Dear Mrs Bearder
Thank you for your recent ‘Update’. You mention the importance of a pro-European voice in the next election – and I passionately agree with you.
The problem, so far as the LibDems are concerned, is that you have lost the electors’ trust – and there appears to be no recognition of this by the LibDem leadership.
I was a member of the Liberals and LibDems for over 40 years. I resigned my membership because the leadership of the party seems to have decided that the ‘coalition agreement’ with the Conservatives – for which there was no democratic mandate – somehow allowed them to ditch policies – such as on university tuition fees, and on the need for extreme ‘austerity’ – which were manifesto pledges.
It just is not good enough to say that the LibDems have prevented some of the worst excesses of their Tory partners. It should have been recognised at the start that manifesto commitments could not be contradicted in government: the coalition partners should have agreed to disagree on those matters, so that no action on them would have been taken.
Why would anyone vote for any manifesto which the Party may adopt for 2015? What guarantee will there be that its policies will not again be discarded? At the very least, the Party should acknowledge publicly its great breach of trust with those who voted for it in 2010, and make a specific promise never to do this again. Otherwise, there will be no reason at all to trust the Party with one’s vote in the election.
I have written to Nick Clegg and to Sir Menzies Campbell to make this point, but my messages were not even acknowledged.
It will be a loss to this country if the LibDems’ voice on Europe is lost – but that is entirely foreseeable, for the reasons I have mentioned above. Are you and your colleagues going to do anything about it?
Best regards
Hugh Bryant
hughdbryant 
Thanks Hugh – I’ve never voted for the Liberal Party as have always considered them too flakey! Too willing to change with the wind. . And the experience of the Coaltion confirmed this. It is hypocritical for the Party to now to distance themselves from the Conservatives when they have colluded without much question with policies they now claim tio dislike. They will not be forgiven by the electorate for supporting student fees. How can it be justifiable to leave graduates with a 42,000 pound debt (at least) at the start of a working life. The Greens have it right! And so has Scotland.