THAT Alex Cole-Hamilton will succeed Willie Rennie as leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats is as obvious as it is certain. Long-distance runners such as Mr Rennie do not do much in the way of relay running, but it has long been evident that one day he would pass his baton to the one-to-watch, the spic’n’span new boy from Edinburgh, Holyrood’s best-dressed MSP, Mr Cole-Hamilton.
That Willie Rennie has chosen this summer to spend more time on his long-distance running trails has generated plenty of column inches on whether his party has a future. With only four MSPs in Holyrood and four Scottish MPs in Westminster, the party is in the doldrums, but Alex Cole-Hamilton’s bid to succeed Mr Rennie raises a deeper question – and a much more important one – whether liberalism itself has a future in Scotland and, if so, whether Cole-Hamilton is the man to shape it.
Two things struck me about the video Alex Cole-Hamilton released to launch his leadership campaign. First, that its strapline (“for Scotland’s liberal future“) dropped the “Democrat” from the “Liberal” and secondly that, despite this being his message he did not in fact talk about liberty at all in the content of his video. Instead, he talked about equality.
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This did not surprise me – but it does worry me. I have known Alex Cole-Hamilton for several years and, throughout that time, his egalitarianism has shone more brightly than his commitment to liberalism. Fairness and freedom are the twin hallmarks of progressive politics. But they do not always go hand in hand. Sometimes they clash and, when they do, each of us has to choose whether to give priority to the drive for equality or to the principle of liberty.
For politicians of the left, this is an easy decision: if a slice of freedom is the price to pay for a more equal society, so be it. But, if Cole-Hamilton is really to be the champion of “Scotland’s liberal future”, as he puts it, this is a price he is going to have to say can be too steep. For a liberal, the quest for a more equal society cannot come at the cost of personal freedom. That does not mean liberals have to abandon any commitment to egalitarianism: but it does mean that equality has to be sought subject to our freedoms and not at their expense.
Let me give some examples. Remember named persons? Every child in Scotland was to be given a named person, who would be legally responsible for monitoring that child’s wellbeing, to the point of being required to report to the authorities concerns they had about that child’s wellbeing. Its proponents insisted this was well-intentioned policy, designed to safeguard child welfare and to protect children from harm. That the policy would apply equally to all children (whether there was reason to worry about their wellbeing or not) gave it the egalitarian colour that encouraged progressives to herald named persons as enlightened, forward-thinking politics.
But, whether well-intentioned or not, the named persons idea was an affront to the rights and freedoms of families and parents. It met with strenuous opposition and was challenged in the Supreme Court, the justices holding in a famous judgment that the named persons law was contrary to human rights and, for that reason, unlawful. In the Scottish Parliament the Lib Dems voted for the named persons law (only the Conservatives abstained and, appallingly, no one voted against).
The law was passed before Alex Cole-Hamilton was elected to Holyrood but, in his own words, in his capacity as an advocate for child welfare he had been “the poster boy” for named persons.
Liberals are supposed to believe in freedom, choice and individual responsibility, not in state control. In the last Parliament, the Green MSP John Finnie piloted legislation that made it a criminal offence for parents to use physical means to discipline their children. This illiberal step was enthusiastically supported by Alex Cole-Hamilton.
But the most illiberal law introduced in the last session of the Scottish Parliament was Humza Yousaf’s Hate Crime Bill. In its first iteration this Bill was a horrible attack on freedom of speech. During its passage through Holyrood the opposition parties forced four separate rounds of concessions from Mr Yousaf, in an attempt to drag the Bill’s provisions into line with human rights law.
But this opposition was not led by the Liberal Democrats. They folded their resistance to the Bill at the first opportunity, thereafter backing Humza Yousaf all the way.
For a man who wants to lead “Scotland’s liberal future” Alex Cole-Hamilton was – and continues to be – remarkably quiet about the Hate Crime Bill. How can you seek to shape the future of liberalism in your country if you choose not to speak out about the most illiberal measures placed before the country’s Parliament? It is something of a puzzle.
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Scotland needs a liberal champion, now more than ever. In the name of public health we have surrendered countless freedoms since March 2020 and we have a fight on our hands to win them back now that the pandemic is finally starting to come under control. The fundamental values of political liberalism – of freedom, choice, dignity and autonomy – need not just an individual politician, but a party – an entire movement – to put them front and centre.
In today’s Scotland our freedoms find themselves under challenge from the authoritarian right, notably as regards criminal justice and immigration. Even more so, they are also under threat from the left, where the increasingly toxic war over trans rights, gender recognition, and women’s sex-based rights is only the most notorious example. Liberals cannot stand aside and watch as the noxiousness of debates such as these rises all around us.
Being liberal does not mean pleasing all the people all the time. It means placing freedom first. First against the authority of the state, for sure. But also against progressives who have lost sight of their commitment to individual liberty, too.
I like Alex Cole-Hamilton and I wish him well. He has his work cut out to convince that he can truly be the guardian of Scotland’s liberal future.
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