs would be allowed to abstain over whatever policy on university funding the new government ended up adopting.

It was a Lib Dem minister, Vince Cable, who was put in charge of devising the policy. The one he came up with, following the Browne recommendations, involves almost trebling fees to a maximum of £9,000 a year. Neither Mr Cable, nor any other minister, claims this is ideal, merely that it is the best solution to a very difficult problem.

His case is that his department was facing big cuts anyway because of the need to reduce the overall Government deficit; that the fees will be financed through loans which will be repaid only once the graduates who have incurred them are earning well; that the financing of universities has been made more secure; and that the whole system is more progressive than the one it is replacing, a claim supported by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies. In short, he says, he has made the best of a bad job.

But the Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, failed to get his 57 MPs to toe the line of the Coalition Agreement by going no further than abstaining in protest. Twenty one Lib Dem MPs, a majority of the backbenchers, voted against. Indeed the leadership of the party itself split three ways, with Mr Clegg backing the policy, the deputy leader, Simon Hughes, abstaining and the party president, Tim Fallon, voting against. So the obvious question now is whether the party can reunite or whether its divisions will widen.

Mr Cable himself has said that the painful business of walking through fire (or not) will have made the party stronger. But will it?

One reason to be sceptical is that the party has taken a hammering in the opinion polls as a result of the divisions on the issue. A recent Yougov poll has the party down at a mere 8% while the Tories, joint accomplices in the policy, ride high on 42%, three points ahead of Labour. Part of the reason why the Lib Dems have taken all the flak is that it’s they who have made the U-turn on the issue. But in addition they have been accused of gross electoral cynicism in opposing higher fees in the first place. Evidence has emerged that some in the leadership thought the policy of opposing higher fees was unworkable even when they were trying to exploit it to win votes at the election. This does not sit well with their claim to offer a new, cleaner politics.

It’s the terrible poll rating that poses Nick Clegg with his greatest difficulty in keeping his party united within the Coalition. David Cameron is reported to be anxious on his behalf and looking for ways to ‘help Nick’. The Prime Minister’s interests are obviously to keep the Coalition going as long as possible. Not only does his deal with the Lib Dems allow his Government to stay in power but it marginalises his own right wing whose stridency, in the view of many commentators, might alienate voters. Some in his party, including the former prime minister, Sir John Major, even think the Coalition should be extended beyond the next election.

But are Lib Dems up for sustaining the Coalition as far as the election, never mind beyond it? There are reasons to be doubtful. In the first place, most ordinary Lib Dems don’t really want to be in Coalition with the Tories anyway. They might accept that there was no choice after the last election but in their hearts they regard themselves as on the left and would ultimately prefer to be in government with Labour.

Secondly, many Lib Dems look at the polls and think the current Coalition is political suicide for them. They expect to take a drubbing at the local elections next year and fear that the referendum on changing the electoral system will result in the existing system being retained, setting back their long-term strategy for fundamental political change by a generation.

What seems likely, therefore, is that during the next year the party will become increasingly divided about what its political strategy should be. It seems pretty obvious to many that Nick Clegg himself will want to sustain the Coalition as long as possible, not least because there is no obvious political future for him independently of it. If he were to lead his party out of the coalition, he would be unlikely to remain leader long; whereas, if he can keep his party inside, then he will be able to remain deputy prime minister for a long time to come, even beyond the next election. Others, however, may regard such a strategy as leading to electoral annihilation for the party.

History suggests that parties in the predicament the Lib Dems now find themselves in tend to split. This happened to the old Liberal Party, forerunner of the Lib Dems, three times in its history, with one half of the split ending up each time in electoral alliance with the Tories.

So is this to be the fate of today’s Lib Dems or will the party put the trauma of the last few weeks behind it, reunite and sustain the Coalition right through to 2015 or even beyond?

What’s your view?

  • Do you think the coalition government has come up with the best policy on university funding in the economic circumstances of the time, or not?
  • What do you make of the fact that Lib Dem MPs voted three ways on the issue?
  • Do you think the party was cynical or not in campaigning not to increase tuition fees during the election?
  • Do you share Vince Cable’s optimism that the difficult experience of sorting out a policy on university funding will ultimately strengthen the party?
  • Do you think the party will split?
  • And do you want the coalition to carry on, even beyond the next election, or do you want a return to single-party government?