Thursday, 28 March 2024

National Liberal Party – The National Liberal Party & The General Election

Theresa May announces snap general election

ON 18th APRIL, Prime Minister Theresa May declared that she would be holding a snap general election. The date of the election was set for the 8th June. This news seemed to stun the whole of the political establishment. Indeed, the first many in the Tory Party had any inkling that an election was in the offering was when she announced it live in front of 10 Downing Street!

Since then, Theresa May has relentlessly built and promoted her campaign around the general theme of needing strong and stable leadership during the forthcoming Brexit negotiations. She has repeatedly said that every vote cast for her and the Tories would strengthen her hand whilst dealing with the EU.

Many folks question if May really believes what she says concerning Brexit – or is all the talk of ‘strong and stable leadership’ simply the best propaganda line to take?

Whilst the jury is still out on that question, we feel that one of her goals may be to severely weaken the Labour Party. She knows that that Labour is still deeply divided over Brexit and will stop at nothing to reinforce the idea that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is weak. She also knows that the vultures of the Blairite wing of the Labour Party are circling. If Labour don’t do well at the election, Corbyn can expect a swift motion of ‘no confidence.’ Some believe that this might lead to a split within the Labour Party – with a possible ‘social democratic’ party emerging.
We are also aware of the view that in calling the election, Theresa May could stop the ongoing Tory expenses scandal in its tracks. Again, the jury is out on that one.

So where does all this leave the National Liberal Party?

The ruling National Council of the National Liberal Party has spent some time carefully discussing the situation and have come to the conclusion that – as a party – we shall not participate in the forthcoming general election.

The main reason is that we believe that all small parties will be ignored and defeated. Indeed, it’s been a long-held National Liberal belief that it’s nearly impossible for small parties to get anywhere under the First Past The Post (‘FPTP’) electoral system that will be in operation in early June.

However, all is not lost! The National Liberal Party is in the advance stages of helping to form the Centre Alliance – CA – which will feature a number of centre ‘left’, centre ‘right’ parties and ourselves.

(For the record, we class ourselves – the National Liberal Party – as neither a party of the ‘left’ nor the ‘right.’ We feel that our views go way beyond ‘left’ and ‘right’, but in the spirit of co-operation and solidarity are willing to link up with parties, groups and individuals who share our general political outlook on life).

Therefore, as the old saying goes, we will be keeping our ‘powder dry’ as a party for the campaign itself. However, we would encourage NLP members and supporters to gain experience in elections by getting involved in the campaigns of independent candidates who will probably be campaigning on single ‘bread and butter’ issues such as education, the NHS and so on.

The ‘Centrist Alliance’ will be launched after the general election itself and will try to position itself as a serious alternative to (likely) Conservative rule. Watch this space!
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