Category Archives: Op-eds

Paul Reynolds

The Importance of ‘Red Sea Jigsaw Puzzle’ (Part 2)

By Paul Reynolds | Sat 10th January 2026 - 12:58 pm

Source: Horn of Africa Simple Map

Part 1 was published yesterday.

DJIBOUTI

This small but strategic former French colony sits at the Red Sea gateway to the Suez Canal, overlooking the narrow Straights of Mandeb. It is famously home to a port serving Ethiopia and hosting the huge multi-agency Camp Lemonnier base for the US and in part the UK, with 4000 staff. However over the last 15 years Chinese companies have dominated and they also have a large Red Sea military base there, a short drive from Lemonnier, allegedly staffing up to 10,000 personnel.

Proposals for a bridge between Djibouti and Yemen, enriching this poverty-stricken area, have been many times scuppered by conflict. The Chinese take over of port facilities prompted DP World (Dubai, UAE) to develop the Berbera port in Somaliland, and potentially the small Bosaso Port in Puntland.

SOMALIA

After achieving independence in 1960 from Britain (Somaliland) and Italy (Puntland, South-Central Somalia), Somalia has been riven with conflict, especially since the collapse of the ‘unified’ government in 1991. There has been no stable government since, although Somaliland has been somewhat less in turmoil. A local movement emerged to settle local disputes, the Islamic Courts Union, but after 9/11 in the US this was seen as problematic.

With Western encouragement Ethiopia invaded in 2006, but were repelled in 2009 by a nationalist tribal movement, Al Shabab, which still controls much of ‘South-Central’ today, despite monthly US bombing. Right wing factions in the US have lobbied for recognition of Somaliland after 2009, but this came to nothing until December 2025 when Israel recognised Somaliland as a separate country, gaining a series of beneficial concessions. This had added to tensions between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with the latter ‘less enthusiastic’ about such recognition, notably concerned about the possibility of Israeli bases both at the north and south ends of the Red Sea, inter alia.

ETHIOPIA

Apart from the Afar and Somalia regions in the East, Ethiopia is a landlocked, fertile, mountainous country, reliant on Djibouti for external trade. The country is divided into regions based on different ethnicities and their languages, which has led to ethnic-based internal conflict in the post-Italian-colonial-era, hindering development. Nearly two thirds are either Omoro or Amhara. One in eight Ethiopians is either Tigrayan or Somalian with affiliations to Eritrea and Somalia respectively.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: What’s Next

By Tom Arms | Sat 10th January 2026 - 10:07 am

The rules-based world order has been the cornerstone of international diplomacy since the end of World War Two. It is surviving by the friction of inertia alone, and many argue that we have already slipped into the abyss of the unknown.

The ancien régime depended heavily on American support and direction. Donald Trump has indicated that providing that support is no longer in America’s interests. According to Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff in the White House and a Key Trump adviser, what counts now is not law, but raw power.

As he told CNN: “We live in a world… that is governed by strength. That is governed by force. That is governed by power.”

In early January, Trump demonstrated this approach when he effectively kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and announced the takeover of the country’s oil reserves for the “foreseeable future.” In a separate move, he appears to be moving quickly to gain control of Greenland.

This coming week Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to fly to Copenhagen with a firm offer to buy Greenland. Trump has made it clear that if the Danes refuse to cooperate, he might consider “military intervention,”  raising the prospect of conflict with a fellow member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, which retains responsibility for Greenland’s defense and foreign affairs. The Danish government has emphasized that any decision regarding U.S. ownership would ultimately rest with Greenland’s 57,000 residents. The mainly Inuit population has said that it wants nothing to do with America and, in fact, seeks independence from Denmark. However, a country with such a small population would face significant challenges in defending itself.

A U.S. invasion of Greenland would be a serious blow to the international order. One of NATO’s  fundamental principles is that allies respect each other’s territorial integrity. They certainly do not attack one another. An attack on, or annexation of, Greenland—a territory of NATO ally Denmark—would seriously undermine the credibility of the alliance. Since the end of World War Two, American leadership of NATO has helped sustain one of the longest periods of relative peace and prosperity in modern history. Peace in Europe has spread ripple-like throughout the rest of the world.

Oddly enough, there is no need for a clash over Greenland. Under the 1951 U.S.-Danish Defense Agreement, the United States can base as many troops as needed in Greenland, and Denmark has indicated it may also allow American access to Greenland’s mineral resources, although this could face resistance from environmentally-conscious Greenlanders.

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Paul Reynolds

The Importance of ‘Red Sea Jigsaw Puzzle’ (Part 1)

By Paul Reynolds | Fri 9th January 2026 - 4:50 pm

Source: Horn of Africa Simple Map

While foreign policy circles in London are focused on Ukraine, the Middle East/Iran and now Venezuela, as well as the dramatic new US National Security Strategy,  a set of interconnected lower key conflicts around the Red Sea are escalating. This has global ramifications, especially in relation to the two Red Sea ‘pinch points’ for Europe; the Suez Canal and the Straights of Mandeb.

These conflicts involve Saudi Arabia, UAE, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Turkey, Israel, Yemen, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya … and Eastern and Western land gateways to …

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Roz Savage MP

Why Principles matter more than Policies

By Roz Savage MP | Fri 9th January 2026 - 2:47 pm

I have a dark and deeply embarrassing confession to make.

I once voted for Margaret Thatcher.

Please don’t rush to judge me just yet. I’m sharing this not to shock, but because it contains an uncomfortable truth about how people really make political choices – and what liberals ignore at our peril.

When I cast that vote, I was young and foolish – and politically uninformed. I didn’t grow up in a household where politics was discussed. My parents voted, but never said who for. Politics wasn’t taught in school, at least not in any meaningful way. I didn’t yet have the tools to ask the most basic questions of power: who funds this party? What does the leader actually believe? Who benefits from their policies – and who pays the price?

That leads to the first lesson. Citizenship education matters. Democracy only works if people are equipped with critical thinking skills, not just facts, but the habit of interrogation. Without that, voters are left to rely on shortcuts or haphazard choices.

Which brings me to the second lesson: visibility matters. At the time, Thatcher was already Prime Minister. She was familiar. I felt I knew her. And the human brain, wired as it is to minimise risk, usually prefers the known to the unknown.

We see the same dynamic today. Donald Trump’s rise was not just about ideology; it was about exposure. He was ubiquitous long before he entered politics. People felt they knew him, and familiarity breeds a misplaced sense of safety.

