Hughes: Three party politics has arrived
Simon Hughes, the incoming president of the Liberal Democrats, today said that “three party politics has arrived” in the UK.
In his first speech as Lord Dholakia’s successor, at the Liberal Democrat Party Conference in Bournemouth, the former London Mayoral candidate said he would be establishing a new “target Labour” unit to target Labour seats, just like they have done previously to Conservative seats.
In the run-up to the next general election, he said: “My job is to help Charles, Ming Campbell and the rest of team to put our case to the unconverted not the converted, and to use precious time with party colleagues to train, organise and campaign. It is time to spend less time talking to ourselves and more time talking to others.’
He added: “We must use every available moment to campaign ever more effectively, truly, deeply – to reach all those parts where liberal democracy has not yet reached.”
“Gradually, but now ever more speedily and securely, the Liberal Democrat tide is rolling in.
“It is not fantasy to say that the Conservatives are no longer a party of the whole of Britain. No Conservative MPs in Wales, only one in Scotland, and in five of the ten largest English cities outside London there is now a total of two, yes just two, Conservative councillors, to our 216.”
Ridiculing Conservative claims that seats such as Leicester South and Birmingham Hodge Hill were not natural Conservative territory, he joked that he would write to Liam Fox asking “Please tell us in advance of the next general election where is natural Tory territory now?”
He characterised the election battlefield as: “No more natural territory for the Tories. No more safe seats for Labour. But absolutely no no-go areas for the Liberal Democrats.”
Mr Hughes argued that Labour and Conservatives had ‘increasingly lost their way’, but, “All the while the flame of Liberal Democracy is burning more brightly, more clearly and more strongly in this country than at any time for a hundred years.
“Liberal democracy is coming into its own again.”
He acknowledged that there was still “much work for us to do” and announced his aim to triple the party’s membership.
