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Category Archives: Op-eds

Tom Brake fights for the rights of EU citizens in the UK

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 17th July 2016 - 12:00 pm

The 3 million EU citizens currently resident in the UK must not be bartered over in this country’s exit negotiations with the EU. They must not be treated as political pawns, or like children caught up in their parents’ divorce. So said Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake as he introduced his “EU Citizens in the UK (Right to stay) Bill to the Commons this week. The Bill has support from MPs from Labour, SDLP, SNP and Greens.

I’m glad to see Lib Dems calling the Brexit vote for what it is – a disaster. Someone needs to point out that we are on the edge of a massive precipice and the tanking of the pound is just the start. Already business is starting to feel the pinch as investors delay investing in the UK. The collapse of the travel firm Lowcostravel is just one example of jobs being lost as a result of the Brexit vote. People haven’t yet even begun to experience the effects of Brexit and when they do, they need to see who was speaking out from the start.

I’m very proud that it is our lot who are working to preserve the rights of people who are already worrying about their future. It is only fair that those who have made their lives here are allowed to stay and not have the goalposts moved. Imagine if you have moved here, fallen in love, established a social network, a family, a career, in this country. Would you like to be treated that way?

Here is Tom’s speech in full:

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Also posted in Europe / International and Parliament | Tagged eu citizens, Parliament and tom brake | 4 Comments

I should have joined the Lib Dems years ago

By Edwin Moriarty | Sun 17th July 2016 - 9:00 am

One of my earliest memories is sitting on my father’s shoulders, protesting the poll tax. I don’t remember much, just the feeling of all those people being together, a community outraged by what was happening.

A few years later, I stayed up with my parents to watch the 1997 election. When the exit polls came through, they popped champagne. I remember my mum crying: “it’s over and we’ll have socialism again”. Sometimes people live a stereotype all too easily.

As I grew up, it seemed preordained. My parents became more and more disillusioned by Blair, but for me any time before New Labour was a distant blur. When I could vote, I voted Labour without question – who else would I vote for?

When the coalition came to power, my parents prophesied doom. Many of my friends had voted Lib Dem, on the strength of their promises about tuition fees and in the thrall of Cleggmania, but I hadn’t. I voted Labour, of course. It was in my blood. Not being able to imagine anything else, I joined the party.

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Tagged #libdemfightback and new members | 15 Comments

ALDC’s by-election report – 14 July 2016

By ALDC | Fri 15th July 2016 - 5:03 pm

The Liberal Democrats enjoyed some fantastic by-election results last night, winning in four of the ten wards which were being contested – congratulations to our new Councillors, Pierre Butikofer in North Norfolk, Chris Auckland in Wiltshire, and Dominic Fairman and Paul Summers in Cornwall! Last night’s results were hailed as “the best night of local elections we have had in a decade” by the party president Sal Brinton, as we took seats off UKIP, the Conservatives and Independents, whilst significantly reducing Labour’s voter share in several areas. In all of our winning wards we saw a massive increase in the Lib Dem vote share, with 40.8% of the electorate voting for Butikofer, 45.9% for Auckland, 44.8% for Fairman, and 57.8% for Summers.

ALDC had a busy Thursday night at our phonebank last night ringing up support for Summers’s ward, and with a 32.9% increase in our voter share in the area, we are so delighted with the result. Having lived in the area for over 30 years, spending most of that time as a teacher in a local school, Paul will make a fantastic addition to the Cornwall Council, using his experience as a former Lib Dem Councillor. Paul is keen to protect the Porth Beach and coastline, address traffic and parking concerns, and bring a new playpark to St Columb minor.

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Tagged aldc and local government by-elections | 8 Comments

Be optimistic post Brexit

By Robert Mason | Fri 15th July 2016 - 11:45 am

The best thing you can do for your country now is to be optimistic about the opportunities ahead. This nation does its very best when dealing with a problem and working out a solution. A trading nation, an outward looking people, both hallmarks of the UK for many years, with no sign of our zeal for global trade and responsibility to be a global force for good diminished. We should not allow those who can only see doom and gloom to dominate the discussion of the way ahead, instead, we should listen most to those who principally see opportunity as the brightest future, and will strive tirelessly to achieve and negotiate excellent outcomes for Britain, the remaining EU and indeed our worldwide trading partners.

