I posted this in a private group on Facebook and had a comment from a senior party staffer who I won’t name here because it was a private group. Anyway, they commented that they acknowledge the problems with the email and it is already being redrafted for future releases. This is extremely helpful and more than I had expected and I am impressed that they took the time. I think that in future, though, I should restrict my throwing toys out of the pram to weekdays.
I have just about managed to calm down after receiving the following email from Lib Dem HQ on Wednesday.
Dear Caron,
Thank you for choosing to be a member of the Liberal Democrats.
The General Election result, electing 72 MPs, was our best result in 100 years.
In May’s local elections, we got a higher national vote share than the Conservatives, and we now run more councils than the Conservatives for the first time in our history.
We have done extraordinarily well, thanks to your support.
But the danger our country now faces is real. Reform are surging and we are the only party that is consistently beating them in by-elections.
We are going to be up front with you: the first year of a Westminster Parliament is the hardest for us financially. We have a huge amount of work to do, digging in where we have won, and building teams in places where we can stop Reform and win more seats.
There is a huge opportunity in front of us, and huge danger for the country if we do not take it. And the biggest thing holding us back right now is lack of funds.
>We are asking you today to increase your membership contribution by by 8.9%, the equivalent of £8.59 a year.
If you are happy to help: thank you. You don’t need to do anything else. We will automatically increase your payments, starting from your next billing date on 1 April 2026. If you change your mind, you will have 10 days thereafter to let us know.
If you would like to increase your membership by more than the amount stated above, please contact us at [email protected] and one of our team will be happy to help you.
If you want to opt out of this change, please complete this short form and your membership contribution will stay the same as it is now.
(You can change your contribution at any time, if you change your mind either way.)
Whatever you decide – we appreciate everything you do for the Party, Caron.
Thank you.
Best wishes,
The Liberal Democrats
I have to be honest, I am not a fan of this sort of opt-out membership uprating.
Our membership subscription rates are set by Conference and, while I have no objection to people being asked to pay more, I feel that there is a sneakiness to this, requiring you to opt out of an almighty triple inflationary cost. Sending them out in the middle of the Summer also ensures that some people will miss them until they get a nasty shock at their next renewal time.
This scheme is continuing despite the objection of at least one state party and concerns raised by federal committees who have yet to be convinced that it does more good than harm.
Let’s be clear, I have no objection whatsoever to giving the party money. I do it a lot, like most members, because I want to make sure that we can win whenever we stand for election.
However, I don’t like the party using tactics that we’d call out if anyone else used them. Imagine if Netflix sent out an email saying that they would increase your sub by nearly 10% unless you opted out? If they tried that on me, I’d be pressing the cancel button.
I am too devoted to this party to leave it, but I feel that this sort of operation just takes our members for granted and makes them feel disgruntled.
Normally, I swear I am going to opt out and then either forget or relent, which probably proves the point. But this year, I am so annoyed that I have opted out.
So what pushed me over the edge?
It is not beyond the wit of the architects of this scheme to send out an email that is relevant to members in each state party. We don’t have local elections in Scotland until 2027, and the Conservatives are not our principal opposition, it’s the SNP. There’s no mention to a Scottish member of the fact that we have the most volatile Scottish election with the best opportunities for us in years coming up in 9 months’ time. That, surely, would be quite a motivating factor.
It’s not as if this is the first time I’d had good reason to criticise federal party communications to Scottish members. It must be at least the eleven millionth by now. Things did get better for a while, but now they are on the slide.
The only way “the Feds” will learn, is if we give the tangible evidence that this is not good enough and opt out of this scheme in protest. If this doesn’t work, next year, my subscription will be reduced.
However, the party will get it’s 8.9% out of me, at least, but it will be in donations to brilliant candidates like Sanne Djikstra-Downie in Lothians, Neil Alexander in Inverness and Nairn, David Green in Caithness, Yi-Pei Chou-Turvey in the North East and Paul McGarry in Lothians that my money will be going, not to a Federal party that disrespects me.
What do you think?
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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28 Comments
What do I think ?
It’s the action of the party of prosperous middle class “Middle England” – which will continue to be such unless it takes a good hard look at itself.
Actually, David, I can’t believe I left that out of my rant…. Thank you.
David Raw is on the money, excuse the pun!
The party makes a mistake if it continues to ignore the fact that there are opportunities beyong the leafy suburbs of London and the Home Counties. My vision is Grimond’s centre left non socialist force. To achieve that we need to be going onto traditional Labour territory and we are never going to have a better opportunity than we do now!
Corbyn built a mass party why can’t we?
And yes the Scottish and indeed Welsh elections next May mean a great deal. Not least because we have an opportunity to grow our support in both!
The only thing I’d take issue with is the idea that Corbyn built a mass party. He’s had a lot of sign ups but the jury is out about whether they will actually manage to build anything with any infrastructure. And given that he delivered the worst result for Labour ever when he did have all the infrastructure and funding of the Labour Party, I won’t be holding my breath.
