Tim Farron Says Lib Dems Must "Make Our Own Luck" At The Next Election

Liberal Democrat MP and former party leader Tim Farron has said the Lib Dems have to figure out how to “make our own luck” when considering their strategy for the next general election, and rely less on their political rivals making errors.

Lib Dem party conference is taking place over this weekend in Brighton and according to Farron, attendees are still “positively shell-shocked” after the party achieved a record general election result by winning 72 seats. 

“We are in many ways the authors of our own success, and in some ways we were blessed by the mistakes of others and the opportunities that other parties perhaps provided for us,” he told PoliticsHome.

“So we haven't assumed that everything will be like that in the future and so it's how do we go and make our own luck?”

Farron was elected the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale in 2005, and was president of the party between 2011 and 2015 and leader between 2015 and 2017, before resigning because he felt “remaining faithful to Christ” was incompatible with leading the party. He was elected for the sixth time as the MP for the Cumbrian constituency with an increased majority – alongside many of his colleagues who have been elected for the first time.

“The transformation is quite something,” he said.

“The election result confers a new status upon us and so we've got to be prepared for probably a bigger and more interesting conference.”

This year will see more external organisations – charities, companies, and think tanks – descend on Lib Dem conference than the party has been used to in recent years. Farron hopes this is a sign of a turning point for the party where they begin to be seen as a credible alternative opposition.

“We will be the party of environmental progress, of