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Category Archives: Party policy and internal matters

Anything to do with Lib Dem internal business, including policy development, consultations, rules and constitutions.

Liberal Democrat electoral and policy pact with Labour, or not?

By Paul Reynolds | Mon 14th December 2020 - 4:14 pm

The party has been buzzing with pro and anti ‘pact’ debate, and some parliamentarians have been espousing contrasting views.

On 11th December the Guardian featured an article ‘Starmer Urged to Start Co-operating with the Lib Dems’ on the necessity of a pact for Labour. A Liberal Democrat branch of the ‘Compass Group’ has been formed.

Here I have a stab at synthesising the two Liberal Democrat arguments. The party as a whole needs to decide. Which view do you support?

View 1

The lurch to the right of the Conservative Party has changed the landscape for the Lib Dems. Since the Tories adopted the tool of encouraging anti-immigrant sentiment to undermine Labour in its heartlands, and since the rise of the SNP, it has become very difficult for Labour to achieve a parliamentary majority on its own. This is true however popular Keir Starmer becomes.

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Tagged electoral pacts, labour and liberal democrats | 57 Comments

New Liberal Democrat Peers should be elected by Liberal Democrat members

By Leon Duveen | Mon 30th November 2020 - 9:03 am

Editorial note – I forgot to add the critical link to the motion, which has now been restored to its rightful place. Apologies to all…

As Liberal Democrats, we have long supported the abolition of an unelected House of Lords and its replacement by an elected second chamber of Parliament. However, there is little chance of it happening soon, or even in the next ten years.

Until that time, we must carry on with the current House of Lords and at some stage the Leader of the Liberal Democrats will invited to nominate people to sit the House of Lords as working Liberal Democrat Peers to replace those who retire or, sadly, die.

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged house of lords and liberal democrat peers | 47 Comments

Ed Davey added to range of pictorial membership cards

By Greg Foster | Tue 17th November 2020 - 2:27 pm

As of today, you can order an Ed Davey membership card.

The suggested donation for a replacement membership card is £2 but anything else you can donate on top will go towards helping the party fight elections next May.

You can order online here.

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Also posted in News | Tagged ed davey and liberal democrat membership | 33 Comments

My wishlist for our new Chief Technology Officer

By Chris Northwood | Tue 3rd November 2020 - 9:20 am

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When I saw the job advert for a party’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), I was very excited.

As someone who works as a Head of Product Development for a startup, and has previously worked as a consultant specifically around digital strategy transformation, I see a great opportunity for the party.

To me, it seems the party’s current technology systems consist of tools that were bought off-the-shelf and are (mostly) perfectly good at doing what they were bought for. But these tools tend to be isolated, and coherence when trying to join things together, as anyone who’s ever run a Typeform survey and then had to manually get it into Connect will tell you. Now HQ have hired that CTO, here are my 2 main wishes: get a powerful foundation for data in place, and build a culture of open source around it.

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged Chief Technology Officer | 5 Comments

The party’s preparations for elections

By NewsHound | Tue 15th September 2020 - 7:59 pm

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The party’s website carries a report from the Communications and Elections Committee by Lisa Smart and Iain Donaldson. We reproduce the report in full here:

Last week we officially welcomed our newest member – Director of Strategy, Research and Messaging Mimi Turner.

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Is there something rotten in the state of candidate approval?

By Adam Noble | Mon 14th September 2020 - 6:05 pm

Sadly, the only surprising thing about the revelations about Geeta Sidhu-Robb is that something like this hadn’t happened before.

You see, there’s something rotten with our candidate selection procedures.

In the party at large, there’s a perception that candidates go through a rigorous approvals process. They don’t.

People believe candidates are vetted. They aren’t.

People believe our processes are robust and make sure we get the best candidates. They aren’t.

The simple fact is, all you have to do to become a LibDem candidate is to complete a pretty basic application form, get two other people to say you’re basically fine and then pass a not very rigorous approval day.

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged candidate approval | 52 Comments

Constitutional reform: amending Motion F11 “The Creation of a Federal United Kingdom”

By Michael Kilpatrick | Mon 14th September 2020 - 12:09 pm

In my earlier two-part article ‘Constitutional reform: a coherent national policy or not?’, I described how I view it as essential that a constitutional reform policy be framed to encompass the constitutional arrangements of all parts of the United Kingdom, lest it otherwise make a mockery of the term ‘federal’. This requires us to answer the English Question.

