Tim Farron has broken his silence on the question of whether or not gay sex is a sin. (He doesn’t.)
Frankly, this isn’t the start to the general election campaign that the Liberal Democrats would have wanted. Time that they hoped would be spent talking about how their man was the only one standing up to Brexit has instead been devoted to what Farron thinks about homosexuality.
Now another row may be opening up, this time about anti-Semitism in the Liberal Democrats after David Ward, the controversial former MP who among other things once wrote that “the Jews” were “within a few years of liberation from the death camps…inflicting atrocities on Palestinians” has been re-selected as their candidate in Bradford East. That action, for many, makes a mockery of Farron’s promise that his party would be a “warm home” for the community.
Politically, my hunch is that people will largely vote for the Liberal Democrats at this election because of who they’re not: a Conservative party that has moved to the right on social issues and is gleefully implementing Brexit, a riven Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn, etc. But both rows have hobbled Farron’s dream that his party would use this election.
More importantly, they’ve revealed something about the Liberal Democrats and their ability to cope under fire. There’s a fierce debate ongoing about whether or not what Farron’s beliefs should matter at all. However you come down on that subject, it’s been well-known within the Liberal Democrats that there were questions around not only Farron’s beliefs but his habit of going missing for votes concerning homosexuality and abortion. It was even an issue, albeit one not covered overmuch by the press, in the 2015 Liberal Democrat leadership election. The leadership really ought to have worked out a line that would hold long ago, just as David Cameron did in opposition over drugs. (Readers with long memories will remember that Cameron had a much more liberal outlook on drugs policy as an MP than he did after he became Conservative leader.)
It’s still my expectation that the Liberal Democrats will have a very good set of local elections. At that point, expect the full force of the Conservative machine and their allies in the press to turn its fire on Farron and his party. We’ve had an early stress test of the Liberal Democrats’ strength under fire. It doesn’t bode well for what’s to come.
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