Charles Kennedy: the last social democrat?

Charles Kennedy entered Parliament aged 23 in 1983 as a social democrat. His central views on politics and society changed little in the succeeding years and he remained a social democrat until the end of his sadly truncated life. What did that phrase mean to him and has it any current relevance as a concept for the Liberal Democrats?

Charles’s social democracy sprang from a relatively straightforward view of what constituted a good society. It sprang from a Highlands upbringing in which family and community formed the bedrock of life, where individuals took responsibility for their actions, but where individuals were supported by the community to make the most of themselves—as exemplified in his own education and political rise—and were provided with ample state support in times of need.

In policy terms, his social democracy, had much in common with many in the Labour Party—indeed a leading Labour member in the Lords said to me today that they disagreed with him on nothing. But he recoiled instinctively from a party in which machine politics was often the order of the day—not least in Scotland—and which could be intolerant of independent minds. It is difficult to imagine Charles working himself up the Labour Party Parliamentary hierarchy. He was also wary of working too closely with Labour because he thought that this could compromise the independence of the Liberal Democrats—hence his decision shortly after becoming leader to bring to an end the Joint Cabinet Committee on the Constitution which was established after Tony Blair’s 1997 election victory.

If he was wary of Labour, he was straightforwardly hostile to the Conservatives. He simply thought them intolerant and unjust and he wanted to have nothing to do with them. This motivated his opposition to the Liberal Democrats joining the Coalition in 2010.

He was not a policy wonk. He realised that most voters only saw politics and politicians in broad colour. The issues which really motivated him were few in number but of fundamental importance to his politics. He was an instinctive European. While almost entirely ignorant of and uninterested in the details of the single market in widgets or the niceties of financial services regulation, he sensed that on the really big issues, political as well as economic, Britain’s interests lay within the European Union. In the days before his death he was enthusiastically discussing how he might play a positive role in the upcoming EU Referendum campaign.

He was an equally strong unionist and believed that it was in Scotland’s political and economic interest to be part of the UK. He always claimed there was no incompatibility in being European, British and a proud Scot. And he believed in a tolerant, fair society, in which the state played a strong enabling role. He will be best remembered, in policy terms, for his opposition to the Iraq war. He had supported the UK’s involvement in Afghanistan and was no isolationist, but came to believe—against the views of Labour, Conservatives and some of his senior colleagues—that it was morally wrong and politically wrong-headed to enter into the Iraq war without the backing of the UN.

Having formed that view, he stuck to it in the most hostile of Commons’ environments and repeated taunts of traitor. In politics, it is often the unanticipated which defines the politician. Iraq, unmentioned as a possible issue in the preceding 2001 election, dominated the succeeding Parliament and showed Charles at his best—decisive, supporting a principle in which he believed and doing so, in the most hostile circumstances, in a calm, dignified manner.

What lessons are there from this life and approach for the Liberal Democrats today?

Some are straightforward. The Party should be internationalist—playing a full part in the EU and other international bodies—but it should be wary of foreign adventures. It should be unionist—but should press for a more federal UK. And it should support the weak and rein in the strong. In the light of the election result, however, the party has to address—as Paddy Ashdown did as leader—the issue of the extent to which it wishes to be part of a broader anti-conservative movement or be content with ploughing a lonely oppositionist furrow. In today’s circumstances, I’m pretty sure that Charles would prefer the former.

The attitude of the Party as a whole—very few of whom would now call themselves social democrats—and of its soon-to-be-elected Leader, is at present much more opaque. A large proportion of members have joined since the Kennedy years. Many who joined in the latter years of the Labour administration did so in part at least because they opposed what they saw as an almost authoritarian government. Many of those who joined more recently, applauded our decision to form the coalition. So there can be no presumption that they have any warm feelings towards Labour. Both leadership contenders have in recent days been effusive in their praise of Charles Kennedy and appear equally keen to assume his mantle. His death, by reminding us of what he stood for, will give his views greater weight as members cast their vote than had he lived. I find it hard, however, to believe that this will prove decisive.