I hear a similar pattern emerging among younger voters in the UK. Many are gravitating towards Reform or the Greens, not because they’ve exhaustively compared manifestos, but because those are the voices that dominate their digital world. The larger parties are simply absent from their daily reality.

Ask yourself honestly: are you more likely to trust a party that speaks directly into the spaces you inhabit, or one whose existence barely registers?

The third lesson is the most uncomfortable of all. Voters are drawn to leaders with clear, coherent principles – even when those principles are deeply flawed.

The brain is a prediction machine. It wants to know what comes next. Leaders who behave erratically feel unsafe, in the same way an unpredictable caregiver feels unsafe. Consistency, even toxic consistency, can be reassuring.

For all his many faults, Trump usually tells us what he intends to do. He may not deliver on everything, but his underlying themes – self-interest, deal-making, aggression – form a grimly coherent worldview.

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Jack Meredith

Beyond 2026: how the Liberal Democrats can win a post-Labour Neath

By Jack Meredith | Fri 9th January 2026 - 12:44 pm

With the 2026 Senedd election now around four months away, Welsh politics has entered a new phase. Campaigns are taking shape, narratives are hardening, and for the first time since devolution, both the electoral map and the voting system have fundamentally changed. Old assumptions about “safe seats” no longer apply.

In Neath, that shift is particularly stark. Under the new boundaries, Neath now sits within the Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd, combining Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, Neath, and Swansea East into a single six-member constituency elected by closed-list proportional representation.

Recent polling for this new constituency points to a fragmented outcome: two Reform UK seats, two Labour seats, one Plaid Cymru seat, and one Green seat, with the Green replacing what had previously been grouped under a generic “Other” category. This is not a two-party contest, and it is not a temporary anomaly. It is a snapshot of a post-Labour political landscape beginning to take shape.

For the Liberal Democrats, the strategic question is therefore not how to force a late breakthrough in the final months before 2026. It is about positioning the party to inherit trust once the first wave of volatility has passed.

2026 is not the realignment; it is the signal

What is happening in Neath is not simply electoral churn. It is the slow unravelling of a political settlement that once bound work, unions, public services, and Labour representation together into a single political home.

That settlement is weakening, not because Neath has rejected centre-left values, but because Labour increasingly feels distant, defensive, and managerial in devolved government. The new voting system has not caused this; it has merely exposed it.

Plaid Cymru and Reform UK are the immediate beneficiaries of that break. Plaid offers national confidence and Welsh self-assertion. Reform offers anger, disruption, and a rejection of politics as it is. Both speak to frustration. Neither yet represents a settled governing alternative for towns like Neath.

Realignments rarely resolve themselves in a single election. Protest comes first. Consolidation comes later. The next Senedd election after 2026 is where voters will begin looking for a new political anchor.

The work of earning that role must start now.

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Dominic Rider

A Liberal case for fairness across generations

By Dominic Rider | Thu 8th January 2026 - 1:09 pm

In December I stood for Shinfield Parish Council. I came fourth, nine votes behind Reform UK, ten ahead of Labour. I am 38, work full-time, and have two children under seven. My Conservative opponents—both elected—had advantages I could not match; but above all, the time to knock on doors while I was at work or putting children to bed.

This is not a complaint about my own result. It is a diagnosis of a system.

British local democracy has become structurally inaccessible to working parents. Borough councillors in Wokingham receive £7,784 annually—less than £150 a week—for what amounts to a part-time job, and that figure stays frozen because raising it looks bad to council tax payers struggling with the cost of living. The result is a vicious cycle: allowances remain too low for working families to afford public service, so only retirees, the self-employed, and the independently comfortable can stand. They are not villains. But they are, increasingly, the only candidates.

The Liberal Democrats should find this intolerable. A party forged in the fight to extend the franchise cannot be content with democratic structures that exclude a generation—and we should be honest that too often, we have learned to live with them. When democratic participation depends on wealth, age, or free time, it is no longer equally democratic at all.

The exclusion runs deeper than council chambers. Consider the basic economics of the British state.

Thirty-one percent of children live in poverty. Sixteen percent of pensioners do (DWP Households Below Average Income, 2023/24). Child poverty has barely moved in twenty years; pensioner poverty has halved. This is not accident. It is policy.

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Mark Corner

Nudging up closer to the EU

By Mark Corner | Thu 8th January 2026 - 10:54 am

Keir Starmer’s recent call for closer alignment with the EU was welcome. Naturally, he felt he had to add the qualification ‘if it’s in our national interest.’ He couldn’t bring himself to say that such an alignment might be ‘in the interests of the UK and Europe as a whole.’ Like John Major declaring ‘Game, Set and Match’ after securing an opt-out from the Maastricht Treaty, it still suggested an ‘us and them’ approach. But at least it was an acknowledgement that closer ties with Europe could be good for Britain, something that might seem obvious after a decade of post-Brexit economic decline.

The government’s recent decision to re-enter the Erasmus+ programme, discussed in LibDem Voice, was also welcome. But there’s still an ‘us and them’ approach even to the question of youth exchanges. It’s not difficult to detect an undertow of concern along the lines of: Won’t it lead to a flood of young good-for-nothings crossing the Channel and adding to our ‘immigration problem’?

If that seems unfair, consider this article from Politico published last October and discussing last May’s EU ‘reset’ summit and the question of joining the Youth Mobility Scheme. As Politico reported, the Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, Professor Brian Bell, a professor of economics at King’s College London, declared that it was ‘utterly implausible’ that the government would sign up to a new youth mobility programme. He insisted that ‘many more Europeans would likely come to the U.K. under an uncapped scheme than Brits who would go abroad.’

In the manner of economics professors, he then went for statistics. ‘There are six or seven times as many Europeans as there are Brits. So if the probability of wanting to move is the same for Brits as it is for Europeans, you’d have seven times as many Europeans coming here as leaving in that world. Suppose 50,000 Brits wanted to go every year. The equivalent will be 350,000 Europeans arriving.’

There we are. According to the Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, which certainly has considerable influence on ministers, net migration ‘could be 300,000 up in the first three years of the scheme, when you’re getting the new cohorts arriving, and you’d have a 900,000 additional people in the UK, once you got steady state, and that would be a big effect on net migration.’ ‘New cohorts’ – it sounds like Caesar’s armies crossing the channel two millennia ago. Suddenly the chance to share experiences with different parts of Europe has become a threatened invasion.