Indeed Caron,
Although my knowledge of Scottish politics is decidedly limited, even I know that Scotland’s defining political characteristic is SNP vs not SNP.
However I do disagree – to an extent – with David when he comments on our party being “the party of prosperous middle class “Middle England”. I regard the Lib Dems as a party where a substantial proportion of the members everywhere are what I would describe as intelligent, comfortably well off with a serious social conscience. In effect we are a party that sympathises and acts wherever possible to offset the worst aspects of social injustice and inequality, while few of us directly suffer from it.
Instead, I believe the underpinning issue behind your concern about the feds is the battle between those who believe central control is vital for organisational efficiency, and those who believe that diversity, devolution and power sharing is key to avoiding the catastrophes of central groupthink.
Sadly, for decades our party has been subjected to repeated power grabs concentrating control in the centre and taking it from ordinary members – from the Bones’ Commission to the most recent putch with F10 where a storm of indignation was whipped up in the election review to justify another centralisation of power.
We have to remember that the centre has the ear of and is the mouthpiece for the powers that be whether that is our leader, our MPs or our president – and most of them really do believe that they know best.
Caron – I wonder if David Warren was referring to the rapid expansion in Labour Party membership under Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum, rather than his current venture? Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed that his Your Party (or whatever they finally decide it’s name to be) has adopted deep orange as their party colour? That seems to be deliberately treading upon Liberal territory, and could cause confusion come an election.
I could not agree more with Caron and David. I opted out of uprating my membership fee – not because I can’t afford it but simply because I think bumping up surreptitously the headline cost of membership (a sort of fiscal drag ) is a bad move and a disincentive to join. We need MORE members especially in the north. As it is, the principal reason not to re-join must be the need to escape the constant begging letters from HQ. This is for many most of what they get for membership. Bleeding more from a diminishing pool is not the way to go.
“Middle England”, an insulting expression when directed at Liberals. “”Middle England” is a socio-political term which generally refers to middle class or lower middle class people in England who hold traditional conservative or right-wing views.’
That said, I agree with Caron. The last time this happened I opted out on principle. The tone of these emails is also too often gratuitously patronising.
@ Caron,
“And given that {Corbyn} delivered the worst result for Labour ever…..”
I’m surprised at a Lib Dem ignoring the vagaries of the FPTP voting system to make this kind of claim. It wasn’t a good result but it wasn’t the worst ever.
If Reform/Brexit Party/UKIP had competed and split the right wing vote in 2017 and 2019 as they did in 2024 it is quite likely Labour would have won both elections. Corbyn’s Labour won more votes both times than Starmer did in 2024.
I agree with Caron. I suspect that actions like this will alienate fringe members. There needs to be a rethink.
The letter explains why this is an above-inflation increase, I welcome that it’s all done for me, one less form to fill in. This article seems like a lot of fuss over nothing, ditto the comments.
Sorry if that sounds dismissive but I don’t get it.
I entirely agree with you, Caron. There seems to be an attitude amongst the high-ups in the Federal Party that the way forward is more paid staff at HQ, while they lack appreciation of the value of volunteers giving their time rather than their money. I would rather see my subscription going to support my Local Party and my Regional Party where I know the people involved and trust them to spend my money wisely. Like you I shall be rejecting any increase in my subscription to the Federal Party.
I agree with Peter Martin on vote splitting, that is the problem with FPTP – a system only used in Belarus to keep their rulers in place.
I have always been a Liberal democrat supporter and upto 2013 have lived in England.
In 2014, I moved to Wales and found that my new country has a separate economic base, culture, language and political structure. Unlike Scotland, which combined with England in an act of union, Wales was invaded and forced into England. Wales had no choice, and its laws were replaced by English laws.
In Wales, I found that Plaid Cymru was the most effective party to support for liberalism in Wales and for liberal democracy and most possibly contains more liberals in their membership than the official Welsh Libdems. It is common that a single country can have two liberal parties and even two ALDE parties in Europe.
A Lib dem councillor in Aberaeron even told the media recently that Plaid Cymru copies ideas from the the Libdems. Many times the Welsh Lib dems copy Plaid Cymru ideas.
Get over it, we are both liberals and should be working together for liberalism in Wales.
I have serious reservations that Scotland, Wales and England can be part of a federation in the longer term.
A Benelux type formula would be more flexible with three independent countries.
Our only real common link is that we are all proud Europeans and as individual members of the European Union we will have a better relationship than the current top-down rule of the current UK system.
@JohnBicknell Thanks. You are correct I was referring to Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader when party membership reached record levels and in 2017 nearly won a General Election.
Labour did badly in 2019 largely because Corbyn was demonised to a level I haven’t witnessed since the 1980s when Tony Benn was the target. I am not advocating a Labour left programme but I do want to see a Liberal radicalism that inspires!
Thanks. Opted out.
