A liberal future for Britain

Farage and Musk are the past, not the future

Seeing someone called a “snivelling cretin” may reinforce all your worst fears about social media. But when it was Elon Musk saying this of Ed Davey, it counts as a badge of honour.

It also illustrates a bigger, and more important, point than ‘look how thin skinned and short of things to say a billionaire is when anyone stands up to him’.

It is about how little to say about our future the likes of Nigel Farage and Elon Musk have beyond nostalgia for an imagined version of our past. For all Elon Musk’s facade as a visionary man of the future, much of his vision is a shrunken, twisted piece of fake nostalgia: a world where the super-rich get to run things, democracy is an optional extra, international borders are high and only his favoured few select demographic categories are worthy people.

Their joint desire to turn the clock backwards is in contrast to our positive liberal vision for a better future. Just because someone is not like me is not a reason to dislike them. Just because someone has different views of religion than me is not a reason to fear them. And just because someone lives in a different country from me is not a reason to treat them as an enemy.

The likes of Farage and Musk excel at grabbing the headlines, but the quiet reality of 2024 was a year in which in Britain us Liberal Democrats took more political power. We won more council seats than the Conservatives and Reform combined in May - and then we had our best general election result in a century, gaining far more seats than Reform, in July.

General Election Review

An important part of building on those successes is our General Election Review, which was headed up by Tim Farron. 

Thank you to Tim and the whole team for turning around the review promptly, so that we can get stuck into implementing its lessons as soon as practical in this Parliamentary cycle.

As with the post-2019 review, this one has been shared with all party members because, even though this review is a happier one, it is important once again that members can hold to account those in power at all levels of the party on delivering the review’s recommendations. As Tim explained in the email to members, there are some further recommendations on membership to follow.

The review is asking Federal Conference Committee (FCC) for time to present their findings to our Federal Spring Conference in Harrogate. Alongside that, the Federal Board has agreed to draw up an implementation plan for the recommendations, and you will get more news on that through these monthly reports.

Party Awards

Our Spring Federal Conference in Harrogate is now coming up fast. Which also means it is time to nominate wonderful colleagues for our next round of Party Awards too.

You can read about which awards are up this time, and how to make nominations, here.

Registrations for conference, both in person and online, are also open. I hope to see many of you there.

Congratulations to…

North Devon Liberal Democrats were the top recruiting local party in England in December, topping the charts for the second month running. All but one of the new members were recruited locally by them - giving the party’s local bank balance a handy boost too as local parties receive larger membership payments for locally recruited (or renewed) members.

Congratulations too to the top local recruiters in Scotland - Dumfriesshire and Highlands local parties, tied with each other - and in Wales - Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.

Could it be you?

Winning public elections is central to our reason for existing as a political party. Running our own internal elections well is central to our being a democratic party. One of the important posts in achieving that is the Federal Returning Officer, and we are advertising for applicants as the three year term of office ends later this year. Details of the role and how to apply by 4 February here. 

Further internal party elections and other party news

The Board has also agreed the timetable for the big round of Federal Committee, President and Vice President elections this autumn. You can read it here.

The Federal Board will also be proposing to Federal Spring Conference some changes to our internal election regulations. The changes are based on the recommendations from the big review carried out by Nick Manners, which consulted widely across the party. The Board then also ran a more recent, more specific, consultation on how best to implement some of the details of what the Manners Review had recommended. Thank you to everyone who took part in either or both of those consultations.

The Board report to Conference will include full details of the proposed changes along with the reasons for them. The change that is likely to be of the widest interest is the proposal to increase from 10 to 20 the number of nominations from party members required to stand for various party roles. 

The reason for this is that both the Manners Review and the General Election Review recommended moves of this sort in order to help address the common complaint from members that there are too many candidates to choose between for some party committee contests, making voting confusing and harder. The consultation the Board carried out also showed general support for some increase, and so the Board decided to put forward a relatively small increase with its impact then to be reviewed after the elections.

The Board report will also cover a very short constitutional amendment the Board is proposing to how Liberal Democrats Limited operates, in order to provide the scope for directors with relevant expertise to be appointed in case we wish to use the Limited company for a wider range of purposes.

In my August report I reported that, “The party has also decided not to spend money defending a case about our previous complaints system taken by Natalie Bird. We have already acknowledged the problems with that system by replacing it entirely with a new complaints system, run by different volunteers and supported by different staff. The potential legal costs here were just disproportionate; we have chosen to spend the money instead on staff and campaigning.” 

A costs hearing has now been held and the judge has ruled that, due to a failure to engage properly with the party’s earlier offers to settle the case, her costs claim will be reduced by 10% and the party will also receive its costs since August last year.

Next steps in the party’s strategy

As I reported last time, work is underway on developing our new strategy for this Westminster Parliamentary cycle, alongside the policy review being run by the Federal Policy Committee (FPC). 

The Board has asked Federal Conference Committee for a chance to consult with members at the Harrogate conference. In addition, you can book a 75 minute Zoom call for the members of your local or regional party to discuss our strategy plans with me by dropping an email to president@libdems.org.uk.

Do you have questions on any of this report, or other Lib Dem matters? Then please drop me a line on president@libdems.org.uk. Do also get in touch if you would like to invite me to do a Zoom call with your local party or party body.