It’s not often a motion comes along to Federal conference that is actually about true Federalism. Federalism is a concept synonymous with the Lib Dems. We campaign for it at a national level and we practice what we preach when it comes to the internal organisation of the party. Or do we? There’s a motion coming to Harrogate conference in March which addresses this for candidates – and we are delighted that it points towards a much more progressive and federal approach to how the party operates..
As those responsible for overseeing the approval and selection of Westminster candidates in our respective States – Scotland and Wales – we added our names to support the motion (F10) to implement the lessons of the General Election Review.
You can read the candidates motion here.
For us, this motion is about three key things:
Getting Federalism right for the three States
It gives the three States an equal seat at the table when it comes to setting Westminster candidate selection rules and procedures. Rather than Scotland and Wales being treated as the poor relations expected to follow wherever England goes, all three States will have parity in decision-making, reflecting the views of our respective State committees in Joint State meetings to collectively decide the way forward. This is exactly how Federalism should work – State parity and democratic accountability to members through conference of our processes and procedures.
Diversity and equality
If we are serious about improving the diversity of our candidates – and therefore our elected representatives at a Westminster level – offering a seat at the decision-making table for selection rules and procedures to our Vice President responsible for working with ethnic minority communities is a long overdue positive step in our Westminster candidate function. Right now our candidate functions are siloed into the three States, divorced from other mechanisms in the party seeking to improve diversity. By bringing Westminster candidates under a Federal structure, we can use the resources of all three State parties and the Federal party far more cohesively and effectively.
Increasing support for volunteers and candidates
As long-standing volunteers for the party ourselves, we can say with absolute certainty, for far too long our Westminster candidate systems have relied far too much on a handful of volunteers working exceptionally hard to hold everything together. The next Westminster election is going to be held in very different circumstances to the last. Rather than just a few held seats, next time we will have 72 and then many others we hope to gain. Our candidate system has to recognise the new world we are in. As such, we must offer more support for our volunteers to deliver the processes, help support our candidates through their journey and create time for us to be finding would-be candidates. We fully welcome the opportunity for increased staff resources this motion provides to help us do this.
Finally, it is important to add for clarity, just as the English state will retain responsibility for large area elections such as Mayoral elections, under this motion the Scottish and Welsh states will of course retain responsibility for the entire Holyrood and Senedd candidate and selection process.
We are looking forward to this motion coming to conference. Delivering on this motion will promote our Westminster candidate systems from the imbalanced three silos of state party politics and instead make it an equal and intrinsic part of our democratic federal committee structures, accountable to conference. We hope you will support the motion.
* Charles Dundas is the Campaigns and Candidates Convener of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. Julian Tandy is the Welsh State Chair of Candidates.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Joy of Six 1339
Kemi Badenoch vs the Conservative Party: how the polling compares - The Week in Polls
F10 is passed overwhelmingly. Now the work begins...
Blackness Road - 1967 #dundeewestend
Torchwood is now a Cardiff Bay institution
Zachary Adam Barker
tom arms
Neil Hickman
Joe Bourke
16 Comments
The argument around federalism around this Constitutional Amendment is a complete red herring to what the amendment actually does in practise. It enlarges the JCSC by introducing a number of appointed and unaccountable federal places on the committee which outnumber the three state representatives, it is complete centralisation of the candidates process and NOT true federalism.
From what I understand, the arguments around the England leading on the candidates process as it stands, is that the English Party put a lot of time, work and effort (including legal advice) on it’s rules and Scotland and Wales generally choose to follow England. The current setup allows for Scotland and Wales to choose to set their own rules, and there is absolutely nothing stopping them deviating from England.
The current process lead is to the best election results in over a century, and the proposed reforms would just make the process less accountable and would remove power from States and English Regions.
I find it the idea that Wales and Scotland are not being treated well when they have total control over their candidate approval and selection bizarre, especially when alternative is to transfer these powers to central party.
As I understand the constitution, you don’t have to follow England at the minute, though you may choose to for various reasons. But I don’t understand how proposal fixes this – Federal committees are always dominated by English members, so unless you get a veto, which I don’t think is proposed, this could just be giving English members a more significant sway, especially when they’ve so many more MPs and representatives across the party.
I find this strange … the officers of the English Party, spent the entirety of my tenure as English Party Chair communicating with / meeting the state leads (President/CEO) from Wales and Scotland, to ensure that we all moved together, rather than the English Party steaming ahead alone.
We spent my tenure treating Scotland and Wales as equal thirds of the party … and a large amount of time fighting to get the Federal Party to do so, reminding them of ut regularly. Only to be greeted with surprise that we should wish to do so because it was suggested to us that Scotland and Wales weren’t pulling their weight.
We also battled regularly as a team to get the Federal Party to discuss the budget in a time frame that worked for both Scotland and Wales’ strategic and constitutional requirements, as well as our own.