Nor should we forget our responsibility to othersÖ The UK has had a proud record of achievement in providing foreign aid, and getting involved on the ground in situations that are desperate. We are no stranger to difficult situations, providing leadership, resources, direction and real hope to many. In such ways, Britain has remained Great, and that same spirit to engage with the difficult decisions, create positive change, and tackle major directional changes is exactly what is required now on our own shores.

As Liberal Democrats, we have an opportunity at conference to consider our response and create policy that protects the principles we hold dear whether the UK is in or out of EU. In my view, campaigning to rejoin the EU would be a mistake and be out of step with many of those who are looking for a party to vote for post UKIP, however we should be very active in promoting a pro ‘working together’ agenda as we have for many years. We should reach out to our contacts and continue to display what is bright and good about the UK, its people, its businesses and its future.

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Tagged brexit and eu referendum | 53 Comments

Lord Dick Taverne writes: A common cause to stop Brexit

By Dick Taverne | Thu 14th July 2016 - 7:05 pm

There is a smell of defeatism in the air, a widespread view that the people have spoken and that we must respect them and accept their verdict. What nonsense! There is nothing sacred about a referendum vote, any more than the result of a General Election. We Lib Dems cannot accept Brexit because it would be a calamity that would undo everything we have always fought for. Furthermore reversing Brexit is not a hopeless cause.

When the time is right, there is every justification for a new referendum. A referendum must offer a clear choice, which the last did not. When Theresa May says Brexit means Brexit, what does Brexit mean? Some Leavers want no more free movement of labour, which means no access to the single market. Others want access, which means the free movement of labour must stay. Indeed with only a very tiny margin in favour of Leave, far more votes were cast for Remain than for each of these two incompatible objectives of the Leave Camps.

A re-run is especially justified if there is a dramatic change in circumstances, such as a massive shift in public opinion. This is very likely. Most economists and every independent expert organization, the IMF, the IFS and the Bank of England, predict a serious recession. Leavers promised a future in the sunny uplands, and lots of new money for the NHS, not more austerity and severe cuts in spending. Now they may be ringing their bells, but soon they will be wringing their hands.

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Tagged brexit, common cause and eu | 66 Comments

The disruption of green tech

By Steve Mason | Thu 14th July 2016 - 2:54 pm

Finally the report from The Committee of Climate Change on fracking has been released and produced some interesting results, raising concerns of the effect of fracking on the UKs climate change targets.

Shale gas production of the UK is not going to be the answer to our energy needs when it comes to meeting our climate change targets. It is now obvious the UK has missed the boat on this ‘payday’ unless development is done on a huge scale, industrializing vast areas of rural England. The recommended regulations in the report to facilitate the size of expansion needed will never be in place.

The regulations needed to mitigate fugitive emissions are also not financially viable, making the cost of fracking even more expensive. There will always be methane leaks, the industry cannot stop it. The industry’s own figures of 2% to 5% expected leakage of methane from exploration, production and the supporting infrastructure needed, will put the UKs climate change targets in jeopardy.

The report states that ‘UK shale gas production must displace imported gas rather than increasing domestic consumption. Allowing unabated consumption above these levels would not be consistent with the decarbonisation required under the Climate Change Act.’ Each alternative has an almost identical climate change footprint and the imports are likely to be cheaper. If the government commits to use domestic fracked gas this will drive up energy prices and eventually hit the poorest families in the pocket!

The report does not consider the ongoing technical issues such waste disposal, water pollution, set back distances, community disruption, seismic concerns, industrialisation, etc. etc. etc! It is time for the government to stop bending over for the gas and oil lobbyists and realise they are backing the wrong horse.

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Tagged environment, green energy and tracking | 5 Comments

Brexit minister (10th July): PM has promised to put border controls ahead of economy in negotiations

By Paul Walter | Thu 14th July 2016 - 11:58 am

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The new Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis, has already helpfully set out his Brexit negotiating positions in a speech to the Institute of Chartered Engineers in March (carried in full on his website). He has also more recently written a detailed article on the subject on Conservative Home.

