That’s it then, for now. Our 2024 Liberal Democrat General Election campaign might well be remembered for its silliness and stunts but, combined with our clear, serious manifesto messages, it turned heads and generated a lot of joy and positivity among the overwhelming majority of the people who spoke to us in the six weeks of campaigning. Many people appreciate our local work in our council and how it makes a difference to their everyday lives.

We ran an efficient campaign focused on targeting our limited resources into seats where we had a real prospect of winning. We in Bromley together with Liberal Democrats from all around London, piled into Carshalton and Wallington and then Sutton and Cheam for a month in order to support the new MPs Bobby Dean and Luke Taylor. A similar effort was made further west to elect Paul Kohler in Wimbledon. The strategy paid off to gain us 72 seats from Land’s End to John O’ Groats. It’s our largest total for a hundred years and a cause for jubilation.

Part of me bought into the hype that we might beat the Conservatives to be the second largest party, and therefore the main opposition – what a triumph that would have been – but I knew that wasn’t ever a realistic hope. I admit that I’m disappointed that we couldn’t trample the Tories into a deserved oblivion. I hope that Sir Keir Starmer’s new Government will be able to see beyond the narrow and petty tribalism of some of his supporters and that Parliamentary Liberal Democrats will make a cross-party difference to begin to mend a truly broken Britain where nothing works anymore. I hope we LibDems will continue to hold the government to account on policy details and nuances.

There are, however, some recriminations. Not in our own party, this time. We are united and happy. But one of our local seats missed out on turning Labour by just 302 votes. And the poison against us has started. Apparently we’re “patsies” of the Tories because we didn’t stand down. Apparently we should have stood down in what was an unwinnable seat for us and, by not standing down we have yet again facilitated a Tory victory. I had this accusation levelled at me for standing in the Shortlands and Park Langley by-election as well.

Honestly, some people never stop whining do they?

Let me once and for all spell this out:

1. The Liberal Democrats stand in as many seats we can to represent people who want to vote for us and our policies. It’s arrogant to assume that all our votes would have gone to Labour if we had not stood. Labour don’t own all non-Tory votes;

2. Voters, seeing the limitations of their voice under our FPTP voting system used their votes tactically. Our LibDem share of the vote in my three home constituencies of Beckenham, Bromley and Orpington was slashed dramatically as a result of boundary changes and a massive tactical voting effort to try and Get The Tories Out.

3. People who say that the Liberal Democrats should have stood down to allow a free run for Labour, and castigate us for not doing so, rarely aim their ire at the other parties or the Independents who are also never going to win the seats. To my mind this is sheer, puerile tribalism and I’m calling it out now.

4. It is for voters who decide which party to vote for, and it’s not our call to take away their choice. Perhaps those writing their poison emails and tweets might care to look closer to home for reasons why they aren’t attracting enough voters for a secure majority, or to vote at all. Their policies on Brexit, for example, or Gaza were among the reasons I heard for Labour voters witholding their votes this time.

5. These people are simply looking for a scapegoat, and we Liberal Democrats are an easy, simplist target.

It is really devastating to see our local voter base for which we work so hard – some might say tirelessly – crumble because voters’ views are not adequately and proportionately represented under our current system. Our consolation is that when we swallowed our egos as instructed by local and national party management, and worked together for target seat wins, we succeeded for the greater good. Though this meant toning down our campaigns in our home seats for now, we didn’t completely neglect them, and we’ll use this General Election campaign and the goodwill generated towards us to build for the local elections in two years time.

In the meantime we can regroup, collate the data we’ve gathered, build the enthusiasm of our new members and continue to serve the interests of our local communities. We hope we can influence the new government to change to a fair, more proportional voting system. We’ll continue to be a positive force for good. And we’ll let the people who whinge and moan at us just for being us continue with that, if it makes them happy.