Lord Cody5200 is the well respected Chairman of the Libertarian Party - having recently served as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government. I met him in a London tea house, known to be a favourite of the Libertarian delegation. This interview was conducted on the 5th of December.

Firstly, as a former member of the Conservative-Libertarian cabinet how do you reflect on your time in government? How do you view the Conservative Party as coalition partners and how does the Libertarian Party work to become a party of government once more?

I think it is quite difficult to quantify where they realistically stand and that is arguably the biggest problem of the modern Conservative Party. For example, take the economy. On the one hand you have the Blurple governments that undoubtedly pursued centre-right economic policies like the DPT and contrast that with the Clegg government’s focus on the public sector. A budget that mind you was backed by the Labour Party.

This is a major issue not only for the voters who are unsure whether they can trust their Conservative MP to represent their views, but also to coalition partners as the bedrock of any stable coalition is trust. You have to be able to trust your coalition partner to hold up their end of the bargain and have your back when things go south. Of course I don't mean to disparage the Conservatives, but in my personal view for any sort of long-term Libertarian Conservative agreement to occur the Conservatives must pick a definite list of policies and adhere to them like they used to in the past.

As for the other options it really depends on the parliamentary arithmetic and I think it would be inappropriate to make any comments until all the ballots are in and we know the makeup of the next parliament. I will say however that we are willing work with economically liberal parties across the aisle in the national interest

If polling is to be believed, the Libertarian Party is now the most widely supported party in the United Kingdom. What do you owe this success to and how do you ensure, as Chairman, you appeal to a broad section of voters?

I think the thing is to ensure that we do not disparage any sort of voter even if their views don’t align with us. This is a problem that you tend to see a lot in polarised countries where the us versus them mentality leads certain politicians to label large chunks of society as baskets of deplorables and to alienation of large chunks of the voting populace.

Moreover I think that we must also be willing to compromise and work across the aisle in the national interests with people who may not necessarily share all of our views. For example we worked with a broad-range of Opposition and government parties in order to prevent the authoritarian War on Drugs Bill from passing, even though most of them were to the left if not the far-left of us.

At the end of the day though I think the biggest reason for our success is that we are the only party that is for real and pragmatic reform. Both labour and the Tories have effectively adhered to the same social democratic model in recent times, while the Solidarity and the Green parties are peddling unrealistic and fiscally impossible policies would leave us poorer and worse-off in the long-run.

As a life peer, how do you accommodate the strong Libertarian traditions of democracy and accountability with an unelected House of Lords? And, are you in favour of reform?

In our party the issue of the upper chamber is a free issue. Personally I am not a fan of the House of Lords in its current state. Because what we have right now is a situation where the Lords serve as a way for unelected parties with no popular mandate like Solidarity to derail popular agenda with zero democratic input whatsoever.

In my view if the House of Lords is to continue to exist we should look at changing the way in which it works, by reforming or scrapping its power to hold legislation hostage.

And as International Trade Spokesperson let’s travel across the Atlantic. What is your message to the president-elect and vice president-elect? How do you expect their leadership to change the British approach to European negotiations and in seeking a free trade agreement with the United States itself?

Well firstly let me congratulate them on a hard-fought victory. In terms of trade our policy as a party is clear in that we wish to strike a deal with the United States that will work for both of our countries and as the LPUK trade spokesperson I fully intend to do what I can to facilitate such a deal.

As to what sort of negotiating strategy we can expect from the new administration I think it’s too early to tell given that our negotiators are yet to meet with members of the new administration and the fact that we don’t know who will control the Senate, which as per plays a major role in the ratification of trade agreements.

A lot will also depend on the specifics of the government’s EU-UK trade deal itself, which may or may not impose additional regulatory burdens or playing field provisions that may affect our ability to strike an FTA with the US regardless of who occupies the White House.

All in all however I am optimistic that so long as the government follows the contents of the Blurple white paper and there is the political will for it we will see a US-UK FTA come to fruition.

And lastly, some might describe you as a rising star within the party. What’s next for Cody5200?

That’s a very good question and one that I unfortunately don’t know the answer to. Time can only tell.