We Lib Dems are ‘a firewall against Reform’ - Alex Cole-Hamilton
I’ve just come back from Liberal Democrat party conference in Brighton, and what a conference it was.
It’s always good to be around friends, but there was something particularly rousing about this one, a real sense of coming together for what we stand for, and for what we do not.
In Ed Davey’s words, Liberal Democrats are a firewall against Reform and the extremes that they represent. Because let’s not forget, there are some people in this country who want to tear us apart.
Across Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, Liberal Democrats are fighting for our country, for our values, for everything we hold dear. It’s the fight of our lives, and we are going to win.
Can you tell I’m feeling a little enthusiastic? That enthusiasm hasn’t come from nowhere. In Brighton, I was thrilled to be able to highlight our Scottish successes to the rest of our party.
May’s elections were the best results for liberals in Scotland in over twenty years. When it comes to constituencies, we are now the second party of Scotland.
But no party won a majority at the Scottish Parliament election. And as the architects of Holyrood envisaged more than 25 years ago, political parties now need to find common ground where it exists.
Budget by budget, bill by bill, case by case, we will use our leverage as MSPs to get things done. Change with fairness at its heart is not just a campaign slogan.
There are now just seven seats between us and the parties in second place. We are now the most influential group in that parliament because the SNP know they will have to fight to win us over on every vote.
Our price will not be cheap. We will demand an agenda that is open, compassionate, internationalist, community-focused, and environmentally sustainable.
We haven’t been wasting time. In the past three months, we have probably won more votes in Holyrood than we did in the last three years.
We’ve successfully passed parliamentary amendments on improving community benefit rules for communities hosting renewables infrastructure, on giving charities the license to criticise SNP ministers, to ensure extend compensation for the SNP’s ferries fiasco to coastal towns.
Just last week, we pushed the Scottish Government to sort out the planning system when it comes to hyperscale data centres.
But the only way to make this possible is to dial down the political rhetoric and come to the negotiating table with pragmatic solutions. One lesson that we have all learned in recent years is that the public want grown-up politics.
There are two types of political opposition: those who fire out angry press releases and achieve nothing in return, and those prepared to roll up their sleeves to get things done. The latter is us.
You can see it when you compare our record with Reform’s. They promised voters the earth, they got the platform, but they’ve done absolutely nothing with it.
Liberal Democrats have earned our votes through shoe leather, through our willingness to go and knock doors and speak to the people who send us to parliament.
The world needs liberals because our vision for a better, fairer country is what we need now, more than ever before.