Liberal Democrats for Free Trade
By Richard Flowers in Liberal Democrat Voice
Originally published by South Lincolnshire Liberal Democrats
In my view, trade benefits all countries. It spreads technology and good practice; it stimulates competition and rejuvenates economies.
Vince Cable, less than six months after being appointed Business Secretary, said that back in 2010 as he welcomed the EU-South Korea trade agreement.
Liberal Democrats should loud and proud make the case for Free Trade.
It ought to be inconceivable that we have to have this argument again.
For most of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, the bone of contention between Liberalism and Conservatism (including the peculiar form of Socialist Conservatism practised by Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party) has been between Free Trade and Protectionism.
Time and again, from the Corn Laws to the Great Depression to - it has been said - the causes of the World Wars, protectionist policies have led to disaster, hurting most the very people they were supposed to protect, alienating neighbours and allowing bad businesses to get away with bad practice.
Wherever free trade has flourished, there has been prosperity and higher living standards and indeed peace.
And yet here we are again, with the current referendum brewing up a toxic alliance between the Nigel Farrage-ist right who want to throw up barriers between us and the Twenty First Century and the Big Statist left who spread paranoia about the supposed evils of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
"Charity begins at home", look after your own first - it's such an easy sell. That's why the populists sell it.
And yet it's the ordinary man in the street, or woman doing the shopping, who are hit by the tariffs.
Trade barriers actually help big business. Their prices go up, so they sell a bit less but they have the scale to absorb it. It's the little guys who are forced out. And it's the customer who pays. And then the big companies without competition become lazy take the customer for granted and exploit them.
And we all suffer. Prices go up, so sales go down and a little bit of the profit is lost along the way. The economy shrinks, the government gets less taxes, we're all paying more for stuff and everyone is a little bit worse off.
The great advantage of free trade is that it gives the small business an edge over the corporate giant: the ability to change, innovate, create new products and bring them to new markets. More people able to trade means more choice for the consumer and lower prices and more new ideas.
The Tory government's obsession with immigration is all about throwing up barriers to free trade - the trade in people's skills and labour. And at the same time they are increasingly serving the interests of big businesses and big banks, pushing policies to make it easier for them to exploit near-monopoly status. The Labour Party - when it can forget its internal strife long enough to have an answer - thinks that nationalisation is the cure to all ills. Liberals are properly wary of anyone having that sort of power, state or big business.
Free Trade is such a win-win for Liberal Democrats: it's individual and it's internationalist. When people ask us "what are the Lib Dems for?"… this is it!
We need to be strong on the economy, to make this an issue where people know we are the party on their side, who will make them better off.
The economy motion that we passed at Federal Conference in York, while good in its own ways, had a big hole in it where Free Trade, the most important issue of the day, should have been.
That's why I'd like us to bring a Free Trade motion to Brighton.
Sir Vince is on board and Catherine Bearder, for the European dimension, has made valuable contributions, and I am looking for more people to sign up to support. Please help us reclaim our title as the party of free trade by taking these three steps:
- Sign the motion here (all Lib Dem members can do so);
- Share this post and the link to the sign-up form with other members;
- Ask your local party to support the motion (a representative of any local party willing to support can fill in the same form, ticking the box at the bottom).
* Richard Flowers has been a Party member for 20 years. He's campaigned in many an election, stood as a local councilor and will be the next Chair of Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats. He also helps Millennium Elephant to write his Very Fluffy Diary.