GUEST POST Understanding the views and worries of the city of Oxford Lib Dem

William Lane has discovered a new political category: the Oxford Liberal Democrat. Who is she and what does she want from us?

It was with great interest that I read the latest piece from Rose Runswick over at the New Model Liberal blog, as it made an excellent case that the Lib Dems have exhausted their potential pool of Tory–Lib crossover voters. This is a point I have also made in the past, but I refrained then from recommending a subsequent shift in the party’s approach as I am not a Lib Dem member. 

Things have changed, however, and it’s clear from rumblings online that many Lib Dem members are not happy with being stuck on 15 per cent of the vote, and are looking with slightly jealous eyes at the Greens' current poll surge. There seems to be an appetite among Britain’s liberals for a change in direction. 

So how do I suggest the Lib Dems expand their appeal? Well, to be clear I don;t think that lies in a populist turn à la Polanski. For one thing the existing Lib Dem voter base would hate it, and for another I’m unconvinced this new populist direction will actually benefit the Greens in the long term.

Personally, I think the answer to that question lies in analysing their existing voter base. It was @Amrk on Bluesky who introduced me the concepts of "Devon Lib Dems" and "Twickenham Lib Dems", terms which immediately gelled with me as someone who grew up in the liberalising South East from 1996–2014, and has met liberal voters in both camps. For those unfamiliar with these terms, I will loosely define them now:

Devon Lib Dems: Independently minded small l liberal voters, of the type that used to be called "nonconformist". They usually live in villages or rural towns, and work in small, domestic-facing businesses or agriculture. These liberals tend towards localism, often take an interest in local history and folklore, and tend to identify heavily with their region.

These voters were the backbone of the 20th-century Liberal Party. They are often found in rural areas of the UK, including the South West of England, the Scottish Highlands and the Welsh countryside (although there they tend to vote for Plaid Cymru).

Twickenham Lib Dems: Successful, liberally minded voters who 40 years ago would have been liberal Tories. Instinctively liberal and internationalist, but focused on economic issues, these voters are often current or former business owners or well-paid private sector workers. They tend towards being well-off homeowners, although this category is increasingly including middle-income, frustrated private renters.

These voters are the spiritual successors to the prosperous middle class that made the 19th century Liberal Party such a dominant force, and whose move to the Tories in the 1920s sealed its fate as a major party. Their move back towards liberalism has been a major (and underdiscussed) feature of British politics since the early 1990s.

So, if these are the two main types of existing Lib Dem voter, how can the party move beyond them? The clue is in the increasing numbers of frustrated middle-income voters turning to the Lib Dems.

Here I will introduce my own concept, the "Oxford Lib Dem".

The Oxford Lib Dem is a white-collar private sector worker, living in a prosperous area of the country but struggling with stagnant wages and high rent. She may have a background in the upper working/lower middle class, but through education has gained a place in the solidly middle classes, either through traditional service industries (law, consulting) or Britain’s new growth industries (biosciences, tech). 

Probably somewhere between 27 and 45, she is staunchly anti-Conservative but either suspicious of or despondent with Labour, while being too business-minded to be tempted by the Greens. She shares the internationalist focus of the Twickenham Lib Dem, but lacks their wealth and background. Similarly, she agrees with the Devon Lib Dem on the importance of place and local area, but values her life in a prosperous urban town or small city.

As you may have guessed reading this, this voter is an amalgamation of people I know personally from my experiences living and travelling in prosperous parts of the country like York, Surrey, Clapham and Oxford. Although lovely places to live in, these areas combine a high cost of living with often stagnant wages for early-to-middle white-collar workers, leading to a constant drumbeat of anxiety around inflation and the prospect of job loss. 

This quite possibly led our voter to opt for Labour in 2024, but she will have been disappointed since then. Given that she will never vote Conservative or Reform, and will be put off by the overtly left politics of Polanski, she is a prime target  for Lib Dem strategists. Winning her over could be the key to finally breaking out of the 15 per cent vote ceiling the Lib Dems seem stuck under, and finally getting up to 20 per cent of the vote.

However, I must inject a note of caution here. One of the greatest desires of our Oxford Lib Dem is to get out of the hated private renting market, and into her own home. This sets her apart from our other two kinds of Lib Dem, for whom housing is less of a concern. While our Oxford Lib Dem is probably not a YIMBY in the political sense, she does support housebuilding, bringing down house prices and greater infrastructure development. 

Appealing to this voter would mean taking the Young Liberal approach to development, which could anger some existing Lib Dem voters. To be clear, this wouldn’t mean totally abandoning existing Lib Dem policy or outsourcing it to housing developers, but it would require a rethink of the national Lib Dem approach to development. 

William Lane is an independent political analyst, who writes at the Party Animal Substack. You can also find him on Bluesky.