High Peak Liberal Democrats

Opinion: Did Social Liberal Forum call for leadership ballots in the Times? er no!

I do not buy any of Rupert Murdoch's products as a general rule, and this decision seems to have been vindicated by their printing a fictionalised account of a letter printed in today's edition, actually the Social Liberal Forum's first statement on the events of recent days.

Our statement calls for a serious re-examination of party strategy which many of us feel is the key factor behind last week's appalling election results. It was agreed by the SLF Council who have a range of views about the LibDems4Change petition. For the record, I have not signed it, although others have. It does not call for a leadership ballot; a statement I have asked them to retract.

As I wrote on Saturday, the party leadership is only one of the issues at stake and to boil all the Liberal Democrats' challenges down to that is in my personal view wrong. However, to simply plough on regardless and deploy the same strategy and tactics for the 2015 General Election without listening or learning is much worse.

For my part, I hope Nick Clegg is putting the final touches to a Queen's Speech that has distinctively Liberal Democrat contents, including the long-awaited reform of the pubcos that Greg Mulholland and I have long campaigned for.

To save readers going through the Murdoch paywall, here is our letter in full:

There's no escaping just how strongly the electorate has rejected our party's offer in the European and local elections, with a few welcome exceptions. Such heavy losses can't be attributed just to no longer being a party of opposition, even if governing as a junior member of a coalition means supporting policies many of us disagree with. Nor is it just down to the Lib Dems being an isolated voice in taking on UKIP's dangerous populism. So it's right that the party seriously re-examines its strategy, how we deliver it, and what we will be offering to the electorate at the General Election in 2015 - and it is right that this debate should include who leads the party. As a democratic party, the membership will hold the key to this re-examination, and we acknowledge that views differ on how to approach these issues within the party - as they do within the SLF.

But resolving this debate and reviving the party matters because the electorate risks losing the only voice capable of representing values of freedom, community and social justice as a national political force. British politics deserves an effective liberal presence, especially in the face of rising populism at home and in Europe. Social liberals cannot stand by and see this voice fade. So the SLF will lead the discussions that rightly follow, to ensure the Lib Dems present a mix of policies in our manifesto that chime with the values voters expect from a liberal party - and that we have a leadership in place that people listen to.

Those discussions will continue with our members at our AGM this Saturday in Reading, and more widely later in the summer at our Conference where Vince Cable, Ed Davey and Tim Farron will join the debate.

* Gareth Epps is co-Chair of the Social Liberal Forum and a member of FPC and FCC. He is a member of the Fair Deal for your Local campaign coalition committee and is an active member of Britain's largest consumer campaign, CAMRA. He claims to be marginally better at Aunt Sally than David Cameron, whom he stood against in Witney in 2001.

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