Write for us!Op-eds
Opinion and commentary on UK politics and Liberal Democrat ideas.
The Nuclear Deterrent and Reality in the UK Political Scene
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The United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent sits at the centre of a sharpening political debate. As billions are committed to renewing the Trident programme and deepening NATO nuclear cooperation, fundamental questions are being asked about strategic independence from the United States, about the true cost to Britain’s defence budget, about the burden the deterrent places on Royal Navy strategy, and about what each major party actually believes. This article surveys the landscape: the current programme, its fiscal and naval consequences, and where Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens stand. The UK Nuclear Deterrent Today Britain’s deterrent rests on…
How Not to Make a Magna Carta
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A “New Magna Carta” was one of Ed Davey’s brand-new announcements at his speech to the Spring Conference on Sunday (15 March 2026). Let’s set aside the obvious question of how this has suddenly appeared as a new LibDem policy proposal without any consultation with the membership, and what this means for internal party democracy. After all, few Liberal Democrats would disagree with the principle of a written constitution. And it is certainly consistent with liberal values. But was what Ed was proposing really a good idea? I’m going to say no. It looks to me like he has taken…
Saving UNRWA Not Only Supports Palestine Refugees but Also the Rules‑Based Order
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The continuing existence of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees is in doubt. The UK is uniquely placed to take the initiative. I’d like to start with a question, one I put to some friends last week when, given that so many States are happy to disregard it, they scoffed at the so-called international rules-based order. ‘Would you prefer to live in a world bereft of even the most basic rules of conduct,’ I asked, ‘or would you prefer the body of international law to exist, even if so many States violate it with impunity?’ My…
Has the Party Become Too Libertarian for Its Own Good?
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Our membership and, in particular, our activists, are overwhelmingly middle-class men. Quite what the ratio is between men and women is unclear because the Party no longer collects data on the sex of members, but apparently the ratio in the Lib Dems is worse even than in the Reform Party. Is this impacting on our policies and Party culture? Are we steadily approving policies, at our regular state Party and federal Conferences, that might well suit a lot of men, but are a disaster for women and girls? Sex work is a questionable freedom Take our policy on prostitution, for…
A Plan for Young People
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In this I want to propose an approach to two issues – youth unemployment and pensions for younger people. Youth unemployment has recently hit the news. As of the final quarter of 2025, the unemployment rate for 16-24-year-olds stands at 16.1%, the highest in a decade and now exceeding the EU average of 14.7%. Total UK unemployment is at 5.2%, a five-year high, but young people are disproportionately affected, with entry-level hiring stalling amid higher payroll costs from the 2025 National Insurance (NI) hike to 15% and minimum wage increases. Meanwhile given the UK’s declining birth rate, England and Wales…
Oil, Empire, and Resistance – A History of Western Interference in Iranian Affairs from 1909 to the current conflict
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On 26 May 1908, a British drilling crew working for William Knox D’Arcy struck oil at Masjed Soleiman in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. It was the first major oil discovery in the Middle East, and it would transform Iran’s relationship with the outside world forever. Within a year, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was incorporated, and the machinery of foreign control over one of the world’s most strategically vital nations was set in motion. What followed over the next century was a sustained pattern of British, and later American, interference in Iranian sovereign affairs — a story of…
Sex, Equality and the Law: Cutting Through the Noise – Explaining the Supreme Court Ruling and What’s Next
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The fringe meeting offered by the LD group Liberal Voice for Women at York Novotel on Friday evening 13 March at 8:00 pm, looks set to enliven the whole weekend. The panel members are stellar names in feminist politics: Susan Smith is one of the successful appellants in the ‘For Women Scotland’ case against the bumbling SNP ministers. They had tried unlawfully to include transwomen (holders of a separate protected characteristic) in a positive action measure intended to appoint more female members to public boards in Scotland. Susan will recount her experiences of combatting injustice before, during and since that…
This Stupid Tax Rule is Harming the Country and Needs to Go
