Lib Dems to decide Lord Rennard’s fate

I’m not sure what the collective noun for a group of Liberal Democrat politicians is. But whatever it is, they’ll meet behind closed doors tonight. Party activists and officials will gather to consider claims that Lord Rennard abused his power by propositioning women and touching them inappropriately.

Events which will unfold this evening were set in motion when the Metropolitan Police announced there’d be no criminal charges against the Lib Dem peer.

Since then an internal investigation by the Liberal Democrats has been chuntering along, led by Alistair Webster QC. He’ll present his ruminations to the committee tonight, who will decide whether a panel of three women and one man will mount a full disciplinary hearing.

That in turn will determine whether or not Lord Rennard brought the party into disrepute and, if they find against him, whether he should be expelled from the party – the toughest sanction available to the Lib Dems given that peerages are jobs for life.

It’s now almost a year since Channel 4 News broadcast the allegations against Lord Rennard, one of the Lib Dems’ most senior peers, who pulled the strings of a succession of leaders. And certainly the length of time the whole process is taking has proved frustrating to the women I spoke to for my investigation.

One of them, Bridget Harris, told me on Tuesday: “This process will be critical in restoring trust in the party’s ability to deal with harassment complaints and equality generally. The fact that these complaints took over a decade to come out, and there has been so much controversy within the party in being able to admit there has been failures, is revealing in itself.”

The party leader Nick Clegg is under no illusion about what’s at stake. At the time the allegations surfaced he admitted the Lib Dems had let women down for two decades and claimed he took full responsibility. There was, he said, “absolutely no excuse whatsoever” for the way the party had treated the women.

Speaking to me earlier, one woman urged the party to find the “moral courage” to match those words with some actions and change the party’s attitude to women for good.

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