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Tagged brexit and david davis | 16 Comments

Report of Federal Policy Committee meeting – 13 July 2016

By Geoff Payne | Thu 14th July 2016 - 10:26 am

The Federal Policy Committee is traditionally very busy in the immediate run-up to the summer holiday. That is because of conference deadlines and the need to get everything concluded before August when a lot of people are away.

The most recent meeting of the committee, which came hot on the heels of the last one, was on 13th July 2016. It also happened to be the day that Labour plunged further into disarray following the revelation that Jeremy Corbyn will appear on the ballot paper in their leadership election and, of course, the country had a new Prime Minister foisted upon it.

As we were going through the meeting, government announcements were being about new Cabinet members. We paused several time for a collective intake of breath.

There was a lot to discuss. We did not finish until some time after 9pm.

Membership of the committee

Gareth Epps has resigned from the committee because he has taken a job that is politically restricted. Gareth has been a very active member of FPC for a long time and he will certainly be missed from the committee. We were, however, delighted to welcome Antony Hook as his replacement.

Education Working Group

The committee agreed the chairs, membership, and remits of three new working groups. Each of those groups was recommended by the Agenda 2020 exercise.

The first of these was education. The remit requires the group to identify proposals for new policy in Education in England. The group is particularly to be directed to identify policies which could be strong campaigning issues within education, reinforcing our overall liberal vision of creating opportunity for everyone regardless of background. The group is also expected to consider and address Liberal Democrat principles on diversity and equalities in developing their proposals. It will deal with the overall principles of education, Early Years, funding, structures, academies, governors, standards and inspections, quality, teacher recruitment, closing the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students, school and the world of work, Further Education and adult education. It will not deal with Higher Education.

The chair is to be Lucy Nethsingha. The membership of the group was appointed. It is fair to say that there was very strong competition for places. In fact, we had over 830 applications for the working groups.

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Tagged committee reports and federal policy committee | 5 Comments

A few words of gratitude as Margaret Sharp takes her leave

By Mark Valladares | Thu 14th July 2016 - 8:59 am

It does seem that the news over the past fortnight or so has been dominated by people saying goodbye to spend more time with their families or whatever. In some cases, they will be more missed than in others, and, on this occasion, it is time to mark the retirement from the House of Lords of our longtime spokesperson on Universities, Baroness (Margaret) Sharp of Guildford, who has decided to take up the option to retire at the still relatively spritely age of 77.

Margaret is another of those whose work over many years led to a triumph celebrated by others, in that it was her success in reducing the Conservative majority in Guildford from over 20,000 to a rather more slender 4,500 that helped Sue Doughty to her famous success in 2001.

An economist of some regard, Margaret taught at the London School of Economics, as well as working in the National Economic Development Office in the 1970s, before becoming politically active with the onset of the Social Democrats.

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Tagged house of lords and margaret sharp | 8 Comments

Boris as Foreign Secretary? That was unexpected…

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th July 2016 - 10:44 pm

So, just as Theresa May left Buckingham Palace, I had to leave home to go for a meeting. When I stepped out into an Edinburgh street and checked my phone two hours later, I realised I’d stepped into a parallel universe. I must have done. I mean, a new Prime Minister known for careful and cautious deliberation appointing a man who had grossly insulted the President of the United States just a few weeks ago as the country’s top diplomat? It’s probably worth reminding ourselves of Boris’s response to President Obama’s “back of the queue” speech.

Johnson, a high-profile figure in the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, wrote about the decision of the Obama administration to remove a bust of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.

“Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,” said Johnson in an article designed to hit back at Obama after the US president waded into the EU referendum debate on Friday.

As it happens, the bust was removed before Obama even took office. Again, like many of the Leave campaign’s claims, only the most casual relationship with the truth.

And then there was the time when he compared the EU to Hitler.

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Tagged boris johnson, gin, theresa may, things you never thought you'd write and tim farron | 57 Comments

+++Breaking: Jim Wallace steps down as Lib Dem Leader in the House of Lords

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th July 2016 - 4:07 pm

Jim Wallace has announced this afternoon that he is to step down as Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords.

Jim, the former MP and MSP for Orkney & Shetland, has been leader of the group of 107 Liberal Democrat peers since October 2013, during which time he was also Advocate General for Scotland and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords in the Coalition Government. he of course previously served as Deputy First Minister of Scotland between 1999 and 2007.