These figures, as the article makes clear, are highly questionable. For one thing, there are currently more European citizens leaving the U.K. than arriving — 95,000 a year in net emigration, according to the government’s own statistics. Doubtless part of the reason is that they’re fed up with being seen as invading cohorts. For another, such movements are never simply a matter of the size of the populations on each side of the Channel. Between 2014 and 2020, Erasmus took around 113,000 British students, while the U.K. hosted 190,000 EU students through the programme. That’s a ratio of less than 2 to 1, not 7 to 1. In any case, a Youth Mobility Scheme could be drawn up which will agree a cap on numbers.

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Gavin Stollar

Gerry Gable 1937-2026

By Gavin Stollar | Wed 7th January 2026 - 2:15 pm
It is with deep sorrow that I heard of the sad news of the passing of Gerry Gable (1937–2026) — a towering figure in the fight against fascism, racism, and the far right in Britain.
Gerry devoted his life to defending democratic values and exposing extremism, leaving a legacy that will inspire generations.
I first met Gerry during my time as a Liberal Democrat councillor and Parliamentary candidate, when I faced sustained attacks from the British National Party in Epping Forest and Brentwood.
One notable moment came when the BNP brought a complaint against me as an Epping Forest Councillor to the Standards Board for England over my description of them as “Nazis.” With Gerry’s guidance and support, I successfully defended my words, and the Board ruled that describing the BNP in this way was entirely acceptable within normal political debate. It was a landmark moment — showing that standing up to the far right, and calling out their ideology, was both right and lawful.
Gerry was best known as the founder and long-serving editor of Searchlight magazine, which he co-founded in 1975. Under his leadership, Searchlight became the definitive source of intelligence on the far right, exposing networks, funding, and tactics, and supporting campaigns that pushed fascists back from public life. From the 1960s onward, including his early work with the 62 Group alongside the likes of Sir Gerald Ronson (who later went on to form the venerable Community Security Trust), Gerry never stopped adapting to confront new forms of extremism.
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Vince Cable

Vince Cable writes….Tech and Trump

By Vince Cable | Wed 7th January 2026 - 11:55 am

The British government has been scrambling to keep up with the outrageous behaviour of the rogue superstate which happens to be our main ally and with which we claim to have a ‘special relationship’. Keir Starmer says that he had no warning of the attack on Venezuela which suggests that he has clean hands but no influence. 

A subject much closer to Britain’s long term vital interests are forthcoming negotiations with the Trump Administration on technology. These talks will determine whether Britain is to be a digital and AI colony or retains some vestiges of sovereignty.

They affect our freedom to levy taxes.  They affect our freedom to manage the flow of sewage contained in social media content being defended as ‘free speech’. They complicate any move to realign regulations with the EU. Furthermore, the allegiance of the leading tech companies to the Trump Administration makes any commercial deal highly political. And geo-political too since we are being pressed to choose between the two superpowers.

The pending negotiations build on the Economic Prosperity Deal under which the USA agreed to reduce Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs to the baseline 10% (rather than the EU’s 15%) in return for various UK concessions. One concession was accepting a ‘poison pill’ limiting agreements with ‘non-market’ economies (ie China). 

The next stage is a Technology Prosperity Deal which promises more digital infrastructure investment in the UK in return for more UK concessions on policy. The USA objects to the UK 2% digital sales tax and to the UK On-line Safety Act which is said unfairly to constrain US AI companies. Other irritants have included British demands under the Investigatory Powers Act, for Apple to break its end-to-end encryption.

Britain has a high dependence on US tech companies. Britain’s digital economy accounts for around 13% of GDP (manufacturing is around 9%). The digital economy in turn depends largely on the platforms and services of US tech companies.  The new growth area is AI where US companies also dominate.

Dependence stems from the power of the algorithms used by the tech companies which can be manipulated to slant output to serve the interests of owners or the ideological prejudices of the Trump administration. The opaque decision-making processes of AI make subtle manipulation easier. The sheer complexity of AI also makes it easier to lock users into platforms which then become embedded and difficult to replace. 

In principle, users have the option of using competitive alternatives which, in practice, are Chinese: platforms like Alibaba or Deep Seek for AI. But Chinese companies have difficulty meeting privacy regulations; and there are security and geo-political concerns. In any event the UK has already conceded to the USA an effective veto over Chinese involvement. 

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Tanya Park

The UK must not be Trump’s unwitting accomplice in dangerous escalation

By Tanya Park | Wed 7th January 2026 - 10:25 am

Over the past week, something alarming has been unfolding at British airbases. At least ten US C-17 cargo aircraft, two AC-130 gunships, and specialised intelligence aircraft have arrived at RAF Fairford and RAF Mildenhall, with reports suggesting elite special operations helicopters may also be present. This isn’t routine. The timing, immediately following Trump’s Venezuela operation, raises urgent questions about what Britain is facilitating from our soil.

Ed Davey has rightly described Nicolás Maduro as “a brutal and illegitimate dictator” – but the Liberal Democrat leader also warned that “unlawful attacks jeopardise safety for all.” That second part is crucial. Trump’s pattern of unauthorised military strikes, over 626 in his first year back in office, now includes capturing a foreign head of state and bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. Now, US forces are staging from British soil for what appears to be their next operation: boarding a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic.

The Marinera is part of a shadow fleet transporting sanctioned oil. Intelligence suggests Venezuelan officials discussed placing armed personnel and air defence systems on tankers. This isn’t routine; it’s a potential armed confrontation with a Russian-flagged vessel that could spark US-Russia military conflict, staged from UK bases.

Trump’s dangerous pattern

This buildup follows an established pattern. Similar deployments from Fort Campbell preceded Venezuela. The Trump administration has conducted over 626 airstrikes in one year, with no Congressional notification, no alliance consultation, and no plan for consequences. The Venezuela operation exemplifies this: a regime change operation disguised as an arrest warrant, while his administration told Congress it wasn’t about regime change.

Starmer’s response has been inadequate. The UK offers only “cautious” reactions while providing infrastructure and diplomatic cover, with no real veto or meaningful consultation.

The risks are immediate. If this tanker boarding becomes violent, if Russian crew members are killed, we face a US-Russia confrontation. Russia will claim piracy and may retaliate with cyber attacks or naval harassment. Because operations launch from British bases, we become implicated in an escalation we neither chose nor control.

Trump’s contempt for the democratic process is clear. When he bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, only Republicans received advance notice. For Venezuela, no lawmakers were notified. Why would Britain expect better treatment than America’s own Congress?

