Person-centred liberalism is a tautology – there’s no other form of liberalism. However, it might be useful to explore a little of what we mean when liberals talk about individualism, the freedom of everybody to be themselves and to make the best of their lives. “Isn’t that the same as the Tories?” a lifelong Labour supporter once said to me.
The idea is central to liberalism. It says that each, precious, separate person is more important than any group of which she or he may be part. Yes, we find and express ourselves in communities and other groups. But it’s the individuals that define the groups, not the other way round.
Take class, for instance. In modern Britain, social class is self-defined and has little to do with income, status, work or even origin. Look at the Labour Party’s leadership! But it still has a lot to do with Labour rhetoric and strikes a chord with their core vote. It’s often a key reference for the attitude which says: “I’ve always voted Labour; so did my parents, because we are working class”. Even so, I was surprised to see Blair’s pollster, Philip Gould, start his autobiography with a quotation from Hegel:
The human being finds his proper identity only in those relations that are in effect the negation of his isolated particularity – in his membership in a group or social class whose institutions, organisations and values determine his very individuality.
I’ve quoted that rather turgid sentence because it makes my point exactly: for Hegel and Gould, the important thing is to be defined by class, not to define yourself. As part of the Labour mindset, it’s also an important indicator about why it’s so hard to move on from the institution that imprisons them.
Another example: the local Labour council leader in Burnley (now my MP, I’m sorry to say) was attacked by the National Front with typical aggression for living in a detached house in the country and driving a Range Rover with customised plates. The revealing Labour defence was to say that it was OK for her to be a leading Labour politician because she and her husband had made their money themselves. It led me to think: so, I couldn’t be a leading Labour politician (LLP) because my Dad was a doctor; but my Dad could because his father was a labourer; my grandfather couldn’t be an LLP because my great-grandfather was a shop-owner; but my great-grandfather could do it because he started life as a groom. Bah! It would be simply silly if it didn’t reveal a mindset which is on tramlines because of political orthodoxy.
For Conservatives, the key class mindset is about the middle class, whatever that is. They don’t mind the deference vote – Disraeli called them “angels in marble” – but their basic appeal is to a wide-ranging middle class from “hard-working families” through to a royal consort, who are defined by “middle class values”.
One other distinguishing feature of those whose minds are imprisoned by class is that the qualities that each ascribes to the other are mirror images. Hard-working, thrifty, family values, thinking for the future and common sense is my class; conformist, feckless, and living in the present is the other lot. “Snooty” and “chip on the shoulder” are also mirror images of class thinking.
Jo Grimond once answered the question: “what would the liberals do about class?” by responding instantly “We’d abolish it”. I agree. I also agree with Keynes who once explained why he could not vote Labour: “in the final analysis, I could not vote Labour because Labour believes in class war. If that came, I’d be on the side of my own class, that of the educated bourgeoisie”.
Historically, an even more damaging and insidious group to subordinate the individual is the idea of nation. Despite being more traditionally a conservative view, it’s recently been embraced thoroughly by Labour and even occasionally by Liberal Democrats who prate about “British values” or even “English values”, whatever they are. Are they really sure that all other national groups of people can’t compete on the tests of tolerance, humour and kindness to small animals? “Common-sense” is easier to ascribe to a particular nationality – that’s because every group thinks of common-sense as “the prejudices I learned before I was 10”, but that doesn’t really define the term.
“My nation, right or wrong” or “my country, right or wrong” is a wholly illiberal view. For a liberal, it is unthinkable that nation or any other identity could be more important than whether something is right or wrong. Of course, a state can decide to ask its citizens to go to war or commit troops for or against a principle (I’m not a pacifist). I hope that may happen in future through the UN’s “responsibility to protect”, but it’s a request and making it is the hardest decision a government or politician will ever make.
Separation into English and Scottish nationhood and identity is unhelpful in taking most of the decisions that are needed to help the citizens of both countries. On genetic grounds, it would be as silly between most European nations, although the Finns, Magyars and Basques may have a stronger claim than others to genetic separateness. I have seen ordinary people on the streets of most countries of the world and in all the inhabited continents. What strikes me most is what we have in common throughout our daily lives, not whatever minor cultural differences there might be.
Liberals have a proud history in many countries of not supporting their nations, countries or states when they are wrong. Some of them have died or suffered for their beliefs and many still do today. For a liberal, it’s the people that matter, not the nations.
Another group which can replace individual identity is the family. Of course, we are all influenced by our families for good or ill, but do we believe that it’s ever more important than the people who make it up? A family can be controlled by a father or a mother rather than by the individuals within it. Women are now much more likely to define themselves by characteristics other than family duties and circumstances. Children define their identities within their families, in opposition to them and in their wider circles. That’s a good thing – much better than simply being the product of and owned by their families and family relationships.
Liberals have written about the politics of identity. A person’s identity can be shaped by race, sex, sexual orientation or disability, and as we go through life by age, religion or the lack of it, community and work. Despite that, they are not defined by those things; they are people first and disabled or gay or young or anything else second. It’s why some of us have campaigned for years against defining people by adjectives: the young, the old, the mentally, the disabled……. Basically, we are all individuals, not part of a class or nation or group.
As with class or national characteristics, liberals occasionally slip into sloppy thinking about groups rather than individuals. After weeks of hearing “I vote Labour because I’m working class” or “I vote Conservative because I don’t like Scots”, it’s difficult not to dismiss some groups as beyond salvation. But for a liberal, no-one is beyond the hope that they can see themselves as a strong, independent person in their own right.
* Gordon Lishman is a member of the Federal Board.