The business world has its special expressions for what politicians call ‘reform’. ‘If you are standing still you are going backwards’ for example. In Japan there is the business concept of ‘kaizen’, translated as ‘continuous improvement’.
The UK Liberal Democrats are a reformist party. People join the party because they wish to improve things and solve problems.
By contrast some people join political parties to preserve the status quo, or a prior status quo. It’s not so common in business. I sometimes wonder if the CEO of the communist East German state company that made the famous plastic 2-stroke Trabant car, had a business philosophy of ‘continuously staying the same’.
The Liberal Democrats might find even greater success if they focused even more on their primary job of ‘reforming’. That means doing even more to solve problems and make improvements for the general public. Liberal Democrats are keen to tell the public about their liberal values and democratic principles. It is not always easy for the public to make the connection between Lib Dem values and principles, and improvements to their lives; how those principles and values solve real problems.
There is scope for improvement here.
The Lib Dems will surely do better if they are perceived more as a problem-solving service for the public. Indeed, at a recent Liberal International meeting in Berlin a spokesperson for the German FDP explained that this conclusion at a strategy meeting a few years ago led to their revival as a political force.
With the UK Lib Dems the deployment of our values and principles in solving problems, is undertaken by a relatively open policymaking system. This is where one might look for the scope for improvement.
The rules of an organisation reflect its culture.
At local level all the focus is on problem-solving for the public, however small. It is deep in the culture. My local party had a popular long term campaign against changes to bus routes. However, this culture does not dominate at national level. Public priorities for problem-solving are rarely systematically assessed by the party. Immigration may have something to do with that. Notwithstanding, more focus on problem-solving and the public’s priorities is a necessary potential component of the revival of the UK Lib Dems.
One might speculate that if the party was more focused on solving the public’s perceived priority problems, they will give it license to address problems which are among the party members’ priorities, and where we have special expertise; climate-related reforms perhaps being one.
In theory policy is made via party conferences, in two ways. One is simply party members submitting policy motions to party conferences. The other is a formal process where the Federal Policy Committee commissions a Policy Working Group, which develops policy on a broad topic (eg education, defence) over a year or two, approved in a conference motion.
In practice the process is much more complex. Some policy motions at conference are difficult to translate into policy from a legislative point of view. Some get superseded by events. The Leader’s Office makes policy statements. There are Parliamentary Teams covering groups of ministries. There is a Federal International Relations Committee. Parliamentary spokespeople make policy statements. There are special advisers on key topics making policy recommendations.
To ‘reform the reformers’, this is a minefield to address, but address it the party must.
* Paul Reynolds works with multilateral organisations as an independent adviser on international relations, economics, and senior governance. He is an elected member of FIRC and an Executive member of Liberal International (British Group).