Where Liberal Democrats stand

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Jack Meredith

The liberal order is not defended by manners; it is defended by resolve 

By Jack Meredith | Wed 7th January 2026 - 8:55 am

On 4 April 1949, 12 nations signed a treaty to establish collective security, combat totalitarianism, and strengthen transatlantic ties: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. That treaty came to be known as the North Atlantic Treaty, now more commonly known as NATO. 

Now, 77 years later, that same alliance is under threat. The United States of America, under the rule of Donald Trump, is threatening to take control of Greenland, while US officials have refused to rule out military action. 

This is truly the darkest timeline. NATO was established to maintain security across the Atlantic and strengthen the ties that bind us. However, Trump has made clear that those ties are not just weak but completely obliterated, existing only when the price is right for Trump and his cronies. 

Trump’s refusal to respect sovereignty and international law must be a wake-up call for those who have comforted themselves with the idea that he “would never do anything to us”. He already targets our institutions, strong-arming the NHS into a deal that would raise the price the NHS pays for new medicines by 25%, and carrying out funding cuts, leading some UK universities to cancel research projects due to his “assault on science“. 

This is Trump toting his soft power. He is showing us “this is what I can do without raising a finger”. His approach to Ukraine, his attack on Venezuela, his military threats against Denmark are overt displays of his hard power; pulling military support, carrying out invasions and claiming dominion over an entire nation, and then willing threaten further military action against an ally, it all adds up to the same conclusion: Donald Trump does not care about international law, and Donald Trump will not stop until his vision is achieved. 

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Michal Siewniak

Passport index

By Michal Siewniak | Tue 6th January 2026 - 5:39 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Like most of us, I really like traveling, and I am not talking about simply going on holidays, that’s easy, but if possible, moving abroad, learning the language and challenging ourselves. I had a chance to do it quite a few times, and each experience taught me a lot and shaped me as a person. I remember so well that, when I was studying in Croatia, I had to regularly “check-in” at the Police Station as a foreign student. Yes, it was necessary, however it felt uncomfortable and at times, intimidating.

Although many of us might be a bit short of money in January, some of us have already started thinking and planning our 2026 trips abroad. Around Christmas, I came across an interesting statistic, which is the Passport Index, which refers to two primary global ranking systems that assess the travel freedom of citizens based on visa-free access. It helps to determine the resident’s level of global mobility, which was so limiting during communism in Poland, opportunity for economic development and personal safety.

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Jack Meredith

Why liberal internationalism must reject camp politics

By Jack Meredith | Tue 6th January 2026 - 11:05 am

Liberal internationalism is under pressure from two directions. On one side sits an authoritarian right that treats power as its own justification. On the other side sits a left that increasingly defines foreign policy by opposing the West rather than by supporting democracy, human rights, and self-determination.

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday: the rules matter – especially when our allies break them

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 5th January 2026 - 6:46 pm

The arrest and removal of Nicolas Maduro by the United States is a moment that should chill anyone who believes in international law, the rules-based order, and liberal democracy.

Let’s be absolutely clear from the outset: no one is defending Maduro. He presided over a brutal, corrupt, authoritarian regime that crushed dissent, hollowed out democratic institutions, and inflicted immense suffering on the Venezuelan people. His removal from power will prompt relief in many quarters – understandably so.

But relief cannot become amnesia. What matters here is how power is exercised, not simply who wields it. The unilateral seizure of a foreign head of state, without international legal authority or multilateral backing, is a profound breach of the very system of rules that liberal democracies claim to uphold. The rules-based international order does not exist to protect dictators, it exists to prevent chaos, lawlessness, and the return of “might makes right” geopolitics. Once we decide that international law applies only when it is convenient – or only when the violator is an adversary – we surrender the very moral authority on which liberal democracy depends.

That is why Ed Davey is right to have spoken out clearly and unambiguously. His stance – condemning this action while reaffirming commitment to international law -is precisely what principled leadership looks like. It is possible, and indeed necessary, to oppose authoritarianism without endorsing lawlessness. The same clarity and moral purpose has been evident in his decision to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Denmark in the face of reckless rhetoric over Greenland. Sovereignty matters. Borders matter. International norms matter. We cannot credibly defend democracy abroad if we equivocate when those principles are tested by our friends.

Which brings us to the deeply disappointing response from the British government. Keir Starmer has, in effect, chosen to have no stance at all. Carefully worded evasions, an instinctive reluctance to upset Washington, and a studied vagueness masquerading as responsibility. This is not diplomacy; it is abdication.

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Richard Kemp

Replace the Police Commissioners with new Police Liaison committees

By Richard Kemp | Mon 5th January 2026 - 11:18 am

Liverpool Lib Dems Spokesperson on Governance, Cllr Richard Kemp, has written to the Home and Community Cabinet Secretaries of State suggesting that when the position of Elected Police Commissioner is abolished in April 2028, they should be replaced with new Police Liaison Committees made up of representatives of the local upper tier or unitary councils in the areas that they cover.

Lib Dems campaigned against their establishment and welcome their abolition for the same reasons. They are pointless, costly, confusing, are inadequately scrutinised and lack the gravitas to push innovative ideas forward.

There are two ways forward, the attachment of the role to Regional Mayors or creating a new Police Liaison committee with the local authorities that they cover

I strongly favour the latter approach. In practice there are no other services provided by the Mayor which provide adequate links to the actions required outside crime fighting.

For example, a Merseyside Police Liaison Committee composed of members from the 5 councils who have responsibility for crime prevention and community safety would ensure that strong links are created between the police service and councils who are responsible for most of the services that could, in the long term, prevent criminality and in the short-term deal with problems faced by communities.

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Rodrigo Palmer

Does post-growth economics belong in the Liberal Democrats?

By Rodrigo Palmer | Mon 5th January 2026 - 7:51 am

Does post-growth economics belong in the Liberal Democrats? Questioning the principle of eternal economic growth is such a heresy to the orthodox economic order, that by most it is rejected outright. We live in a world so addicted to growth that envisioning a world that exists outside this paradigm is seen as almost impossible.

We are currently experiencing a social-ecological polycrisis: rising inequality, climate change, it is all driven by the economy transgressing several planetary boundaries. Green growthers respond to this by rightly identifying that green investment and a path to net zero is essential to tackling the climate crisis. They also correctly cite examples of countries such as the UK managing to relatively decouple GDP growth from carbon emissions, which is great.

However, GDP growth must not just be relatively decoupled but absolutely decoupled from environmental impact. Green growthers argue that green growth will provide the necessary technological innovations required for absolute decoupling to occur.