Jim explained his decision:

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Tagged house of lords and jim wallace | 3 Comments

10 for No 10

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th July 2016 - 3:31 pm

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As David Cameron leaves, it dawns on me that this is the 10th time the Prime Minister has changed in my lifetime. I thought I’d share with you my memories of the other changes.

When I was born, Harold Wilson was PM. I don’t remember him losing out to Ted Heath in the 1970 election because I was just a toddler. Nor do I really remember Wilson really getting back in again in 1974. I have a vague memory of walking along Dell Road in Inverness with my parents as they went to vote, though.

The first change I actually remember was in 1976 when Wilson resigned and Callaghan took over. There was no 24 hour news cycle then, and in fact telly didn’t even go all day. However, I think we were watching General Hospital (the UK version) in the afternoon when the news appeared on screen – James Callaghan is the new Prime Minister. We then got a newsflash in the commercial break.

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Tagged nostalgia and prime ministers | 15 Comments

How political parties have lost their sense of purpose

By Joe Zammit-Lucia | Wed 13th July 2016 - 2:30 pm

How Political Parties Have Lost Their Sense of Purpose

Several years ago I was in a meeting between senior commercial and research staff in a multinational pharmaceutical company. Discussing various research projects, one commercial person declared with obvious exasperation “Don’t forget that we’re here to make money not to indulge in fancy research projects.” The President of R&D, a Scotsman, looked him in the eyes and responded “Laddie, you’re wrong. We’re here to make medicines that make people better. And if we can do that, then we’ll make money as a result.”

This episode illustrates what has happened to business over the last several decades. It has lost its sense of purpose. There was a time when business used to focus on making products that made people’s lives better. If they could do that at a cost that was below what they could sell their products for, they made a profit and prospered. All of that is gone in far too many businesses. Now the primary goal is “shareholder value” – code for short term profit maximization – irrespective of whether social good is created or destroyed.

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Tagged political parties | 10 Comments

Ming Campbell on Chilcot: “My ally right or wrong is not sustainable”

By The Voice | Wed 13th July 2016 - 12:58 pm

The House of Lords has been debating Chilcot this week.

Ming Campbell, our foreign affairs spokesperson at the time, spoke in the debate. Here’s his speech:

Contrary to popular belief, I have never believed that what we were presented with was a false premise—implying that there was some effort at deception—but I have always believed that it was flawed, and the distinction is important. But it is clear that throughout these events Mr Blair thought that it was the right thing to do—and he still does. That was inevitably a moral judgment, but the strength of it gave rise to the error of making the evidence fit the judgment rather than the judgment fit the evidence.

The belief that the United Kingdom should be with the United States “whatever” was a flawed belief. Indeed, some would say that that single word reveals all that lay at the heart of the disastrous decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein. On reflection, there seems to have been a complete misunderstanding of the position of the United States. George W Bush always wanted regime change—it was no secret—but why was that? It was because around him was a cluster of influential neocons who thought that his father had made a fatal error in not instructing American forces to go to Baghdad at the end of the first Gulf War. If anyone doubts the good reasons for that decision, I suggest they read the memoirs of Sir John Major, who sets out with great clarity his support for that decision.

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Tagged chilcot report, house of lords and Ming Campbell | 1 Comment

So farewell then David Cameron…

By Paul Walter | Wed 13th July 2016 - 11:20 am

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In the week of Chilcot, we can at least observe that David Cameron didn’t cause an unnecessary Middle East invasion which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

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Tagged david cameron | 14 Comments

Goodbye, David

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th July 2016 - 8:38 am

As David Cameron leaves No 10, his legacy is being scrutinised. I have to say that I found the glowing tributes coming from his Cabinet colleagues as they entered Downing Street yesterday pretty nauseating.

Much of the news commentary has been way too positive.

I am dreading the inevitable fawning over him that’s going to happen as he faces his last Prime Minister’s Questions. I will not be happy if, as they did for Blair, any of our lot indulge in any applause or standing ovations for him.

Let’s look at some of the key compliments people are paying him:

Stabilise the economy?