In discussing English regionalism and federalism on various forums including the Liberal Democrat Federalists group on Facebook, I have observed criticism of Motion F11, our proposed amendment and the party’s overall policy slate, some focusing various aspects such as the lack of detail on the fiscal arrangements within a union of bodies having considerable autonomy, legislative and tax-varying powers. Unfortunately, we seem to be rather good at not putting flesh on the bones of complicated policies: Land Value Tax has been on the back-burner for 100 years, the Universal Basic Income motion up at Autumn Conference faces criticism of its lack of depth, and Local Income Tax came and then vanished in a puff of smoke over twenty years ago. The latter was something I hoped would lead to the diverse political landscape I espoused in part one of my earlier article. With regards to federalism, what did we do with Policy Paper 117 after it was endorsed in 2014? I’m tempted to paraphrase Indiana Jones and say “we might as well have mailed it to the Marx Brothers”.

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Tagged autumn conference 2020, federalism and united kingdom | 51 Comments

Party reform: why I wouldn’t set out from here

By Jo Hayes | Mon 24th August 2020 - 12:25 pm

As Mary Regnier-Wilson has pointed out in a comment on David Murray’s article, the Liberal Democrats Party is meant to support proportional representation; yet the Scottish and Welsh state party representatives on every committee are there to represent only a small proportion of the party’s total membership while the English state reps are meant to represent the rest, which is not proportional at all. The practical effect is that the members in Scotland and Wales have built-in massive over-representation on federal committees.

It is a bit like the US electoral college which gives more say over the White House …

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged party governance | 29 Comments

On reforming the Liberal Democrat organisation

By Jo Hayes | Mon 17th August 2020 - 2:20 pm

Last September I stood for election to the Federal Board because I was aware of things which had gone wrong and needed to be put right. I didn’t expect my term of office, if elected, to start with picking up the pieces after a catastrophic general election. But it did.

The Thornhill Review has called for change, including to the Federal Board: a huge, sprawling thing with 35 voting members, the influence of any one of whom is very dilute. The Board would be better if it were less than half its current size. But whose seats should go? It …

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged internal party democracy | 17 Comments

Reducing the size of the Federal Board and giving power to the members

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Mon 3rd August 2020 - 9:25 am

Last week Mark Valladares wrote an article – ‘How the Party is managed – can you be democratic and efficient’ and some in the comments called for a smaller Federal Board.

The Thornhill 2019 Election Review talks of a Federal Board of 40+ members (page 34) which is too large to be a ‘realistic decision-making body’ (page 22) and implies that during a governance review this should be reduced (pages 24 and 49).

Mark Pack in his report on the July Federal Board meeting states that the Federal Board has a membership of 43. The Constitution sets out a …

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Tagged federal board | 30 Comments

Leadership election ballots hit doormats and inboxes

By Paul Walter | Fri 31st July 2020 - 10:21 am

Leadership email and paper ballots have been going out over the last 24 hours.

Party members have until 1pm on Wednesday 26th August to place “1” or “2” or “blank” against the names of (listed alphabetically) Ed Davey and Layla Moran, or to abstain.

I received my email this morning from Alan Masters, the returning officer. The email included a unique number which I should use to place my vote.

It included the following links for those who are yet to decide:

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Tagged liberal democrat leadership contest 2020 | Leave a comment

Register now for our first online conference!

By Paul Walter | Mon 27th July 2020 - 6:27 pm

Members are just receiving an invitation to register for the first Liberal Democrat online Autumn Conference, being held from 25th-28th September 2020.

The email from Geoff Payne, chair of the Conference Committee is as follows, minus my membership number (if you’ll forgive me!):

It’s official: Registration is now open for our first-ever online conference!

You’ll need your membership number.

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Tagged autumn conference 2020 | 2 Comments

How the Party is managed – can you be democratic and efficient?

By Mark Valladares | Mon 27th July 2020 - 11:05 am

As something of a governance geek, and a veteran Party bureaucrat, I tend to take an interest in how my Party is run and led. Policy is interesting yes, but you can tell a lot about any organisation by whether how it operates is in accordance with its declared values.

The “problem” with that is, if your values refer to democracy, transparency and accountability, you might not achieve optimal efficiency, if efficiency is defined as “getting things done”. It is a more pressing concern if you want to change things, and most, if not all, Party Presidents are elected on a mandate of changing things. The catch is that there are very few levers that a President can pull that actually do anything – they rely on people skills to persuade those who actually have operating authority to act as they wish them to.

