Politics: Nick Clegg must reform his party for the sake of democracy – and survival

Nick Clegg’s tuition fees nightmare was never going to be over after the Commons vote.

Nick Clegg’s tuition fees nightmare was never going to be over after the Commons vote. Even if every Liberal Democrat MP followed him into the ‘aye’ lobby, it would still not change the party’s policy on the issue. That fight goes on. The Lib Dem Federal Policy Committee has already shown that it plans to make the Deputy Prime Minister go several more rounds. It declared recently that the abolition of fees remains party policy, whatever its leader might say.

At the next Lib Dem spring conference, a motion will almost certainly be tabled (and passed) reaffirming that the party remains committed to the abolition of fees. If this were not embarrassment enough, Clegg could even be forced to go into the next election promising to reverse the policy that he and his ministerial colleagues have expended such political capital to pass.