Well, do you remember the 1980s when the recession lasted for years because the Tories insisted on cutting public spending beyond what was sensible? Well, this time they were prevented from doing so by the Liberal Democrats in coalition. They wanted to cut further and faster. It was Nick Clegg and David Laws, by and large, who saw that common sense prevailed. Even then, some of their ideas weren’t put into practice because the Tories wouldn’t have it. Some of us felt that even the Liberal Democrats in Government too far but at least the economy was starting to do well. Until, that is, David Cameron’s actions have led to a spectacular crash in the value of the pound. More money was wiped from the country in the days after the referendum than we ever paid to the EU. And that’s only the start.

Same sex marriage?

Well, he didn’t really. The person who drove that through Government was Lynne Featherstone, backed up by Theresa May. Cameron regretted it because of the fuss his backbenchers made. He couldn’t even get half of them to go through the lobbies in support of the measure. Nick Clegg was the first leader to enthusiastically embrace the concept of same sex marriage and did so even ahead of the 2010 election.

He won two elections and a referendum?

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Tagged david cameron and prime ministers | 22 Comments

Chilcot: Why I knew Tony Blair was wrong

By Nigel Jones | Tue 12th July 2016 - 4:15 pm

In the late 1980s I worked in Iraq, developing personnel and timetable software systems for Baghdad University.

The second day I was there, I was called in by the head of the university’s IT department to meet a uniformed major in the Iraqi army. He had a computer system which was not working properly.

I was asked if I would like to go with him to sort it out. I readily agreed. We drove for an hour through areas of very poor housing. People looked sad and children were running around with no shoes.

We arrived …

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18 Comments

Theresa May open thread

By Joe Otten | Tue 12th July 2016 - 11:05 am

So congratulations are in order to Theresa May on becoming Prime Minister.

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May has usually been described as dull, diligent and effective, but I expect now that she has the top job a little more of her personality will be stamped on the government. She is famous for calling out the Conservatives for allowing themselves to be seen as the ‘nasty party’ and was considered a moderniser, but has not always risen above the nasty herself – the “Go home” billboards for example.

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Tagged theresa may | 26 Comments

Post-Brexit questions on immigration and emigration

By Steve Trevethan | Tue 12th July 2016 - 9:35 am

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Migrations, big and small, have causes, so let’s start by looking at them.

War or military conflict, with and without “boots on the ground” is an all too frequent cause. The huddled masses trying to escape from the war torn and terrorised Middle East provide a pressing example.

“Real Estate” or land-grab forced migration is another category, of which the evictions of Native Americans by US governments provide examples. Not all examples are historic.

Politically purposed, forced migration was used in the Scottish Highland Clearances of the 1740s. The UK government forced Scots to emigrate to weaken and punish actual and potential Jacobite rebels. It is possible that the refugee precipitating conditions created in Iraq, Libya and Syria etc. may be similar. To wreck one country may be regarded as a misfortune: to wreck at least three looks like policy.

Religious and ethnic intolerance can be a people mover and divider, as the partition of India into India and Pakistan indicates. Managed bigotry is a powerful political tool.

The consequences of Global Warming are causing increasing numbers to move.

With sufficient perception, will and power all of these human-made migration-causing activities could, at least, be reduced. Prevention is better than cure.

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Tagged immigration and migration | 11 Comments

Hopefully this will be the last stunning day in British politics for a while

By Paul Walter | Mon 11th July 2016 - 6:04 pm

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Well, well, well. Yet another stunning day in British politics.

There we were expecting two months of two candidates touring constituency Conservative parties. And then suddenly we hear that we’ll have a new Prime Minister on Wednesday evening.

Our Prime Minister exits the stage humming a bar of the West Wing ending theme tune.

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Tagged brexit, conservative party, eu referendum and theresa may | 19 Comments

Engaging Young People in Politics

By Haydyn Mullard | Mon 11th July 2016 - 5:34 pm

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In the lead up to the EU Referendum young people were seen as the demographic that could decide whether the United Kingdom leaves or remains in the EU. There were all sorts of ideas to get young people to register, David Cameron was on tinder, “Register to vote” geo-filters were on Snapchat and even Facebook was notifying people of the registration deadline. On paper it seems like this would work, as a young person, I use all of those apps on my Smartphone. I was reminded of it constantly and I expect frequent users of either of these apps were too.