However, when you apply the laws of thermodynamics to analyse the relationship between our natural environment and the economy, a different picture emerges. We can consider earth to be a closed system for materials and an open system for energy because Earth receives solar energy. The second law of thermodynamics sets the physical limits for economic processes from physical work and production to the energy needed to use information (Landauer’s Principle).

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Roger Harmer

Huge opportunity for the Liberal Democrats in the 2026 Birmingham City Council Elections

By Roger Harmer | Sun 4th January 2026 - 8:55 am

In what is likely to be a dramatic set of local elections this May, Birmingham is poised to be one of the most notable, with huge opportunities for the Liberal Democrats. 

Think of Birmingham City Council and it’s likely the words ‘bankruptcy’ or ‘bin strike’ will come to mind. While these have done huge damage to the city, they are just a couple of the worst examples of Birmingham Labour’s failures. For example, the council has suffered badly from the botched implementation of a new IT system, now 4 years late with cost overruns of more than £100m. These failures have had a hugely damaging impact on the city. Birmingham’s relative levels of deprivation and child poverty, already bad, have worsened significantly in recent years. 

Birmingham does have huge potential, thanks to ongoing major investments linked to the coming of HS2 and plans for a new multi-billion pound Sports Quarter led by the owners of Birmingham City.  The opportunities to unleash the talents of our young city on the world are huge, but this will clearly require a change of leadership in the Council.

Be of no doubt, Brummies are fed up of the Labour Party. The combination of national unpopularity and local failure will be toxic for them at the ballot box in May. Already the signs of change are notable. Labour lost a vote in November’s Full Council and while largely symbolic it highlighted their losses through defections and our recent by election gain in Moseley. These have taken their numbers down from 65 out of 101 Councillors after the 2022 elections, to 53 now. 

The question is not whether they will go, but who will replace them. There is clearly a risk that we jump out of the Labour frying pan into the Reform fire or the chaos and division of Your Party. By contrast, we are offering a positive platform of change focusing on getting the Council running efficiently, listening to communities and delivering core services well. 

The 2026 local elections will see a 6 or even 7 party system operating in the city, so organisation and targeting will be particularly important, with seats likely to be won with as little as 25% of the vote. As well as ourselves and Labour we have one of the few remaining urban Conservative groups and a couple of Greens. Significant new challenges will clearly come from Reform and in the inner-city areas; the Your Party / Independent movement will challenge, though they may break into different factions. 

The Liberal Democrats have seen steady growth in recent years. in the 2022 all up elections we grew from 8 to 12 and in Moseley made the only by election gain by any party in the current term. We represent all types of ward, from inner-city Aston, to middle class Moseley and the more suburban areas of Yardley. The hard work of our councillors and campaigners stands in stark contrast to what many communities have experienced under Labour.

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Mo Waqas

When the world’s policeman goes rogue

By Mo Waqas | Sun 4th January 2026 - 6:55 am

I was delivering care early one morning when the radio cut through the routine. The BBC was reporting that Donald Trump had authorised direct military action in Venezuela, framing it as a decisive move to remove the tyrant Nicolás Maduro from power.

I won’t pretend to shed tears for Maduro. He has spent years hollowing out democracy, crushing opposition, and driving millions of Venezuelans into poverty and exile. But geopolitics isn’t a boxing ring where the loudest punch wins. It’s more like a line of dominoes: once the first falls, you don’t get to choose how the rest collapse.

When the world’s hegemon decides it can cross borders using “security threats” as justification, it lowers the bar for everyone else. If Washington can point to Venezuelan cartels near its borders, what stops Beijing pointing to “anti-CCP agitation” in Taiwan? What stops Moscow, again, from insisting Ukraine is merely a defensive necessity?

This is how small justifications become big wars. History is littered with leaders who said, “Just this once.”

Trump presents himself as a peacemaker. He boasts of being the “peace president”, even claiming credit for preventing nuclear war between India and Pakistan. But that reveals a shallow understanding of reality. India and Pakistan have been nuclear powers since the late 1990s. They endured an eight-month military standoff in 2002, the Mumbai attacks in 2008, and repeated border crises since none escalated to nuclear war because both sides understand what mutual annihilation actually means. Nuclear deterrence is not Trump’s personal achievement; it’s grim arithmetic.

And the optics matter, because Trump is not governing from a position of strength. His approval rating sits in the low-to-mid 40% range, with disapproval consistently higher. When domestic legitimacy weakens, foreign “strength” often becomes political theatre the strongman equivalent of waving a flag to distract from cracks at home.

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Caron Lindsay

Why is Trump getting away with Venezuela strikes? Thank heavens Lib Dems are condemning him?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 3rd January 2026 - 3:35 pm

It’s not the done thing for the leader of a powerful country  to send his people in to arrest the leader of another country, regardless of how awful a human being he is and ship him and his wife back to said powerful country to face trial.

I am not an expert in international law, but this does not seem to follow any kind of due process.

One of the most depressing things about the first year of the second Trump presidency is that Trump and his officials have got away virtually unchecked with horrific abuses of process carried out by his administration particularly in the treatment of immigrants, whether they have documents or not.

Congress has been unwilling to hold him accountable for misuse of his presidential powers over tariffs.

And the international community has treated him with cloying obsequity in the hope of getting a few crumbs from his table.

This is by far the least of the administration’s outrages, but when its Vice President comes over here and attacks this country and European neighbours for suppressing freedom of speech and gets the hospitality of our Deputy PM rather than the riposte he deserves, it is a pretty sad state of affairs.

What Trump should have had from across the world today is a chorus of condemnation. What he’s had is some vapid word salad from Keir Starmer:

Asked if he condemned the US action, as a number of other UK politicians have, he told reporters he wanted to “establish facts” and speak to Trump first about the “fast moving situation”.

The EU’s top diplomat pulled her punches too, though at least she acknowledged the illegality. From the BBC:

The European Union’s top diplomat said the situation in Venezuela was being closely monitored.

Kaja Kallas said the EU had repeatedly stated that Maduro “lacks legitimacy” but defended a peaceful transition.

She said that “under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected”.

Ed Davey, on the other hand, has been a lot more robust:

Keir Starmer should condemn Trump’s illegal action in Venezuela.

Maduro is a brutal and illegitimate dictator, but unlawful attacks like this make us all less safe.

Trump is giving a green light to the likes of Putin and Xi to attack other countries with impunity.

Just imagine if Xi ordered his troops to arrest Lai Ching-te, the leader of Taiwan.

