Dominic Martin, Terry Stacy, Rebecca Jones, Kate Pothalingam and Bridget Fox at the party conference

THE Liberal Democrats are hoping to break back into Islington’s council chamber at upcoming elections after failing to win a seat since the party’s fateful coalition with the Tories.

As campaigners and candidates joined their annual conference here in Bournemouth, they said they were offering a new home to Labour voters who were unhappy with Sir Keir Starmer’s performance as prime minister.

And the message across this autumn’s get-together – repeated wherever possible – is that the party is the best alternative to the threat from the far right.

Terry Stacy, who led the council during the Lib Dems’ heyday in Islington, said the current Labour administration in Islington was “doing a bad job” and that councillors could no longer blame central government now their own colleagues in Westminster were in power.

2002: power players, and (right) 2006: neck and neck. With no councillors at the Town Hall since 2014, it may seem strange to new arrivals to Islington’s politics that the Lib Dems were once in control of the council. Labour had to wrest power away from their yellow rosette opponents. The Lib Dems collapsed locally after Nick Clegg’s coalition deal with the Tories and Labour has only lost ground to the Greens at boroughwide elections since then

“We have a Labour council, a Labour mayor, and a Labour government, and Islington is going to be one of the worst affected councils in the government’s plans to cut local spending,” he said.

This was referencing reforms set out in the government’s proposed Fair Funding Review, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies has predicted could see inner London boroughs lose out on millions of pounds.

Mr Stacy said local Labour officials should be speaking out, adding: “Labour have been unbelievably quiet about that. I haven’t heard a peep out of Emily [Dame Emily Thornberry, Islington South and Finsbury MP], let alone the leader of the council about that one. I hear Lib Dem councils shouting from the rooftops. You can’t shut up the leader of Richmond Council. The silence in Islington is deafening.”

A year on from the elation of winning 72 MPs in the general election, the party nationally are now positioning themselves as the only one prepared to fight back against Reform UK. It is accusing Mr Starmer and his government of drifting into divisive language, such as his now infamous “island of strangers” comments.

Many local Lib Dem members see themselves as now to the left of Labour.

The conference heard Lisa Smart MP set out a plan to process asylum seekers using emergency “Nightingale processing centres”, a departure from the usual debate over how the government can simply limit the number of asylum seekers arriving in the UK in the first place.

2010: Labour in command, and (right) 2014: Lib Dems gone

Meanwhile, Mr Stacy said his own record while in power on Islington Council was evidence that his party would address dissatisfaction with housing, schools, fly-tipping and, that familiar Lib Dem subject, potholes ­– if handed the keys to the Town Hall again when the borough goes to the poll next May.

“It was under me that we built the first council housing in a decade, we refurbished every secondary school in the borough, we repaved and resurfaced hundreds and hundreds of roads, and we made a real difference to our parks and open spaces,” he said. “That’s the sort of record that we’ll be standing on.”

Mr Stacy has been accused by his opponents as living in the past and that he was only able to fund such changes with more generous settlements for local government from the Labour governments of the time.

In recent years, all councils have seen budgets severely cut and forced to operate under austerity measures.

Mr Stacy said the council during his leadership had not benefited from government money, and his team of councillors had instead disposed of commercial properties to fund projects.

On housing, he blamed the current leadership’s poor negotiating skills for schemes being cancelled.

He told the Tribune: “Local government secretary Steve Reed has a budget to allocate. If Islington has schemes they can deliver, they should be making the case to Steve Reed and Sadiq Khan.

“I’m chair of a LGBTQ+ housing association, and I negotiated a £6million loan off Sadiq Khan to buy 19 homes. Una [O’Halloran, council leader] is not batting her weight.”

He said the Lib Dems would also look to cut costs in the Town Hall if they were in charge, adding: “I don’t know what the finances are like, but we would have to do a root and branch review of waste and inefficiency.

2018: Labour domination, and (right) 2022: Green resistance

“They have more communications officers than the average borough, get rid of political advisors in the leader’s office, slash some expenses.”

It is a decade now since the Islington Lib Dems were represented in the council chamber, with Mr Stacy among those who lost their seat in 2014 elections which resulted in 47 Labour councillors and one Green councillor.

At the time, he dubbed Islington the “North Korea of north London”, and accusations that the “one-party” state is damaging for democracy are being wheeled out once more. “We’ve got a supermajority, which isn’t good wherever it is,” said Rebecca Jones, another candidate in Islington.

“We need a check and balance.”

Meanwhile, Kate Pothalingam, chair of the Islington Liberal Democrats, said that incumbent Labour councillors were “taking people for granted”.

She told the Tribune: “From the conversations we’re having on the doorstep, from saying to people ‘Who are your councillors? Have you met your councillors? When did you last meet your councillors?’ The answer is ‘I don’t know, we haven’t seen them, they never come round’.”

Mr Stacy did not confine his criticism to the Labour group, however, telling the Tribune he was “sick and tired of hearing them [Greens and independents] agree with Labour, more than they disagree with them.”

He added: “They haven’t really held them to account. It’s about time they had some real opposition, and I think that’s been lacking for the past 10 years.”

Buoyed by a landslide by-election win in neighbouring Camden, the Islington Lib Dems say they are ready to finally convert the talk into seats come May.

“I think we’re going to have a good result,” said Ms Jones. “We are the constructive opposition to Labour, unlike the Tories and Reform, who are just all about buzzwords and shouting.”

Party sees the opportunity but stunts go on

AN understated satisfaction could be detected among the party faithful enjoying the Lib Dem conference this year.

Gone were the bolshy statements from last year about success at the 2024 general election, those never-ending reminders that they have 72 MPs etc.

There was instead a kind of dead-still calm to match the waves gently lapping at the sandy beach beneath Bournemouth pier.

The members are doing their best to position themselves as the most sensible of sensible options – the place to go for those deflated by both Labour and the Tories but find Reform UK beyond the pale.

In north London, it has sometimes been referred to as a “best of the rest” option ­– although the Greens and maybe even new Your Party activists may disagree.

Among the earnest smiles and pastel scarves, there was an admirably strong approach to fighting back against anti-migrant and racist rhetoric – with political debate. An unusual idea in the current climate, but they will have to draw a clearer outline about who they are and what they stand for.

What will people be voting for apart from none of the others?

There is still a line to tread too between trying to get noticed this way with explicit opposition to Nigel Farage – or through the stunts of which leader Sir Ed Davey has proved so fond.

This year, he came into conference with a marching band while last year’s images of him on a jet ski marked all the publicity material.

An embarrassing dad degrading the message?

Or a real human grabbing the attention of the media?

As many things often are with the Lib Dems, you may consider it all both good and bad.

After laying down the conductor’s baton, Sir Ed opened his conference speech warning of the spectre of a “Trump-inspired” Britain – so maybe the decision has been to try and carry on with both, even if many members will tell you they don’t need to see their leader in a wetsuit again soon.
Bournemouth is a place for sandy beach holidays, not hard politics.

But inside the conference centre, the Lib Dems were trying to build a case: that the centre-ground can resist extremes.

They might win as many votes just by sounding like fair and nice people.

At some point, however, they will have to explain where the money for fair and nice things will come from.