I also spoke personally to the President of Wales and the CEO of Scotland on a regular basis … God forbid we even had a whatsapp group.
As far as the English Party were concerned, Scotland and Wales were always equal thirds. Myself and Richard Flowers, (the then treasurer of England) even fought for you to keep grants and at one point during the Federal Levy negotiations, discussed whether we could pay both our sister states directly and then pay the Federal Party, to ensure your budgets were protected.
This is my lived experience… we basically started a forum to ensure the states would communicate freely and effectively.
How is going from Scotland controls Scottish selections and Wales controls Welsh selections, to Central Party controls all selections with state representatives federalism? There is an argument to be had for this system leading to better election results or more diversity (or not), but please don’t insult members’ intelligence by telling them centralisation = federalism.
Alison is very diplomatic above. And I completely endorse what she says about our efforts to work as “one party”.
But this motion is the very opposite of that.
We’ve just seen our most successful ever result for our excellent volunteer candidates committee (with their dedicated support staff). Not just 72 MPs elected, but having candidates in place and ready for each and every by-election over the last five years.
Frankly the Federal Party could do with fixing some its own egregious failures – particularly on membership (in the hidden chapter of the General Election review) before attempting a centralising power grab.
By “Will give the states equal parity” you actually mean reduce England’s involvement to the minimal level Wales and Scotland currently have.
We are not the Tory Party. We don’t put seats in the gift of the leadership.
If we are to truly practice what we preach then we should embrace Federalism and empower our members through exercising power at the lowest possible level – for candidates that means through local parties supported by regional and state candidates committees.
This motion should be thrown out as the illiberal top down imposition it clearly is.
I agree with the three above posters. It seems to me to be yet another centralisers’ power grab and as such is on the opposite side of the coin to real federalism and diversity.
As an aside, I am very worried about the implied claims about Diversity and Equality from that sections very first sentence and the total focus on candidates and MPs. The one question I have never seen satisfactorily reported on is the real diversity of our membership. Is anyone aware of any data available to ordinary members on the proportions of our membership analysed key diversity groupings compared to national proportions? Perhaps we really need to recruit more members from various groupings first and that will work through to more diverse candidates and MPs. A bit more trickle up diversity than trickle down may be the best solution?
David – stats are available as we monitor assessments. You’re right, the Party needs to increase the diversity of those who apply. We can only assess those that do obviously. Data indicates we’re currently about right with % applying for and going through assessment.
There seems to be an issue after that, which we were (I say “were” purely because I’m talking about the past, so can only refer to the period I cover) looking at what they were were & what we could do.
One diversity issue, was the Federal idea of pushing all target seats to be selected first, early & at the same time risked reducing diversity. Another looked at accessibility
Reflecting on my 1st post, i thought it sensible to check my notes. There were a few things:
* We acted on feedback from Scotland & Wales that they had previously not been included effectively from the start of my tenure onwards
* The officers were firm that the states were equal thirds, i.e. in our negotiations with the Federal Party for instance. And we had joint meetings with all the state leads & treasurers in the same room, to reduce chances of 1 party making a decision that would be bad for 1 or both of the others.
* We’ve trained Welsh assessors at Wales’s request
* Margaret / ECC did alot of lifting on rule & procedure writing & revision, with agreement that Scotland & Wales were free to adapt as they wish
* We mutually revised the candidate code of conduct together twice, until all 3 states were happy with it.
* Agreement that Welsh and Scottish candidates can go to assessment days in England if they wished
As always ALOT of work is done behind the scenes – making sure we hit constitutional deadlines for all three states to get things signed off at the appropriate meeting for instance. Frustrating for all involved.
I cannot speak for my predessors or successors – I can say our officer team’s motto regarding the states was “we rise together or not at all” – and we worked really hard to keep that front and centre.
Hi Alison. Thanks for your prompt response. It is very enlightening.
Unfortunately, I think you missed one key aspect of what I was asking about. To me, the key measures of diversity and the only valid starting point for diversity assessments are the diversity of our party’s membership, not the diversity of its candidates or MPs. One is bedrock. The other is top dressing. A vital top dressing, key to our future progress, but ultimately all our success is based and sustained by our grassroots, our activist members.
I am sure we all realise that our membership is lacking in its diversity in many groupings. If I remember correctly, we are noticeably underrepresented in terms of people with lower income, lower educational attainment and union membership. Equally, while Liberal Democratic values are open to all, we have to accept we are probably not a party that appeals to any followers of Andrew Tate, or any other grouping that regards women as second-class citizens, and we would not want to appeal to those groupings either. Indeed, if there is one uniting value of Liberal Democracy that transcends all others, I would contend that opposing bullies and all people who try to abuse their positions of power is that value.
That is why I believe it is most important that we realise that the key to our success is to increase our membership as a whole. A focus on increasing membership will immediately increase diversity. Increasing diversity around the top will not.