Or if Putin went in to Kyiv and nabbed Zelensky.

Other Lib Dem MPs have also commented.

Al Pinkerton said:

As if the recent US National Security Strategy wasn’t clear enough, today’s illegal invasion and kidnapping in Venezuela sends a stark signal to dictators everywhere: force works.

That is a lesson Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will be only too happy to learn — and one for which we may all end up paying a very high price.

Make no mistake: Nicolás Maduro is a brutal and illegitimate leader. But that does not and cannot justify acting unilaterally, without allies, and outside international law.

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Lord William Wallace

Coalition Government again?

By Lord William Wallace | Fri 2nd January 2026 - 4:22 pm

Just before the Christmas recess I sat down in the Commons cafeteria opposite a Conservative front-bencher whom I knew.  ‘There will have to be a coalition after the next election,’ he told me, ‘bringing you together with Labour and the Greens.’  I realised after absorbing this that he was effectively telling me that the Conservatives could not revive in time to hope for a majority, and that the prospect of either a Reform majority or a Tory-Reform coalition gave him nightmares.

It’s 3½ years at most until the next general election.  Plenty of crises and shifts in political moods may intervene to alter the pattern that opinion polls and local by-elections have indicated over the past year – of five parties between 10% and 30% in England, with six or more competitive in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.  But it’s wise to anticipate the likelihood of an indecisive outcome.  We would probably then have to negotiate – and successfully manage – a multiparty government.  The current Labour Government is floundering in large part because the campaign it fought to win its majority did not provide it with the programme needed for successful government in difficult domestic and international circumstances.  The circumstances that will face the incoming government – of whatever colours – in 2029 are likely to be even more difficult than in 2024.

Many readers of LibDem Voice will groan at the thought of entering another coalition.  But we’re in politics to promote liberal principles, and the most effective way to promote them is to be in power, locally and nationally.  So we need to learn lessons from the 2010-15 coalition and from earlier attempts to cooperate with other parties.

To start with, we need to admit that Liberals are instinctively too inclined to trust others, to be optimistic about outcomes and to believe in rational negotiation. David Steel was naively confident that Callaghan would reward the support we offered his shaky government in 1977-8.   In 1996-8 Paddy Ashdown was far too trusting of Tony Blair, not appreciating the hard and partisan men behind him.  Nick Clegg set out to demonstrate that coalition government would work, without being sufficiently suspicious of those behind Cameron who wanted to push through their Conservative agenda while leaving the Liberal Democrats to take as much of the blame as possible.  Next time we have to be harder, more suspicious and more politically partisan.

In the 2010 coalition government the 53 Liberal Democrat MPs served to close the small gap between the 306 Tory seats and an overall majority: too much of an imbalance to stop most Conservative ministers behaving as if they were still the majority party, let alone to change significantly the working methods of Downing Street, Whitehall and Westminster.  Parliamentary numbers matter enormously in our flawed political system.  If no party in the government has much above 200 MPs, and we have gained well over 100, we will be better placed from the outset.  Winning more seats is a necessary precondition for effective shared government.

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Michal Siewniak

Personal reflection; thank you 2025 and let’s make the most of 2026!

By Michal Siewniak | Fri 2nd January 2026 - 1:15 pm

2025 has been a good year! It has quite a few ups and a few downs, however as humans, we have an amazing ability to adapt and embrace the most difficult challenges. I had many moments when I thought: “what’s the point of all of this” and many moments, when I felt energised, driven and highly motivated.

From a professional perspective, I have experienced quite a few changes; after many years and some amazing experiences, I left my full-time job with the Community Alliance Broxbourne and East Herts and I started a new role with the North Herts and Stevenage CVS. I am very pleased that I set up my consultancy, something that I have always wanted to do. I already have an opportunity to work on a number of existing projects, which included development work as well as running several workshops.

I also became a Deputy Mayor of Welwyn Hatfield, something that I would never think was possible. For me this new chapter hasn’t changed my approach to the Local Government, which is all about the service, being an enabler and a catalyst for residents and communities.

Is there a magic ingredient, which makes it all possible? No, there isn’t. Every day has its own good and difficult moments. It is up to us to make the most of each moment that is given to us. I think that our mind-set can be often our greatest ally or enemy. It is so important to look after ourselves, find the right work-life balance, enjoy the company of friends, loved ones and find joy in simple things. It is equally important to nourish and develop our talents, as they drive individual fulfilment but also they can positively impact the wider society.

Maybe this should be our goals for next year? To concentrate on building meaningful relationships, which can help us to grow and boost our confidence and motivation? Maybe it is time to truly unlock our potential so that we can “fuel” innovation? Or maybe, shall we all try to be more in the present moment, which will bring us peace and harmony? Maybe, life is not only about completing tasks and adding up achievements?

Whatever we decide to do, I hope that the New Year will bring us hope and belief that the greatest gift we can give to each other is time and ourselves. Let’s make every moment count and let’s make it memorable!

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Hina Bokhari

2026: Time to end ragebait politics

By Hina Bokhari | Fri 2nd January 2026 - 10:09 am

As we enter 2026, the UK is in desperate need of a political reset. From manufactured outrage to simplistic blame games, this is the age of TikTok politics, where complex policy challenges are reduced to 40-second clips, and success is measured more in social posts shared than real lives improved.

But here’s the crucial reality check: most people are absolutely sick of it. Young people especially tell me all the time how the whole tribal and adversarial politics is a complete turn-off. “Why can’t you politicians all just work together?” one asked me plaintively the other day.

And I completely share their frustration.

Because the challenges facing our communities really are too serious for this kind of divisive, clickbait politics. Whether it’s the cost of living, the housing emergency, or community safety, people need real-world solutions, not social media soundbites. The increasing polarisation and politicisation of issues we’ve seen in recent years just doesn’t help anyone. Real progress requires working across the political spectrum and bringing communities together rather than hammering a wedge between them.

That’s where I think City Hall politics can offer a better example to follow. Not least, of course, in having some form of proportional representation as we do here in London to make each vote count and ensure a more diverse political spectrum so everyone feels they have a voice at the table.

But it’s not just our fairer voting system that national politics could learn from, it’s the far more collaborative style of working together you find in the London Assembly. Even the chamber where we meet is set up for a better kind of politics – seated around a table together, rather than glaring at each other from across a dispatch box.