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The Labour Government from 1997 to 2010 did many harmful things to the tax system. Although Gordon Brown when Chancellor of the Exchequer had a stellar reputation with much of the media, I always considered him a poor Chancellor. The reason is that he kept endlessly tinkering with the tax rules by introducing stealth taxes that he hoped people would not notice, but which had harmful side effects. However, blame for possibly the worst such stealth tax must be shared between Gordon Brown as Prime Minister and the late Alistair Darling who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer who announced…
Recasting Our Defence Priorities
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Defence is an ever-increasing priority, and hence adequate spending on it is required. Yet debate too often focuses on how much to spend rather than what we want that spending to achieve. As Carl von Clausewitz famously noted in On War – war is the continuation of policy by other means. The political objective is the goal and military force is the means. If we are to justify increased defence spending — money that could otherwise be spent elsewhere — we must first be clear about the political objectives it is intended to serve. I put defence spending into roughly…
Eyes right for the centre left
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For well over a century, centre-left politics has been the engine of progressive change in Britain – building the welfare state, championing civil liberties, advancing social equality, and managing the economy with both competence and compassion. Yet today, many who hold these values find themselves politically homeless, watching as the very ground beneath their feet shifts inexorably rightward. The centre has moved. And if you haven’t noticed, you might be standing further right than you think or indeed want. Consider where we are. The Labour Party, once the champion of social democracy, now operate within a narrower fiscal envelope than Gordon…
John Stuart Mill – Do His Values Still Matter to Liberal Democrats?
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Modern political thought is built on foundations laid down largely in the last 300 years by men like Edmund Burke, Jeremy Bentham, Karl Marx – and for liberals, John Stuart Mill. In 1859 Mill’s seminal work, ‘On Liberty’ was published. It was the culmination of decades of thought and discussion and it is now recognised that the contribution of his wife, Harriet Taylor Mill was crucial to the endeavour. It is likely that she was responsible for sections of the book, though she died before its publication. A political philosophy that centres the individual The core tenet of ‘On Liberty’…
Have the LibDems Been Captured by “Authoritarian Progressivism”?
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In the Lib Dems’ 35 year history, the ideological divisions that have emerged in the party have always, predictably, been along left-right economic fault lines, with Orange Bookers on the right and social democrats on the left. Meanwhile, social issues have been largely understood to be matters of conscience. The thread that knitted individuals together as a party was liberalism – a fundamental commitment to individual freedom tempered by an imperative to avoid harm.
Moving the Overton Window – and the Implications for Women
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Barbara Lindsay was an inspirational Liberal Party and Liberal Democrat activist who sadly died in 2024. This is her last article. Recent conversations on language have reminded me of the ‘Overton Window’ characteristics of the shifts in the language used by GC (gender critical – believers in biological reality) people. (For anyone not familiar with this, the concept was devised by American policy analyst Joseph Overton.) The width of the window encompasses the breadth of acceptable opinion within a group, or society at large. As its activist members promote an aim and seek to push the majority towards its adoption,…
Liberal Democrats and Nuclear Weapons
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For decades, Kevin White was the party’s leading peace campaigner. His death last year came as a shock to his friends and party colleagues. In the following article he sets out his view on the party’s defence stance. The LibDems have sadly turned from being a party of peace into one with a bellicose similarity to the Tory and Labour parties when it comes to defence and disarmament. In the time of the old Liberal Party we were committed to working with international institutions, but today we stand against signing the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and…
The LibDems in 2026 – A Progressive Force or a Forgotten Postscript?
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Strange times indeed. The Labour government is imploding with a leader who looks like a dead man walking and recent (January 23rd Politico Poll of Polls) support at 18%. The Conservatives are directionless and leaking influential members, with support equal to Labour at 18%. Reform is out in front on 29%, while the Greens and LibDems are on 14% and 13%, respectively.