Is this deceptive marketing practice?
The opt-out lines are any lines down the page.
I don’t think it is deceptive but I don’t like it as a tactic. It is clear how you opt out.
I am far from convinced that the benefits outweigh the risks of such a tactic
Whatever happened to the Northern Liberal Network which was launched, I believe, five years ago ?
Caron,
‘Corbyn … delivered the worst result for Labour ever’
In 2017 Corbyn delivered the highest of the share of Labour’s vote since 2001 (40.7% in 2001, 40% in 2017) and higher than 2024 (33.7%). The Labour Party had a worse result in 1931 than in 2019 – 30.6% and 52 MPs. Even compared to 1935 it had more MPs 202 (vote share 32.1%) than 154 (1935). I haven’t even looked at the Labour Party results before 1922. In 1922 Labour had 29.7% and 142 MPs; in 1923 30.7% and 191 MPs; in 1924 33.3% and 151 MPs.
Corbyn delivered the worst result for Labour since 1931. I think it would be safer to say that Sunak delivered the worse Conservative result ever (before 1830).
Motion F22 from the Autumn 2024 Conference on Membership Subscriptions and Federal Levy makes no mention of any rise in membership rate – in fact it proposes a freeze in the minimum rates.
It states:
“Conference agrees … That nothing in this motion shall prevent a State Party from setting via their internal procedures higher recommended or minimum subscription rates or from introducing additional concessionary rates.”
Can somebody tell me if the English Party has set a recommended subscription rate, so that I can compare what I pay with that figure. If not, who decided on this level of increase? – the email does not have the courtesy of giving a name – it is ‘signed’ as “The Liberal Democrats”.
Given the decision of Federal Conference, I hope that HQ has not sent this email to any member who is currently paying the minimum rate, because to do so would not be in accordance with a decision of Federal Conference.
Sorry but I’m with Paul Barker on this – a lot of fuss about not very much (quite literally, in financial terms). If as is contended above, we are a party predominantly of the ‘comfortable middle’ (or however we describe them), then many people will be more than happy to pay a little extra (rather like our tax policies used to say …) with a view to supporting the implementation of policies for the greater good.
Frankly the annual membership subs are a drop in the ocean compared to all the money most activists give to the party in other forms – and if this increase gets a bit more from armchair members, then so much the better.
Inertia selling lacks ethics. End of.
We joined when it was “only 50p a year” under what @David Warren called “Grimond’s centre left non socialist force.”
Probably the amount gone up by more than inflation, the vision deflated.
But to answer Caron’s question, my husband (the financial guru in the house) made the same comment on the increase. I agree with what people say re Scotland and Wales, and I have boiled over so many times about the north of England being ignored I have run out of steam to boil (not chemically possible).
But it will be targeted at all our armchair members who don’t read messages from the party to them and will let it go, as they don’t do much if anything but pay subs.
The same goes for me, my only activity is phoning that costs me nothing.
I appreciate it upsetting proper activists, but that is not the 95% or more % if looking from a purely financial point of view.
I’m with Paul Barker and Dominic. A lot of fuss about really very little. HQ needs more income for us to capitalise on our recent successes. I’ve opted out of the increase. Not because I’m opposed to the email, but because I can afford to regularly donate.
“we need to be going onto traditional Labour territory and we are never going to have a better opportunity than we do now!”
Mark Pack’s post abut the 1920s is worth a re-read: https://www.libdemvoice.org/mark-packs-monthly-report-to-members-three-lessons-from-the-1920s-77938.html
I can’t really believe there is much chance of the Lib Dems taking seats where we took 10% or less of the vote in 2024 without day in day out campaigning by dedicated teams (hat tip to John Potter and one or two others) over the next three years. That’s most Labour/Tory marginals and most Labour/Reform marginals and. Same applies in Scotland and Wales.
To put it another way we’d have to get our share of the vote in such constituencies up to 30% to have a chance of winning against an anti-Reform/anti Tory squeeze from ALL 4 other national parties (and the nationalists in Wales and Scotland).
Can someone please explain why I am wrong?
@Ernest. Plaid Cymru are not liberals. They are nationalists with all that means for their view on internationalism and civil liberties.
At least you got the email, Caron (and others)! I’ve not seen one (just checked the junk folder, and it’s not gone there either).
And no, Plaid are not liberals. They are socialists who want independence. And there is nothing liberal about Welsh or Scottish nationalism, which is insular and hostile to England.
I seriously think that the LibDems need to look for other methods of raising funds.
I was annoyed that this email was sent to me because I had already opted out of automatic yearly increases. Did the powers that be really think that yet another email would get me to change my mind?
I have had a similar one (and I’ve found out I missed a historic one as well), this shows a serious lack of ethics, by all means ask, but the only reason to do this is that people will miss the emails or forget to take action.
Whilst the party shows this level of ethics in its membership fees it is very difficult to campaign and promote membership on this basis where there is a lack of trust in the ethics.