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Gavin Stollar

Lib Dem Friends of Israel respond to Andrew George MP

By Gavin Stollar | Sun 28th December 2025 - 8:55 am

Andrew George MP frames his recent article on Lib Dem Voice (“Israel/Palestine: Complicity”) around laudable principles—respect for law, opposition to hatred, and concern for civilian life. However, those principles are undermined when language departs from legal definitions, evidence is selectively presented, and allegations of the gravest crimes in international law are asserted as settled fact when they are not.

This matters not only for accuracy, but because such rhetoric risks feeding narratives that blur into antisemitism under the guise of moral critique.

The most serious flaw in the article is the repeated assertion that Israel is committing “genocide.” Genocide is not a descriptive adjective; it is a specific crime defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention, requiring proof of intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such. As of today, no international court has ruled that Israel is committing genocide.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), often misrepresented in public debate, has not found Israel guilty of genocide. In its provisional measures rulings, the ICJ explicitly stated that it was not making a determination on the merits of the genocide claim. Provisional measures are procedural safeguards, not verdicts.

To describe Israel as having been “recognised” as committing genocide is therefore factually incorrect and legally false. Misusing the term genocide not only cheapens a grave legal concept but also contributes to the collective demonisation of the world’s only Jewish state—a pattern that, historically, has had direct consequences for Jewish communities far beyond the Middle East.

There is no question that Gaza has experienced an acute humanitarian crisis, including severe food insecurity. However, the claim that Israel is deliberately starving Gaza as a policy of war is not established fact. Independent monitoring mechanisms such as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reported famine-level risks in parts of Gaza in early 2024. Yet subsequent assessments in 2025 concluded that famine conditions were not present across Gaza, largely due to increased aid flows following ceasefires and humanitarian corridors.

Severe hunger persists, but that is not the same as proof of an intentional starvation policy. Israel has facilitated hundreds of thousands of tonnes of humanitarian aid into Gaza via multiple crossings and coordination mechanisms, even while fighting an armed group that embeds itself within civilian infrastructure.

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Tanya Park

Why Liberal Democrats need a principled position on Farm Inheritance Tax

By Tanya Park | Sat 27th December 2025 - 8:55 am

Labour’s capitulation this week- raising the Agricultural Property Relief threshold from £1 million to £2.5 million after fourteen months of pressure – reveals the weakness of defending arbitrary numbers rather than principles.

This should matter to Liberal Democrats. We’ve opposed Labour’s reforms without offering an alternative. “Scrap the tax” isn’t liberal – it’s opposing for opposition’s sake. We’re ceding ground to Labour’s incoherent incrementalism and Conservative privilege defence.

The opportunity Labour has created

Labour doesn’t know what problem they’re solving. The threshold they inherited was unlimited. They proposed £1 million. Now it’s £2.5 million. They claim to protect “ordinary family farms” while targeting “the wealthy” – but can’t explain why the right number changed by 150%.

This creates space for Liberal Democrats to articulate principled reform. Not “tax more” or “tax less,” but “tax the right things for the right reasons.”

What we should be arguing

The real conflict isn’t “protect farmers versus raise revenue.” It’s tax dodgers versus working farmers.

Current Agricultural Property Relief gives 100% inheritance tax exemption to all agricultural land – whether farmed or held as a tax shelter. Wealthy investors buy farmland to save 40% on inheritance tax, inflating land prices and locking out genuine farmers.

A liberal approach distinguishes between productive farming and passive wealth. Tie relief to behaviour (actual farming), not asset class (land ownership). The mechanism: link inheritance tax relief to the percentage of income from farming. Work the land, pay nothing. Use it as a tax shelter, pay tax.

This protects working farmers better than Labour’s threshold – someone earning their living from agriculture pays nothing regardless of land value. And it removes the tax shelter incentive driving unaffordable land prices.

Why this matters for Liberal Democrats

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Callum Robertson

Labour running scared of local election challenge

By Callum Robertson | Mon 22nd December 2025 - 12:28 pm

Late last week, council leaders and directly elected mayors in 62 affected council areas received an unexpected letter from Local Government Minister Alison McGovern. The contents of that letter were nothing short of extraordinary: an offer to cancel the upcoming local elections in their areas — if they so choose.

This sudden and unprecedented proposal carries a very clear and troubling message. Labour and the Conservatives have suffered significant losses to Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats throughout this year. Both major parties are now deeply concerned about the prospect of further defeats in May. Let us not forget that in …

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Andrew George

Israel/Palestine:  Complicity 

By Andrew George | Sun 21st December 2025 - 8:48 am

Our campaigning for peace and reconciliation has always rested on respect for the rule of law, a determination to uncover the truth, and a refusal to tolerate ideologies that promote hatred, war and terrorism. The fragile ceasefire in Gaza must not distract us from prosecuting war crimes thoroughly or from accelerating progress toward a two-state solution.

I usually avoid conflating the Israel–Palestine conflict with broader issues around Islamophobia and antisemitism, but recent events compel me to speak plainly. In the wake of the appalling atrocity in Sydney, it is right to express solidarity with the victims and their families. Those who stand for peace must also stand with the Jewish community, oppose antisemitism, and confront the hate-filled ideologies that fuel terrorism.

Visiting Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories earlier this year made clear both the urgent need for peace and the fact that not everyone is working toward it. Eight weeks into the fragile Gaza ceasefire, international attention is already drawing a veil over war crimes as it focuses on peace, governance, and reconstruction. For the Netanyahu government and some western allies, talk of the future can become a rhetorical device to deflect scrutiny of past and ongoing atrocities and to avoid calls for justice.

In Parliament, ministers have used the ceasefire to present the UK as a key peacebuilder. Yet, as highlighted in Peter Oborne’s recent book, serious concerns remain about the extent of UK involvement in Israel’s policy of retribution, genocide and starvation of its people and consequent destruction of Gaza, including (but not only) through the supply of arms, intelligence, and other forms of military aid. 

In September 2024 the government partially suspended arms sales to Israel, revoking roughly 30 of 350 relevant licences. That limited action left significant loopholes, notably an exemption for exports to the global F-35 programme, despite evidence the jets have bombed civilians in Gaza.

Beyond the F-35 carve-out, UK military goods continued to flow to Israel in worrying quantities. Analysis by Channel 4 FactCheck shows that in June 2025 UK munitions worth about £400,000 entered Israel— the highest monthly figure since records began three years ago. Ministers note the data does not distinguish live munitions from training equipment, but why would we supply any military material to an army accused of genocide? Regardless, the UK and Israeli governments refuse to disclose the nature of the shipments, making proper scrutiny impossible. 