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Also posted in Op-eds and Party Presidency | Tagged liberal democrats, party management and party presidency | 19 Comments

Report from Federal Conference Committee – motions to Conference

By Nick Da Costa | Thu 16th July 2020 - 7:29 pm

The Federal Conference Committee met via Zoom call on Saturday, 11 July for the agenda selection for our first virtual conference. The meeting was a lengthy one, which was in part due to the large selection of varied motions we received, but also to give us breaks from staring at computer screens for a number of hours.

As you will be aware, this year we will not be heading to the sunny beaches of Brighton, but instead you will be able to take part in Conference from your own home via our third party provider, Hopin. You will be able to find more information about the virtual conference.

The FCC wants to pay its thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the Conference Office team and members who have worked so incredibly hard to make our first virtual conference happen. It is been a long and challenging process, as we wanted to make sure that we are able to replicate – as much as feasibly possible – the physical conference for our members. I also understand that Glee will also be happening virtually; although we will not all be crammed into one room at the conference hotel to enjoy it.

You will see from the timings of Conference that it is slightly different to the usual format, and we hope that this will give more people an opportunity to attend virtually.

A total of nine conference motions (plus two emergency slots, two later deadline motions on COVID and Europe.) In addition we have reserved time for two consultation sessions as requested by the Federal Board and the Federal Policy Committee.

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Tagged federal conference committee report | 35 Comments

New party director of strategy appointed

By NewsHound | Tue 14th July 2020 - 11:30 am

The Liberal Democrats have appointed Mimi Turner as the Party’s new Director of Strategy, Messaging and Research.

Mimi started her career as a journalist, and has since worked across PR, brand and strategy roles for digital and media organisations.

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Tagged liberal democrats and mike dixon | 14 Comments

Report from the Federal Policy Committee meeting on 24th June

By Jeremy Hargreaves | Fri 26th June 2020 - 8:26 pm

We met again on Wednesday 24th June, with a focus this time on motions we plan to submit for the virtual autumn conference. As previously reported, for a combination of reasons we don’t have any full policy papers this year, but are putting forward stand-alone motions in a few areas we’d like to raise.

It is of course up to the Federal Conference Committee which, if any, of these they select for debate, and if they do then of course they will be published in the normal way in due course, so I’m not going to lay out here their detailed content, but will give a general report.

First up was a motion written by our working group already looking at the “Nature of Public Debate” about information and how it has been used and misused during this crisis, and claims made by the government. We discussed the right way to get more accurate information, and also to hold the government to account. This also includes the role of the press, its regulation and how we can support good quality journalism.

Second was a motion that some Federal Policy Committee members have drafted in discussion with Liberal Democrat Campaign for Racial Equality and some other BAME representatives in the party, entitled ‘Racial Justice Cannot Wait’. This makes a wide range of distinctively liberal and urgent proposals in response to the current debate, for ways in which Britain can really confront and make a difference on race equality.

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Tagged federal policy committee | 7 Comments

Move Forward Together

By Layla Moran MP | Wed 24th June 2020 - 12:15 pm

In the aftermath of this crisis, our country has an opportunity to change.

Watch video here

And we must change. Going back to normal means continuing to damage our planet. It means entrenching educational inequalities before a child even steps foot in a classroom. Treating people differently because of the colour of their skin, and prioritising GDP over wellbeing.

Change is in the air; no matter where you go, you can feel it. Communities are coming together to help those in need. More and more young people making their voices heard on climate change. And when you turn on the news, you see statues of slave owners and supremacists finally coming down.

This is a once in a generation chance. We must be brave and use this energy to be better; to build the society that we want to see. The Liberal Democrats, and progressive ideas must be at the forefront of this.

At the heart of my leadership campaign is a vision to make this happen.

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Also posted in Leadership Election and Op-eds | Tagged layla moran mp and Leadership contest | 24 Comments

Nominations for leader open tomorrow at 9am!

By Mike Dixon | Tue 23rd June 2020 - 7:30 pm

Tomorrow morning at 9am, members will be able to begin nominating candidates for leader.

Members will also get an email with a confirmation of how they’ll receive their ballot (or if you need to renew).

The emails are going out over the course of the day and if you haven’t had one by 9am on the 25th June, please email [email protected] and we can take a look and make sure you don’t miss out.

To nominate a candidate, you’ll need to go to www.libdems.org.uk/nominate

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Tagged leadership 2020 | 1 Comment

A Message from the Young Liberals’ executive: Get involved!

