A regular question asked is “What Do X Political Party stand for”. For most parties, this can be summed up in a single phrase, but it can be more difficult for the Liberal Democrats. So this article is about what the main political parties stand for.
Conservatives
What they stand for: rich people. I’m not going to sugarcoat this, the current Tories are all about looking after the wealthy in society, hence they make tax cuts that affect the rich far more than the poor and cut the services that the poor rely on. It’s fair to say that the Conservatives simply do not care about you if you don’t have a Coutts bank account or make large donations to their party.
Labour
What they stand for: ostensibly they are focused on helping the working class. In reality, their current stance is almost entirely a continuation of the current government. They support staying out of the EU, they have not proposed any sort of tax reform to specifically target the rich other than closing the non-domiciled loophole, and they have refused to back democracy by supporting the Proportional Representation demanded by their own party. In short, Labour really are not demonstrating that they care about anything other than getting into power.
Reform
What they stand for: think “Britain First”. This is a party for those who look at the Conservatives and think “nope, not fascist enough”. Frankly I am astonished that they are as popular as they are, as they have shown that they only really care about white British people and want to pursue very much an isolationist strategy for trade and international relations. A Reform government would likely ruin our international standing for years. I honestly do not know who they care about, because all of their policies seem to be largely based on hatred of “other” groups.
Green
What they stand for: the Greens put the environment first, with all of their other policies deriving from the idea that the country needs to still exist in 100 years or so. The Greens are advocates of Proportional Representation and rejoining the EU, so in many ways are natural allies of the Liberal Democrats. Unfortunately they are a very small party indeed, with only a single MP at present, who is due to step down at the next election. As such, anyone voting for them might want to consider whether their vote would be better placed with the Liberal Democrats.
Liberal Democrats
Saving the best until last, the Liberal Democrats essentially stand for fairness as a broad concept. This is best exemplified by the drive to make votes match power share in parliament, bringing proper democracy to the UK for the first time. As a party we are wholly committed to peace, with all of our MPs voting to make statements that we in the UK wanted a ceasefire in Gaza, something opposed by the Conservatives and largely abstained on by Labour.
Our love of fairness extends to both the NHS and carers, and we believe firmly in a “cradle to grave” health service, which means that all medical staff need to be comfortable with their remuneration and benefits, and that our NHS buildings, such as Hillingdon Hospital, are properly renovated and modernised.
We also firmly believe in education. It is unconscienable that we cut the education budget year after year, and we believe that both schools and universities should be available free of charge at the point of service.
Finally, the elephant in the room, we believe that we must urgently rebuild our relationship with Europe. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we ought to rejoin immediately (though that would be my preference!), but it does mean that we need to step back from the highly adversarial position we have taken with our European members.
Overall, what do we stand for? the answer is so much, but it all falls into the category of “fairness”.
