The result of the elections and referendum on Thursday 5th May could have significant and long term effects on the political status quo in the United Kingdom. The Scottish Nationalist Party has won a majority in the Scottish Parliament, the nation has voted against the first referendum in a decade and probably our first and last opportunity to change the system by which MP's are elected to Westminster, and the national stability of the Liberal Democrat support base has been severely shaken.

Liberal Democrat Special

The coalition was meant to usher in an age of new politics, of consensus, of non-partisanship and greater cooperation and was meant to have signalled the end of the longstanding two-party system of British politics. Yet the local elections on the 5th May 2011 saw Liberal Democrat councillors being rejected all over the country. Many have attributed this to the perception that the Liberal Democrats have failed as a moderating force on the Conservatives in government and this was a rejection of their party by the whole nation. So what are the long term implications of this result on the Third-Party in British politics?

I would reject suggestions that this result was a punishment inflicted upon the Liberal Democrats by the general electorate. I would also ignore assertions by the Labour leadership that these elections are a clear critique of the coalition or more specifically, the failure of the Liberal democrats in pulling back the reins of the ideological 'cuts' agenda of the Conservative Party. I would argue that this can be shown in the simple fact that 65% of the Liberal Democrat manifesto has been implemented to only 35% of the Conservative's. Nick Clegg has accepted that there has been a massive failure on his party's part in shaping its role within the coalition and maintaining a distinguishable and varied identity to that of the Conservatives. This I suspect is largely a result of the leaders (Cameron and Clegg) fearing that the coalition would fall apart if it did not present a clear image of unity, too clear a distinction and separatism between the parties would have made it easier for the opposition to pull the coalition apart. However, this image of unity has punished the Liberal Democrats far more substantially than the Conservatives. While the Economic and budget agenda has dominated news headlines, political debate and public attention, Liberal Democrat successes such as the Pupil Premium, tax reform for the lowest earners and political reform have gone unnoticed and under-trumpeted by the Liberal Democrat leadership itself. So I would propose that the real signal of the local elections is that traditional Liberal Democrat voters have now abandoned their party in government.

It was these voters who voted for the Liberal Democrats at the last election that are abandoning them now. They are disappointed in the failure of their party to moderate deep Tory cuts, to not implement a tougher policy on the banks, to raise taxes such as VAT that hurt the lowest earners the most, but most of all, to give up their pledge on voting against any raising of tuition fees. Now, despite the fact that the Liberal Democrat MP's ought to have been accountable to these voters and thus to have fulfilled the mandate they were given on the manifesto upon which they ran for office, the Conservatives were the largest party and were voted in by a majority of voters to fulfill their own pledges. Therefore, as the largest party the Conservatives would of course have wanted to dominate policy on the most pressing of issues, the economy, and I believe Nick Clegg correctly accepted that David Cameron and his party held the major mandate on this issue. This can explain why the policy on raising tuition fees proceeded as it did, because it wasn't an issue of educational reform but it was an economic matter: A question of balancing a severe short-fall in public funding. I think this is why Nick Clegg felt obliged to accept the policy which would offend and disgust so many of his traditional constituency. The question that faces the Liberal Democrats therefore, is whether they can reform the bonds with this old constituency and find a solution for the future that accommodates their ongoing participation within the coalition?

However, their old constituency was a mixed and rather divided group of Social-Democrat ideologues, disenchanted Labour voters and a disloyal section of tactical and young voters. I believe this is a constituency which maintained the liberal democrats as the minor and rather insignificant third-party of British politics, rather than presenting a credible alternative to the two main parties and disrupting the traditional two-party system. Instead they filled the vacuum of non-aligned voters and by the 2010 general election, the two main parties had failed to secure a majority of seats which placed the third-party uncomfortably into a position of power. As a result, the third-party became a party of government and had the opportunity to fashion for itself a real space in the future of British politics by what it did in this Parliament. This is where the Liberal Democrats have failed. They have failed to organise an image and vision which satisfies both their traditional constituency, but one that would also draw in new voters to a clear and distinguished Liberal Democratic identity. Thus forming a combined constituency of a credible party of government and a party that represented the future of British politics.

The Liberal Democrats had this opportunity and so far they have failed to grasp it , but these election results may have come just in time to shake the party into action. If the party decides to punish itself, namely through firing Nick Clegg as its leader, it is most likely that the next leader will champion the case of the disenchanted and ineffective traditional constituency of the minor third-party. But if the Liberal Democrats assert themselves more clearly within the coalition, present themselves to the public as an independent party alert to the concerns of the lower middle classes, and refind that spark that was Cleggmania just over a year ago, they could well steal a significant proportion of Labour's votes. For Ed Miliband has driven his party back towards the old constituency of the lower classes and, although Cameron has tried to expand the Conservative base to attract the more rightest, middle class voters of New Labour, Clegg could redefine his party on the Lower Middle classes of New Labour to bolster the support of his traditional constituency and form a new constituency appropriate for a party of government.