By The Young Liberals Executive | Tue 23rd June 2020 - 11:30 am

The Young Liberals is not a perfect organisation – there, we said it – from its lack of institutional memory to the difficulties it’s faced in gaining better representation amongst young professionals, there are many things that could be improved about the organisation.

This being said, it’s been encouraging to see many use the platform of Lib Dem Voice to suggest ways the organisation could change and improve. This clearly shows that many people really care about YL and to these people, and to anyone else reading who meets our membership criteria, we have one message. Please, get involved!

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Also posted in News | Tagged young liberals | 5 Comments

Federal Policy Committee report – 20 May and 3 June 2020

By Jeremy Hargreaves | Mon 8th June 2020 - 9:12 am

This is the time of year when FPC meetings normally come thick and fast, as we finalise several policy papers to propose at autumn conference. This year of course we aren’t doing that, both because of the current crisis and also because during the autumn when key work on developing them would normally have been under way, attention was also elsewhere.

However we are still meeting very regularly as planned, because we have another significant project of a different kind up our sleeves. We expect the policy challenges facing us all in the wake of the virus to be very …

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Also posted in Blogger Interviews | Tagged fpc | 2 Comments

The new complaints process – our first year

By Alice Thomas | Thu 28th May 2020 - 12:53 pm

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When the Lib Dems’ new members’ complaints procedure went live on 1 July 2019, we committed to an independent, fair, member-led process. The Federal Board agreed to review how the system was working at the end of its first year and I’m pleased and proud to say that the first steps in that review has identified some clear positives.

The system is independent. The Federal Board has no role in – or knowledge of – individual complaints. Instead, the Senior Adjudicators’ Team (SAT) leads and advises our volunteers. This team of four specialists, lead by our Lead Adjudicator, Neil Christian, reflects the federal nature of our party and it means there are up to three people from outside the state party of the complaint to provide impartial advice to our volunteers.

It is well-staffed: since our volunteer call last year we’ve trained over 100 volunteers to act as adjudicators, mediators and investigators. That’s well in excess of the 55 volunteers Conference originally agreed we needed, and we are working to train more.

The rules are much more transparent and flexible than they have been in the past. We have spoken to members and party bodies across all the state parties since last July to ensure it works – and to make amendments where it doesn’t. These changes are drafted by the Disciplinary Sub-Group and agreed by Federal Board as needed. The procedure is published on the party website and we welcome input from all members on how we can improve it.

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Tagged federal board | 23 Comments

Further reflections on the English Party

By Rob Davidson | Tue 26th May 2020 - 11:15 am

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Recently, as a new member, I became flummoxed when trying to work out what the English Party is, does and who makes up its committees. I wrote up my frustrations here at Lib Dem Voice. Having started with no axe to grind, I have become near axe-wielding now that responses have come in from that article. Members of as long as thirty-five years have admitted not knowing anything about the English Party and others have pointed out how it resists change or even blocks progress. Yet, there is an alternative and one that may help kick-start the reform that our recent Election Review has called for.

My main gripe with the English Party had been that they didn’t appear to have a website (it turns out that they do but it says so little about what the English Party is and does that in Google rankings terms, it’s basically on the ‘dark web.’) And they didn’t have social media or the other indicators of transparency and openness one might expect from a liberal, political institution.

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged english party | 23 Comments

What is the English Party?

By Rob Davidson | Wed 20th May 2020 - 9:21 am

If you’ve seen the recent Election Review, you’ll have read that the Lib Dems have obscure processes and committees that seem to get in the way of democracy and/or effectiveness. In this, we’re probably not much different to many other parties and groups but if we want liberalism to flourish we should probably aim to liberate our party from such things where possible. As a new member, I thought I’d try to work out the makeup of the party and hit a wall: the English Party. What is it? Who runs it? What do they do?

Google indicates that the …

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged english liberal democrats and internal party organisation | 20 Comments

The party President writes…Key party decisions coming up at the Federal Board meetings next week

By Mark Pack | Fri 15th May 2020 - 9:36 am

How do we improve as a party and achieve greater success in future elections? That’s the theme running through the bumper set of key decisions the Federal Board is looking at next week at our meeting. (Or rather meetings, as to avoid Zoom fatigue, we’re splitting one long meeting into halves on consecutive nights.)

Included in that will be the Board’s first considerations of the independent election review, headed up by Dorothy Thornhill and coming out later today. Thank you for all their hard work to her, her colleagues and everyone who contributed evidence to the review.

