Why there must never be any Liberal Democrat-Green Party merger-a refutation of Messrs Tyrone and Rentoul

Last week in the Spectator, Nick Tyrone hinted that a merger between the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party could happen within this decade, and in the Independent, John Rentoul suggested the exact same thing.

Despite their claims, a merger between the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party would in fact be a very bad idea politically, especially for the Green Party. Here is why:

1. The Green Party can reach out to many areas the Liberal Democrats cannot. This was particularly noticeable in the 2019 local elections, where the Greens managed a net gain (notionally due to extensive ward boundary changes in many areas, in addition to council mergers) of 148 seats from the Conservatives, and mainly in rural areas and small towns where the Liberal Democrats are not competitive. Most of the Green gains from Labour that year were in areas with high qualification levels but not high affluence (such as Norwich and the southern parts of Royal Leamington Spa) that are only competitive between the Greens and Labour. Likewise, the majority of the 31 saved Green Party deposits at the 2019 general election which were not included in the "Unite to Remain" alliance were in constituencies where the Liberal Democrats had no chance of winning.

2. The Green Party is a genuine alternative to the Conservatives and Labour; the Liberal Democrats have proved themselves not to be. This is not just in relation to the Liberal Democrats' time in coalition with the Conservatives from 2010-15, but also in relation to their poor record on environmental and social justice issues in the European Parliament before we left the EU on 31 January 2020, and the Liberal Democrats' effective espousal of "permanent austerity" in their 2019 general election manifesto. Post-Brexit, there is no evidence they have changed.

3. The Green Party knows and understands that systematic change is needed to tackle the climate emergency. By comparison, the Liberal Democrats merely want to tinker at the edges of the fundamentally broken system that is neoliberalism, whose constant demand for growth cannot deal with the climate emergency. Fundamental socioeconomic change is needed to create the green society and circular, more localised economy that the Green Party campaigns for, which is what is needed to tackle the climate emergency in the long term.


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