Blog archive from the golden age of London libertarianism
Please feel free to pitch your ideas on a name for the organisation here.
Ideally please provide a small description of your reasoning about ideas proposed. The name isn’t just a title, it’s a key part of the “brand” of the organisation… so whilst it may appear to be a small detail, it is quite an important one to get right.
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“New Libertarian Party”, for that is what it is. If the oldsters really want to claim de facto ownership of the word “Libertarian” then perhaps “Prosperity Party” or “Liberty and Prosperity Party”
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I like the double-entendre of The Free Libertarian Party.
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The term libertarian is very exclusionary and comes with baggage from previous party and in general.
Would prefer:
Liberty Party
(Who can be against liberty?)
Downsize Whitehall Party
(Names party after directional aims, rather than who we are – worked for the Scottish National Party)
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I think the choice of party structure is relevant to the choice of name, so this might not be a question we can answer yet.
That said, I agree with Simon that it could be something as simple as [Insert any word here] Libertarian Party, LPUK do not own that word and they won’t be able to bully the EC the same way they can bully web hosts.
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Oh I don’t know. Paul has a point about stating the direction. It could be (dare I say it) a broad church.
Individual Rights Advocates? Better.. Individuals for Individual Rights…
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I’ve been dreading this debate, but if it’s going to happen, perhaps:
Individualists
Capitalists (I like the provocativeness of this one)
Laissez Faire
Laissez Faire Liberals (quite keen on reclaiming the word liberal)
I’d prefer Liberty to any of the directional ones to be honest, they sound too marginal.
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“individual(s)” – like it, for we are defending the smallest minority.
“The Smallest Minority Party” possibly accurate but would invite the obvious ribaldry.
“Individuals for The Individual” – inspirational, positive, accurate. Drop the term “rights”…too SWP.
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I was channelling Yaron Brook, not the SWP, but I take your point 🙂
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For me the name has to be brief, not overly restrictive, sound good in both its full name and its initialised format, and we need to be able to bag all the relevant domains.
I like the Liberty Party. It’s close enough to “Libertarian” and it’s simple. However, two issues will need to be overcome:
1. Shami Chakabati might throw her toys out of her pram; and
2. The EC might say it’s too similar to The Liberal Party (they have a very low view of the intelligence of the average voter).
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1) People throwing their toys out of the pram is usually a good chance at publicity. They shouldn’t be able to own the word, and they are free to set up a party if they don’t want us to use it.
2) If the EC throw out the name then we choose another.
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What about PPUK the Poujadist Party of the United Kingdom? At some future point you could swap with LPUK & then both organisations would have accurate titles.
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I like the idea of something along the lines of The UK Liberty Party. It’s simple, effective, and gets the point across. Liberty not being a political party, Shami Chakrabarti, while I have a hell of a lot of respect for her (and I am a member of liberty) can kick and scream all she wants, because Liberty is not a political party.
Electoral law simply requires that the party name be distinct and not likely to cause the voters confusion. So I think that rules out us using “Libertarian” in any way, because it’s sufficiently distinct word that may cause the average voter confusion.
I think we should try and refrain from using or considering party names that may come across as a bit pretentious. Using something like the Laissez Faire party or anything like that (while I’m sure you were probably kidding with the suggestion) to the average working class voter, whether we like it or not, comes across as quite pretentious, notwithstanding the fact that there would be a number of people who probably wouldn’t even know what it meant.
I like “The UK Liberty Party” (or something along those lines) because it’s simple, effective, gets our philosophy across in a nutshell and we could argue that it’s sufficiently distinct from “Libertarian” or even “Liberal” that if the EC were to reject a proposal, we could argue it on those grounds, perhaps even run a poll or have a survey conducted to try and prove our point.
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