Jo Swinson isn’t the politician we’ve been waiting for

A new British political party leader has been making the news. Boris Johnson was elected (in a pretty undemocratic way, but such is the policy of the party) to lead the Conservative Party and, following a meeting with the Queen (what was I saying about undemocratic?) was made Prime Minister. I have a great many problems with this, but I have already outlined quite a lot of them and I don’t like to repeat myself. Much.

But Johnson is not the only new party leader in the UK; Jo Swinson has been chosen to lead the Liberal Democrats, the first woman ever to do so. This leaves the Labour Party trailing embarrassingly in the ‘having had a female party leader’ stakes, given that they’re supposed to be the lot who believe most passionately in equality. Swinson is also the youngest ever Lib Dem leader.

However, simply being a woman does not mean that somebody is a great feminist or brilliant activist. We had Thatcher, for god’s sake, who was the epitome of oppression. Being young, too, does not automatically make somebody a leftie or somebody with new ideas. In fact, Jo Swinson’s nomination, though she may at first appear to be a breath of fresh air, is not without its problems. In particular, Swinson’s voting history is a cause for great concern.

And while leading the third-biggest party in Parliament may not seem that powerful, the Liberal Democrats – positioning themselves as the party for Remain, anti-Brexit voters – wowed everybody in the recent European elections and could be the kingmakers (again) in a future hung parliament. In polls, their numbers have skyrocketed and, while doing well in a European election does not always equate to doing well in a general election, because of the different methods of counting the votes, the party’s popularity is still high.

In short, Jo Swinson could wield some serious power in the coming years. So we need to examine where she has come from and what she has done so far.

As well as campaigning against Easter egg packaging (I can’t argue with that I suppose, but it seems a little niche) and in favour of pedlars and door-to-door sales people, Swinson has a history of supporting other party members such as Nick Clegg, having served as his Parliamentary Private Secretary in 2012. She argued in favour of a statue of the aforementioned Thatcher, saying that opponents were anti-feminist, and she opposed quotas of women, famously wearing a “I’m not a token woman” t-shirt while giving a speech. While many feminists (myself included) are in favour of, for example, all-women shortlists of MP candidates to try to redress the male / female balance in parliament, she is more of a “work hard and you’ll get there” type. Which is fine when you’ve got other privileges in place, of course.

But it’s how she voted when she was part of the Coalition government – when the Liberal Democrats propped up a Conservative government that otherwise did not have enough MPs to do what it wanted – that shows Swinson to be a dangerous person to trust. To look at her voting record without her name attached, you wouldn’t know if you were looking at a lowly Lib Dem or an all-powerful Tory minister.

Austerity, benefit cuts, the bedroom tax, she supported them all.

Austerity is not just a political message to send out when times are tough. It is a policy that causes the suffering and even deaths of thousands of people living under it. Those who have the audacity to be disabled, a woman, young, LGBT or BAME can find that they are hit harder than their more privileged neighbours, and those who are poor (or who are made poor by policies and cuts) become very vulnerable.

She has talked of regrets and of the need at the time to compromise, but to be so swayed against her most needy constituents in exchange for a flash of power for a few years makes her somebody that I fail to trust. If she could support Clegg in his bid for (temporary) power, and if she could support Cameron as he cut and cut and cut the services most needed by his public, then she is not somebody who is on my side. She is not somebody I can rely on. She is not somebody I can vote for.

Swinson has also been clear that she would never enter a coalition with Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. While this may be a sympathetic view to many, to rule that out while having ruled in – and lived through – a coalition with David Cameron shows which side of the centre line her political views reside.

I can only agree with Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Mhairi Black, who has called on Swinson to apologise, saying, “Jo Swinson was one of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for the Tory coalition government.

“She must move quickly to apologise for the devastating cuts she imposed, and rule out any future Tory pact – if she wants anyone to believe the LibDems have changed their ways.

“People haven’t forgotten that it was the LibDems who trebled university tuition fees to £9,000 a year, scrapped the Education Maintenance Allowance, introduced the bedroom tax, imposed the cap on public sector pay, and the damaging cuts to social security for disabled people.

“While the SNP has consistently opposed Tory cuts, the LibDems enabled the worst of them – pushing millions of people into poverty and inequality, and forcing families to rely on food banks and emergency aid to feed their children.”

Photo: Liberal Democrats