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Tony Paterson

BBC : How to blame the Conservatives for Trump’s $10bn damages claim 

By Tony Paterson | Sat 20th December 2025 - 9:01 pm

We should publicly blame the Conservative Party for its role in ousting Tim Davie as the BBC’s Director-General, and for President Donald Trump’s $10bn lawsuit. The Party has insufficient grounds for `looking the other way’.

Our Party Leader Ed Davey’s `Guardian’ article of 10 November was superb. 

His demand that Sir Robbie Gibb resign from the BBC Board was well focused. Even after Gibb had been exposed to many people who didn’t realise his power within the BBC, shining the spotlight on him was right.

I have been monitoring Gibb for the last couple of years, after my attention had been drawn to the harm he was causing as a `grey eminence’ inside the BBC who had accumulated huge power.

Our Party Leader was able, in his article, to strike a powerful blow for BBC independence (which many voters believe in as passionately as we do).  

Lib Dem Shadow Culture Secretary Anna Sabine MP echoed this perfectly, as reported in the Guardian by Media Editor Michael Savage published on or around the next day.

Now we can teach the Conservative Party a bigger lesson while striking another powerful blow ourselves for the independence of BBC journalists.

The thin fence that they have ducked behind consists of the fact that, technically, the Director-General is appointed by the Executive, consisting of BBC Board Members.

How then can the Conservative Party still be collectively blamed for the debacle which led to Tim Davie’s resignation as Director-General on 9 November whose resignation, alongside Deborah Furness’s, was seen as `cauterising the wound’?

The three figures most clearly involved in the conflagration which led to this were all Conservatives. The Party had so engineered the set-up within the BBC that it was decided that only a Conservative should be Director-General.

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Tom Reeve

A call for radical honesty in our political messaging 

By Tom Reeve | Sat 20th December 2025 - 8:57 am

We often say we care about lived experience, and that is true. We talk clearly about housing, childcare and benefits. In some areas, we have led the way with strong examples and practical policies. Liberal Democrat councils are building new council homes. We pushed to end the two-child benefit cap. In government, we raised the personal tax allowance, the last significant rise before it was frozen.

But when it comes to the economy, our message still stops short of what many people want to hear. And this hurts us when campaigning, especially against the Greens and Reform who are prepared to shout out that the system is broken. 

The problem is not that voters lack detail. It is that mainstream politics often lacks honesty, and sometimes it lacks listening.

Politicians talk about growth, markets, interest rates and public finances. These things matter. But, too often, we talk about them as if they exist in a separate world from everyday life. For many people, especially those on low and modest incomes, the economy is not a forecast or a chart. It is whether they have enough money to make choices. That’s why I have previously called for the OBR to publish an analysis of the impact of the Budget on poor people.

We need radical honesty. And that starts by putting on the big ears. 

That means listening properly to what people are telling us, even when it makes us uncomfortable. Especially when it makes us uncomfortable.

On the doorstep, many people now lean towards Reform. Too often, the political response is to assume bad motives. To hear racism where there may instead be frustration, insecurity or anger at a system that feels stacked against them. That instinct is not just unfair. It is politically lazy.

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Mark Pack

Mark Pack’s final report to members

By Mark Pack | Fri 19th December 2025 - 9:35 am

Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year

Once again, we end a year with more Liberal Democrat councillors than at the start, with more Lib Dem council leaders than at the start and with a greater spread of Lib Dem candidates across the country outside target wards. Both in the areas where we can most immediately win, and across the country more broadly in terms of candidates, canvassing and delivery, we’ve taken big steps forward.

We have now made net gains in the May rounds of local elections seven times in a row, the best winning streak in our party’s history, and we’re in sight of even beating the benchmark set during the heyday of the SDP/Liberal Alliance.

Our continued progress in local council by-elections since May means we are the only party other than Reform posting significant gains (and it’s worth noting that the Greens are pretty much only treading water, even after Zack Polanski’s election).

Many people across the country, volunteers and staff, deserve the thanks and praise for those achievements. Last time I talked about the progress in County Durham and what the whole party can learn from it. This time, it is worth calling out the success in Devon where our recent by-election gain in Seaton makes it 13 (!) by-elections won this year in the county – as well as making gains and becoming the largest party in the May county council elections. Most impressive.

And that’s a wrap

Barring any last-minute crisis, the thirty-seventh Federal Board meeting I chaired a couple of weeks back was the last in my time as Federal Party President, with Josh Babarinde taking over from 1st January.

So a huge thanks to all the staff and colleagues on the Board who worked so hard to make a success of our meetings, and the Board’s work between meetings too. A particular thanks to my Vice Chairs during this time – initially Elaine Bagshaw and Jeremy Hargreaves, and then Jeremy along with Jenni Lang and Amna Ahmed.

The very best wishes too to the new Board and to Josh.

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Michal Siewniak

Erasmus+ Programme

By Michal Siewniak | Thu 18th December 2025 - 3:35 pm

Studying abroad, ability to learn another language, facing quite a few challenges, trying to fit into a new cultural environment, enhancing my identity and appreciating my own heritage, the list is long and it is hard to put it into words, I know that I have benefited hugely from being able to study in Croatia and Italy.

Although I am often very critical of the Labour Government, I am actually pleased that they are looking into re-establishing the Erasmus+ scheme. I strongly disagree with quite a few opposition politicians e.g. Priti Patel, who calls it a “Brexit betrayal”.

Let just remind ourselves that before the EU Referendum, in 2018-19, the last year the scheme operated here, 18,300 British students studied in the EU, while 30,000 EU students came to the UK.

Interestingly, in 2024, over 65,000 people travelled to Poland for the Erasmus+ program. This figure primarily represents incoming students, but the Erasmus+ program in Poland in 2024 also included other types of beneficiaries such as learners, professors, teachers, trainers, youth workers, and young people. Approximately 15,000 Polish students leave the country every year for their studies abroad through the program. In March 2025, when the former Mayor of Welwyn Hatfield Frank Marsh and I visited Sycow, we were impressed not only with students’ ability to speak English, but also with school(s) willingness to cooperate with other educational institutions across Europe.

Is there a cost attached to this programme, if it goes ahead? Yes. The UK will pay £570 million for the 2027/28 academic year to re-join the scheme, a figure the government states is a 30% discount on the default price for non-EU states. Is it worth it, I wonder given all the other financial pressures? Many would argue, rightly, that the UK and Europe have much bigger problems than “trivial and irrelevant” learning programme.

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