State of the parties: A look at the Welsh Liberal Democrats

THE past few years haven’t been kind to the Liberal Democrats in Wales or across the UK.

Haunted by the spectre of the betrayal over tuition fees shortly after the formation of the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2010, the party has been punished in subsequent elections, losing elected representatives at all levels up and down the UK.

And the picture in Wales has been no different, with all but one of the party’s five AMs - Brecon and Radnorshire’s Kirsty Williams - losing their seats in 2016.

Ms Williams promptly stepped down as party leader to be replaced by Ceredigion MP Mark Williams - no relation - who had been left as the only Welsh Lib Dem MP in 2015.

But he was also turfed out of his seat in last year’s snap General Election by Plaid Cymru’s Ben Lake, leaving the party without a single representative in the House of Commons.

Although Ms Williams was handed the considerable responsibility of education secretary in Carwyn Jones’ cabinet following 2016's Assembly Election, with polls showing no sign of an upswing in support for the party, it seems a very long time since ‘I agree with Nick’ was, briefly, a national slogan.

So you could be forgiven for expecting the party as a whole to be fairly despondent.

It may have come as something of a surprise, then, to find last weekend’s spring conference was an upbeat and lively affair, with attendance way up on the previous year.

New leader Jane Dodds, who was elected to the role in November last year and made her first appearance at a party conference last weekend, said she recognised the party had been through some difficult times, but is optimistic about the future.

“We are definitely on our way up,” she said

“We are climbing a mountain - but we are not at the top yet.

“We are very much using this time in order to regroup, rebalance, refresh and re-energise.”

And Ms Williams said: “The Liberal Democrats are nothing if not resilient.

“There is resilience, there is optimism, there is energy and, crucially, determination to work with our new leader to be out in communities, listening to people, campaigning and delivering in council chambers, at the National Assembly and in the House of Lords to get back to the point where we have higher levels of representation.”

But political commentator Professor Roger Awan-Scully of Cardiff University said polls were less positive about the party.

“There’s no sign of them recovering,” he said. “It’s like a medical drama and they’re flatlining.”

He added the lack of elected members presented the party with a real challenge.

“They have got to find something different to say,” he said.

“That’s probably going to have to come from a UK-level and it can be trumpeted by the party in Wales.

“Brexit will in some way provide them with something here, as the most obvious anti-Brexit party.

“But, being so marginalised at the moment, they will have to think of a relatively few key things and keep hammering away on them.

“They are not going to have a lot of chances to say these things so when they do they really going to have to take advantage of them.

“But it’s going to be difficult. They’re probably going to have to be quite creative in how they get their messages out there.”

There’s no denying the betrayal over the tuition fees, when the party pledged not to increase university fees ahead of the 2010 General Election, only to sign off on increasing them after moving into coalition with the Conservatives, was seriously damaging for the Lib Dems across the UK.

But that was eight years ago, and by the time of the next Assembly Election in 2021, will have been more than 10 years ago.

So, is it still an issue for the party in Wales?

Ms Dodds said she believed voters were starting to move on.

“It wasn’t an easy time for us,” she said. “I was out door-knocking in 2015 and we kept hearing about tuition fees. It wasn’t so much the tuition fees, it was the loss of trust - that we had made this pledge and we had broken it, so they couldn’t trust us again and we learned from that the hard way.

“We did some good things in the coalition and we didn’t do enough of messaging those and making sure people knew about them.”

She added: “The Scottish Liberals have managed to gain that ground of saying we are the liberal voice.

“I don’t think we’ve managed to do that in Wales, and that’s what we need to do.”

And Ms Williams, who has responsibility for tuition fees in Wales as part of her education portfolio, said she recognised there is work to do in rebuilding trust in the party.

“Going into the coalition was the right thing to do, but that surprised people and there was backlash,” she said

“There is an issue, which Jane is very aware of and I am very aware of, of reestablishing trust. That’s why its very important that I am able to demonstrate and deliver on promises I made.

“We did say in the Liberal Democrat manifesto we would increase expenditure on the Pupil Development Grant, and in government I am doing that. We did say in the manifesto we would establish a Rent to Buy scheme to allow more people to get on the housing ladder and own their own home, and in government I’ve delivered that. We said we would ensure the Safer Staffing Act was implemented in full, and about two weeks ago we delivered that.

“It is by that delivery that we can rebuild that trust with the electorate and demonstrate, even with small numbers, we can get things done for them and re-establish that belief and that trust that, if you are voting for a Lib Dem, they will do what they said they were going to do.”

The party’s president William Powell, who represented Mid and West Wales in the Assembly between 2011 and 2016, said he believed “people are prepared to put it to one side”.

“Coalitions are difficult for people,” he said. “But, just because it caused great difficulty for us doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing for the country at the time.”

Professor Awan-Scully said, while some time has passed since the coalition, its impact was likely to remain.

“A lot of detailed research suggests people very quickly forget the reason they have a particular attitude to a party, but they hold onto that attitude,” he said.

“People may have forgotten about the tuition fees but still have a sense of disliking the Lib Dems or not trusting them. But, it may be that by the time the next election comes around the other parties are so discredited that people are ready to give them a chance.”

But now the party has the benefit of some breathing space with - the very real possibility of another snap General Election aside - no elections on the horizon until 2021.

Central to the Welsh Lib Dems' attempts to is its call for a second referendum on the deal reached with with the EU - to include the option not to leave. And Ms Williams said this time could be used to re-assert the party’s position at the centre ground.

“There is absolutely a space in the centre of British politics for those people who look in horror at the direction the Conservative government is taking the nation in,” she said.

“There is an opportunity for the Welsh Liberal Democrats take advantage of what I think is that gap in the centre ground.”

She added: “The party is determined to use this period of time to be listening to people and rebuilding so that we, at subsequent elections, increase our representation at Assembly level, Westminster level and in local councils.

“That work begins now.”

And, on the likelihood of another snap General Election, she added: “Political parties have to be constantly in election mode because of the inherent weakness of the government in Westminster.

“We need to be ready for an election which could be called at any time.”

Mr Powell agreed the time was ripe for the party to take advantage of the widening divide in UK politics.

“I think over the years one of the things that has been a little difficult for us is that Plaid Cymru has encamped on a lot of traditional liberal values and on some traditional liberal terrain,” he said.

He added: “The more fair-minded people are now, with the benefit of hindsight, seeing the red meat-eaters and the extremist tendency in the Conservative Party, and the leftist shift in Labour.

“People are hungry for a greater dynamism and radicalism in the centre. I think we are well placed to take advantage of that.”

And professor Awan-Scully said the divides in the other main parties both in Wales and in Westminster could provide the opportunities the Welsh Liberal Democrats

“There’s a lot of opportunities for the Liberal Democrats there,” he said. “But are they ever going to be in a state to grab those opportunities?

“There’s no sign that they are.”

And Ms Dodds said she recognised the party needs to change the way it operates if it is to make progress.

"People do say to us 'what's the point of the Lib Dems?'," she said.

"I do understand that, and we need to be much clearer about that."

She added: "We absolutely cannot afford to carry on the way we are.

"Partly because that will not get us anywhere, but also because Wales needs something different as well."