Even without that review, there are some things we already know we need to change, in particular our use of technology. That’s why the Board will also be looking at major plans to overhaul our approach, learning from the best of those outside politics and from politics overseas. A big part of the plan is much better use of volunteer expertise.

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Tagged 2020 autumn conference, dorothy thornhill, future party strategy, general election review, leadership election 2020, Mark Pack, party president, party strategy and review of 2019 elections | 17 Comments

A review of federal committee elections – your chance to comment

By Duncan Brack | Mon 11th May 2020 - 10:25 am

Readers of Lib Dem Voice with good memories might remember, in early February, an article from me about the review of the Federal Committee elections. We put the process on ice over the past couple of months, due to the lockdown and the cancellation of the spring conference, but now we’re getting it going again.

Last year’s elections to the federal party’s committees – the Federal Board, Policy Committee, Conference Committee, International Relations Committee and ALDE council – broke new ground, especially in the efforts to engage as many party members as possible, and also through the management of the process …

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Also posted in News | Tagged internal party democracy | 31 Comments

Our President welcomes new and renewed members

By The Voice | Fri 1st May 2020 - 8:30 pm

Our Party President, Mark Pack, has posted the following upbeat message on Instagram today:

Tagged liberal democats and Mark Pack | 7 Comments

Welcome to Sir Ed Davey as new patron of Chinese Lib Dems

By Marguerita Morton | Tue 28th April 2020 - 11:10 am

Ed Davey with Cllr Sarah Cheung Johnson, Vice-Chair of CLD

In April, Ed Davey talked to Tunbridge Wells Borough Councillor and Secretary of the Tunbridge Wells local party, Marguerita Morton, about green growth and his new role as patron of the Chinese Lib Dems. Over Zoom, Sir Ed explained how the UK must stand up for the rights of Hong Kong’s people and fight coronavirus-driven spikes in anti-Chinese racism at home.

Sir Ed would uphold the recommendations of Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights in March 2019 to monitor and take appropriate measures, for any unwarranted excessive force and erosion of autonomy, rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Joint Declaration and Basic Law. He also deplored the arrests of the 15 lawmakers against the background of the Coronavirus pandemic together with any calls for pressure on the HK judiciary or on legislators. In order to resolve the crisis of confidence of the HK people in its administration, we must call on China to uphold the “one country, two systems” rule enshrined in the Basic Law.

What are the UK’s prospects for green growth?

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Tagged chinese liberal democrats and ed davey | 2 Comments

+++Update on the Leadership Election

By Mark Pack | Wed 15th April 2020 - 8:46 pm

Last month, the Federal Board decided to postpone the party leadership election, due to kick off in May, until May 2021, so that the party can focus on dealing with the coronavirus crisis instead.

Following this decision, an appeal against it was made to the Federal Appeals Panel (our internal Liberal Democrat equivalent of the Supreme Court). The Appeals Panel has agreed that the Federal Board can suspend the leadership election while exceptional circumstances exist, but not delay to a fixed date next year. It has asked the Board to keep the timetable for the leadership election under review, as circumstances continue to develop.

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Tagged featured and leadership | 14 Comments

I have high hopes for the next three years – let’s get to work!

By Barbara Gibson | Mon 23rd March 2020 - 6:01 pm

It’s been just weeks since Brexit ended my brief term as an MEP, but today I’m very happy to announce that I’ve been elected as Chair of the Federal People Development Committee.

I wouldn’t be where I am today without the outstanding training and support offered by the party.

Like many of you reading this, I’m a relative newcomer to politics and to the Lib Dems. I joined in 2016, so I think I bring a fresh perspective to this role as a newbie. I’m eager to help the party expand and improve on its strategy, structures and processes for recruiting, engaging …

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Tagged internal party organisation | 7 Comments

Not the Spring Conference – F16: Welcoming Child Refugees

By Mark Valladares | Mon 16th March 2020 - 3:45 pm

So, as promised, here is one of the policy motions scheduled to have been debated in York over the weekend, something that probably isn’t that controversial in Liberal Democrat circles, but I never fail to be surprised by Liberal Democrats, so let’s see what comes in…

Conference believes that:

Child refugees who have been forced to flee their homes and separated from their families are some of the most vulnerable people in the world. We must do all we can to protect them.
The UK has a proud history of providing sanctuary to those in need, but now the Conservative Government is turning

…

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Tagged child refugees and policy debate | 1 Comment