When the registration deadline was extended after the website crashed two hours before it was supposed to close, there were some rather vocal members of the Leave Campaign stating that it should have closed regardless and it was clear they were worried that a 48-hour extension could hinder the hopes of a Leave vote.

Where did it go wrong then? I was at University at the time of this and all my friends were registered. A recent study by Opinium has revealed 64% of 18-24 year olds turned out to vote which is the lowest out of the age groups, for example the same study found that 90% of over 65’s voted. Those 18-24 year olds who did vote, voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining however.

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Tagged eu referendum and young people | 6 Comments

Psychoactive Substances Act: Killing people for votes

By Jordan Lees | Mon 11th July 2016 - 3:55 pm

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In May 2016, the legislative abomination spawned by Home Secretary Theresa May, the Psychoactive Substances Act, finally came into effect.

The Act was supposedly created to combat the rise of “legal highs”. Laboratories design and manufacture new substances, intended for use in research, which can often have similar effects to existing drugs: 1P-LSD, for example, has similar hallucinogenic effects to the Class A drug LSD. However, since it is a different substance, it was legal to be produce, sell, and possess.

Theresa May’s solution was to introduce this new legislation, making the production, sale, import or export of “psychoactive substances” a criminal offence. The Psychoactive Substances Act doesn’t ban a list of substances – it bans every psychoactive substance, which it vaguely defines as a substance which affects the brain, with a few specific exemptions. These exemptions include alcohol (responsible for 8000 deaths per year in the UK) and nicotine (tobacco is responsible for 100,000 deaths per year). Legal highs, on the other hand, were responsible for about 60 deaths in England and Wales in 2013.

For the purposes of this Act a substance produces a psychoactive effect in a person if, by stimulating or depressing the person’s central nervous system, it affects the person’s mental functioning or emotional state

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Tagged psychoactive substances act | 16 Comments

Lib Dems: The creatives’ party

By Richard Warren | Mon 11th July 2016 - 2:31 pm

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The EU referendum debacle has shown clearly which group of voters we ought to target most: the creative sector. According to the Creative Industries Federation, 96 per cent of its members voted Remain. It’s one of many political battlegrounds where Lib Dems and creatives are on the same side. Creatives habitually call for freedom of expression, freedom of movement, free markets, greater diversity and more support for the self-employed. The Liberal Democrats is the only party to consistently call for those things too, as evidenced by our opposition to the Snoopers’ Charter and support for immigration.

Already, many if not most creatives consider themselves liberal. It’s simply a case of putting a capital “L” at the start of the word and adding “Democrat” after it. Incidentally, the same is probably true of scientists, most of whom also voted for Remain.

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Tagged creative industries | 49 Comments

The EU: did we ever really belong?

By Judy Abel | Mon 11th July 2016 - 11:19 am

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In just over two weeks pro-EU people have gone from despondency to incredulity as we have seen a succession of Conservative MPs topple each other over Europe, seemingly unconcerned about the damage that has been done to the country by the Leave vote. The Labour Party too are in disarray over this issue and only the Lib Dems are going forward on a pro-EU footing – even though it looks like the country is now heading for the exit door.

But Europe has actually been a divisive issue for political leaders since we first joined the EEC in 1973 and this whole saga, sadly, feels like the final scene in a 40-year soap opera. The political pundits tell us that Europe was the undoing of John Major, and David Cameron has now lost his job because of it. And ever since we joined, successive governments would go to Brussels with the begging bowl, always wanting special treatment for Britain, rather than wanting to get stuck in and build a better Europe.

It seems to me that many of our leaders – and clearly many in the nation at large – never really embraced Europe or, perhaps, even understood it. Many people just wouldn’t know that over many years, a lot of our best social and environmental legislation originated from laws passed in Brussels, and that much infrastructure was built in the poorer regions of the UK with EU money. It has now entered our common folklore that the most searched for term on Google the day after the Referendum was, “What is the EU?”

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Tagged eu referendum | 33 Comments

The EFTA/EEA Norway model provides some scope to lessen the pain of Brexit, while increasing control over immigration

By Paul Walter | Mon 11th July 2016 - 9:49 am

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One of the legacies of the Leave’s irresponsible, hotch-botched campaign is that, in the public mind, leaving the EU has become inextricably intertwined with leaving the single market and eschewing free movement of goods, services, capital and people. We need to move beyond this binary thinking, which is bordering on the moronic.

