What are the Lib Dems for? They must champion localism to stay relevant in an age of single-issue politics | Simon Jenkins

September is the cruellest month for political commentators because it is when something has to be said about the Liberal Democrats. They are a play without a plot, a chorus line of seemingly endless “don’t knows”. Their leader, Ed Davey, recently warned that “we’re in the fight of our lives” to defend the values of liberty and equality. Really? How can this be when Davey is becoming about as relevant as Count Binface?

The Lib Dems’ central predicament has remained unchanged for a century, ever since the decline of David Lloyd George and the rise of the Labour party. There is simply no space in Britain for a centrist party when so little divides the big parties and they broadly stick to the prevailing ecomomic orthodoxy.

But there is now a ray of hope. One of the newer developments in British politics is the rise of single-issue parties. In Scotland and Wales, the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru demand independence from the UK, while in England the Reform party has dedicated itself to curbing immigration.

A lack of a clarifying message could partly explain why the Lib Dems have suffered heavy defeats at recent byelections, and slipped to fourth or fifth place in many national opinion polls, regularly trailing the Greens and Reform.

In order to improve their electoral fortunes, the Lib Dems need an equally straightforward cause, one that should have broad appeal and identify an area neglected by the other parties. That cause is now glaring: the devolution of government authority.

Time and again in national league tables, England ranks as having one of the most concentrated central governments in Europe, and by some measures in the world. English citizens’ ability to participate in local democracy is extremely weak compared to other countries such as France, Germany and those in Scandinavia.

Welfare comparisons show the UK’s local services fare poorly and inequitably compared with those, for instance, in localised Scandinavia. The authority of Britain’s central executive over local government is overbearing, with ever more disappointing outcomes for citizens.

Localism is the issue and one that has featured prominently in political debate for decades. New Labour even proposed a “new localism”. The result was just 12 elected mayors in England and Wales between 2001 and 2005.

In 2010, David Cameron pledged a “radical shift in power from central government to neighbourhoods”. He then did the opposite through enforced housing targets and a fierce programme of austerity. Similarly, in 2024 Keir Starmer promised to “deepen democracy by … devolving power to communities”. Yet one of his first moves was to overrule local discretion in planning approvals, describing councils as “blockers and nimbys”.

Over the years, the phrase “shifting power locally” became an almost ritualistic election chant, clearly based on polling data. No government really meant it. Ever since Margaret Thatcher, the centre has taken ever more control of local taxation, education, housing, care services and planning. The job of a British local council today is in effect to do what the centre tells it. It has not much money nor power for anything else. It is therefore no wonder that local democracy is subject to ridicule: see, for instance, the recent “independence” vote in the Oxfordshire village of Piddington.

Unquestionably the most headline-grabbing of Westminster’s pseudo-localists is Andy Burnham. Does he mean it? His innovation of a cohort of metro mayors – introduced under the Conservatives – inserts a new level of regional bureaucracy between central and local government. Their role will primarily be to enforce national targets of housebuilding and energy investment, and presumably to override decisions of local councils beneath them.

Burnham’s announcement that mayors in England will be able to keep a share of income tax and business rates was cited as proof of his commitment to his so-called devolution agenda. But the extent to which mayors will be able to wield these powers remains to be seen.

The prime minister’s moving of parts of the No 10 operation to Manchester hardly reduces the power of the centre. It merely relocates it, temporarily. Here, surely, is a Liberal Democrat cause.

Significantly, the one area in which the Lib Dems have flourished is local government. At last May’s local elections, the party took their control of councils up to 76, establishing them as a major political force across local government. This was a major achievement. There are now more Liberal Democrat council leaders in Britain than the 71 Lib Dem MPs. As such, their impact on the actual government of the country is substantial.

This cries out for revolution and the Lib Dems have every reason to be its champions. The party should go flat out for democratic, truly local self-government. Models of appropriate tiers and functions can be found across Europe. The cause is now aided by mountainous evidence that Britain’s centrist model – the famous “Rolls-Royce” of Whitehall – is now a clapped out jalopy. Every week the headlines cry that nothing seems to work.

This is the all-consuming challenge for the Lib Dems to make their own. Propose a major constitutional reform. The party’s 76 local councils can list the powers they want restored to them. It is these council leaders who must stand on stage at their conference, not Westminster’s indolent parliamentarians. Liberal Democrats should become the party of local Britain and restore the government of the people to the people.