@David I’m afraid that logic doesn’t track. Increasing membership doesn’t automatically mean you’ll increase diversity. All it guarantees is potentially more of the same. If we’re not appealing to certain tracts of the population now, increasing membership doesn’t make it any more likely that we will later. We need to address WHY we don’t appeal to those people, not just increase numbers and how a few jump on the bandwagon
Daniel, Thanks for letting me know your thoughts, it is appreciated,
Actually recruiting members in any sort of numbers does in itself increase diversity in the party. Every individual is a new voice, each with its own experience and opinions. Serious recruiting new members involves knocking on new doors to ask people who almost certainly have never been asked before, and that means younger people who have become old enough to vote, it means asking people only recently moved into an area and it means asking people in new areas where we haven’t had an MP until 2024.
It may not be a perfect sample of humanity, but its effect will be to strengthen local parties and strengthen diversity as well.
However, more importantly, I worry when you say “We need to address WHY we don’t appeal to those people, not just increase numbers …” As I pointed out, there are quite significant groups who we would not want to join us and we shouldn’t spend time addressing why, but just acknowledge No. Also we have to accept that in areas where we have next to no local activists, e.g. large parts of the Midlands and the North both rural and urban.
To me it is much more important for each of us to get out on the doorstep and start to make things a bit better by talking to new people than to spend yet more time talking amongst ourselves about why we aren’t yet perfect.
Hi All. I’m writing as a member of the Welsh Party, and as a Candidate Assessor (one of three in Wales) and a Returning Officer. I’ll admit to being a terrible liberal – constitutional issues go right over the top of my head.
What I care about are practical issues: we in the Welsh Party are struggling to meet our obligations. There are too few of us taking on too many roles (and I hope that Welsh Party officers and members will forgive me for saying so openly). From my perspective, F10 isn’t about a centralizing power grab, and it is certainly not intended to be disrespectful of people who have done a lot to support the Welsh Party. F10 is about giving support to the Welsh Party to fulfill its obligations towards candidates.
I hope that we can have a constructive dialogue and reach a conclusion that suits us all.
@David, addressing why we don’t appeal to certain groups doesn’t mean addressing why we don’t appeal to ALL groups. No one is suggesting we look at why we don’t appeal to the far or alt right and then looking to change that, but we could – and should – address why certain age demographics, for example, don’t routinely vote Lib Dem. That’s part of the problem with politics at the moment; people keep looking at it as a black and white picture when actually most of it – like most of life – is shaded in grey.
The value of any system should be judged on its failures not its successes. Whilst we have got 72 MP’s elected, correlation is not causation, and the existing selection process also caused significant problems. Not just contributing to the high court case currently awaiting judgement, which has cost the party a fortune in effort and money, but also in selecting a number of candidates who failed to comprehend the concept of non-target seats. Our approval and selection processes HAVE to be professionalised and it is frankly ridiculous that such a crucial part of our party is left to a small and overworked group of volunteers.
On David Evans excellent point about diversity, back when I was chair of FPDC only 2% of our membership was from BAME backgrounds. 4% of our approved candidates are from BAME backgrounds. Now 7% of our MP’s are.
We cannot continue to think that tinkering with our approval and selection process is going to fix the massive issue that our party has with ethnic diversity. it starts with our membership. Britain is becoming ever more diverse, and the concentration of our membership in leafy suburbs and the older and of the age range (which is less ethnically diverse than younger people) all contribute to our lack of proper reflection of the communities we should be looking to serve.
I don’t know how we fix this. But I do know that having the vice president on the joint candidates committee is not going to fix it.
The complaint is that selections don’t occur when “someone”, not really defined, wants them to and so we need a new system with better resources. Say that both of those are true – then the answer is not to throw the system out but to give the existing system the resources that the people running it say they need. That means providing each of the English, Scottish and Welsh parties, and the English regions access to the resources they need and making them accountable for how they use those resources.
Let’s be clear what this proposal will lead to. Either local parties will be bullied by party staff about when they hold their candidate selections, or else the staff will turn out no better than the existing team at getting candidates in place. That is not federalism. That is centralized control to achieve a goal that the centre sets, controls and monitors with no local input.
Rather than saying that this proposal is the sole solution to the identified problem, how about discussing the potential solutions with the people that you think are currently responsible?
The mover and seconder of the motion are only now proposing to discuss this with RCCs and Regional Chairs. If they really believed in consultation, they would have done that before they put pen to paper. We now run the risk of a contentious debate at conference because this was dropped in people’s laps without open and honest discussion.
Selecting candidates is a complicated process and is combination of principle and pragmatism. The aim is to gather as attractive sleight of them as possible to their electorates. Views on how to do this differ. Campaigning remains a key part of this strategy so any policy will only work if it retains the volunteers that do much of our work. Sometimes people on the ground understand local circumstances better than any centralised party structure. There is little use applying principles during selections when they are forgotten when campaigning.