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Tagged brexit, eea, efta and eu referendum | 40 Comments

Lib Dem policy now

By Rob Parsons | Mon 11th July 2016 - 8:37 am

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In a way the recent focus on the EU has been a distraction from the things we ought to be talking about and campaigning on. There are many good reasons to want to be inside rather than outside, but there are also many good things to work for whether in or out.

Our political and economic elites are almost entirely neoliberal in heart and doctrine, determined to reduce the power of the state and increase that of corporations, despite the world, with the end of the Soviet empire a generation ago, having moved beyond the phase that made that an attractive proposition for stability. Thus we find ourselves with a choice between being beholden to a neoliberal elite on a European scale, or a neoliberal elite on a countrywide scale (the size of the country yet to be determined). Put in these terms, the choice is unappealing, but, all other things aside, given the option, I would still plump for being in the EU, as human rights were woven into its institutions and practices before the neoliberals came along, and woven in so firmly that they have been unable to do winkle them out.

But, in or out, we find ourselves in a fundamentally divided world, in which inequality grows by the minute. Not just inequality in income but in security, worth, identity and a whole host of other fundamental criteria.

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Tagged eu referendum | 10 Comments

WATCH: Alex Cole-Hamilton’s speech to March for Europe: No Tory civil war will take our EU identity away

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th July 2016 - 10:06 pm

A big @LibDems group at #marchforeurope in Edinburgh this afternoon, led by @agcolehamilton pic.twitter.com/HdAKZSx9Qt

— Scot Lib Dems (@scotlibdems) July 10, 2016

“If you change your mind, I’m the first in line” from Abba’s Take a Chance on Me was not quite what we expected to come blaring out of the PA system at the Young European Movement’s rally after the March for Europe in Edinburgh this afternoon. The good tunes just kept coming, though, with Dancing Queen and the Proclaimers 500 miles featuring as well.

There was a pretty big turnout, which was amazing given that the event was up against Andy Murray winning his second Wimbledon men’s singles title.

The Lib Dem contingent was pretty big, too. We were led by Edinburgh Western MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton who gave a stonking speech. We are here, we are united, and we are citizens of the European Union, he told the crowd. He told people from elsewhere in the EU living here that this was their home, they are our family and they are welcome here. His speech was extremely well received by the crowd. Watch it here.

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Tagged Alex Cole-Hamilton, eu referendum and Scotland | 11 Comments

Think about Andrea Leadsom’s target audience

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 9th July 2016 - 3:52 pm

Most of the progressive side of social media is frothing in collective disgust at Andrea Leadsom’s comments in today’s Times (£).

There is no doubt that they were absolutely disgusting.

After explaining that, as a former banker, she understands “how the economy works and can really focus on turning it around” — unlike, by implication, the home secretary — she stresses that she is a “member of a huge family and that’s important to me. My kids are a huge part of my life, my sisters and my two half brothers are very close so I am very grounded and normal.” Mrs May, of course, has spoken of her heartbreak at realising that she could not have children.

In case the contrast is not clear enough, Mrs Leadsom goes on: “I am sure Theresa will be really sad she doesn’t have children so I don’t want this to be ‘Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t’ because I think that would be really horrible, but genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake. She possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people, but I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next.” There is also an empathy that comes from motherhood, she suggests, “when you are thinking about the issues that other people have: you worry about your kids’ exam results, what direction their careers are taking, what we are going to eat on Sunday”.

Lest you think the Times might be making it up, here’s the audio:

Listen to the key part of our interview with Andrea Leadsom https://t.co/Q97ZUFjPxM pic.twitter.com/TksFWL4Wqx

— The Times of London (@thetimes) July 9, 2016

It should go without saying that whether you have children or not, whether that’s by choice or not, has no bearing on whether you care about the future of our planet. However, what Leadsom did was made even nastier because she knew perfectly well that Theresa May and her husband had not been able to have children. The pain of infertility is really tough to go through, as you come to terms with the fact that your life is going to be different than you thought it would be. It gets harder as you see your contemporaries all having children and embracing family life. Leadsom disproves her own argument, that being a mother gives her more empathy.

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Tagged andrea leadsom, conservatives and theresa may | 41 Comments

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