The Economist

The EconomistAugust 4th 2018 Britain 21

1

O

NE is 46 years old the other is a pen-

sioner. One can dance Bhangra the

other is a ballroom guy. One is prime min-

ister of Canada the other is leader of Brit-

ain’s Liberal Democrats who have just 12

MPs. Justin Trudeau and Sir Vince Cable

are quitedifferent but the Lib Dem leader

hopes to learn a trick or two from his Cana-

dian counterpart.

Mr Trudeau’s Liberal Party jumped

from third place to government in four

years after poaching votes from its rivals

on left and right. What can it teach the Lib

Dems? Without a long career stretching be-

fore him Sir Vince 75 has the freedom to

shake up his party. One plan under discus-

sion in Lib Dem circles would give non-

members a vote on the party’s next leader

a system the Liberals used during Mr Tru-

deau’s selection. Another idea is to copy

the Liberals in doing away with the re-

quirement that the party leader must be an

MP.(Onenon-MPmooted as a possible

standard-bearer is Gina Miller an anti-

Brexit campaigner although both she and

the party deny this.) Sir Vince’s team has

been in touch with one of Mr Trudeau’s ad-

visers who helped to devise some of the

party’s reforms.

The diminished Lib Dems are hardly a

“natural governing party” as Canada’s

Liberals are known. Butfor all their faults

they may still represent the best hope for

Britain’s beleaguered moderates. The far-

left and the unions have a tight grip on La-

bour while the Conservatives’ fate is deter-

mined byMPs with a penchant for psycho-

drama and a small collection of Rotary

Club members and tombola-spinners in

the home counties. By contrast the Lib

Dems have low barriers to entry making

the party an appealing home for disaffect-

ed members of other parties.

Talk of a new political movement has

been constant since the Brexit vote. But

why bother launching your own party

asks one senior Lib Dem when you could

simply take over one that already exists?

After all the Liberal Democrats have

100000 members 98 seats in the House of

Lords and crucially a toehold in Britain’s

ruthless first-past-the-post electoral sys-

tem which new parties find all but impos-

sible to crack.

Entryism presents dangers. But for the

Lib Dems scooping up disaffected Blairites

from Labour and liberal Cameroons from

the Tories is much less risky than it has

been for Labour and the Conservatives to

ally with hard-leftists and formerUKIP-

pers. A Liberal Democrat party overrun by

centrist entryists would look like well the

Liberal Democrats. “They aren’t Militant

are they?” says one insider referring to the

Trotskyist group that infiltrated Labour in

the 1970s and 80s.

Potential defectors may be wary of the

Lib Dems. They have baggage. There is a

reason why the party’s vote fell from 6.8m

in 2010 to 2.4m in 2015. After five years in

coalition with the Tories people no longer

liked them. Polls suggest they still don’t: the

party limps along at about 10%.

Change could come from the top ifMPs

from other parties jumped ship. Labour’s

anti-Semitism saga flared again this week

after it emerged that Jeremy Corbyn the

party’s leader hosted an event in 2010 at

which the actions of the Israeli govern-

ment were likened tothose of theNazis.

But despite disgust among hisMPs about

his handling of the row there has been no

wave of resignations. Nor has any Tory Re-

mainerMPbeen persuaded to defect even

as the government’s handling of Brexit has

gone from bad to worse.

Instead Lib Dems are left hoping that

an era of political polyamory will replace

the 19th-century system of monogamous

party politics. New movements and par-

ties should team up with the Lib Dems be-

lieves Tim Farron a former leader. “They

have a lot of generals and naff-all army” he

says. “We are your army.” Such post-party

movements are starting to pop up. Cross-

party support is growing for a referendum

on the Brexit deal a Lib Dem demand ever

since the first referendum. But it would

take Labour’s backing to go ahead. Unlike

Canada’s Liberals the Lib Dems are very

far from wielding power by themselves.

But if some of their ideas end up being en-

acted anyway that may be good enough

for them. 7

Britain’s third party

Entryist dads

The Lib Dems market themselves as a

vehicle for despairing centrists

Yes we have no MPs

I

N JUNE 2017 MrY an active man in his fif-

ties suffered a heart attack and extensive

brain damage. He died later that year hav-

ing failed to regain consciousness. In the fi-

nal months of his life the NHS trust respon-

sible for his care went to court to clarify the

law. His family believed he would not have

wanted treatment to keep him alive; the

trust wanted to know whether it needed

judicial approval to withdraw sustenance

(known as “clinically assisted nutrition

and hydration” orCANH) given that doc-

tors agreed doing so was in his interests.

On July 30th the Supreme Court ruled

that no such approval was needed. Fam-

ilies will now end up in court only when

they are divided over what a relative

would want or when they disagree with

their doctors’ views.

Many people may be affected by the de-

cision. Improvements in medicine mean

people are increasingly likely to survive

events that leave them in vegetative or

minimally conscious states. A rough esti-

mate by Derick Wade a professor of neuro-

logical rehabilitation at Oxford Brookes

University suggests that as many as

50000 people in Britain may be in such a

condition. The court’s judgment also ap-

plies to those who are conscious but un-

able to swallow and to make a decision of

whom there are more.

The decision built on one in 1993 by the

House of Lords. It ruled thatCANH was a

medical treatment meaning it could be

withdrawn if doctors and family agreed it

was no longer in the patient’s interests. But

it suggested applications ought to be made

to the High Court to get the go-ahead. Since

then fewer than 200 such applications

have been made. Celia Kitzinger of Cardiff

University expects withdrawal ofCANHto

become more common now that there is

no need to navigate the courts. Pro-lifers

worry about this. Alistair Thompson of

Care Not Killing a campaign group says

that though the old system had flaws “the

added layer of protection was sensible.”

The Supreme Court ruled that the deci-

sion in 1993 was “no more than a rule of

practice” and that there was no breach of

the patient’s human rights in withdrawing

CANH if continuation was not in their in-

terests. It noted that withdrawingCANH

was common in cases with patients suffer-

ing degenerative neurological conditions

and saw no reason to treat those in a stable

condition differently. It also accepted that

the need to go to court might have led fam-

The right to die

An end to

proceedings

Pro-life campaigners mourn defeat in

the Supreme Court