I think I’d better revise my “Guide to the Lib Dems for new members” post!
Welcome to all 8000 of you who have joined the party since the snap election was announced on Tuesday.
We hope you enjoy the next seven weeks which are bound to be intense. There is nothing like the whirlwind of an election!
This now means that party membership now stands at 95,000. If just 5000 more people join us, then that’s Tim Farron’s membership target for 2020 smashed.
Sal Brinton, our Party President, had this to say:
People are flocking to the Liberal Democrats as we are the only party who are offering effective opposition to this Conservative Brexit government.
Theresa May: we have the troops for this fight and they are raring to go.
The Liberal Democrats are the only party standing up for an open, tolerant, and united Britain.
A massive shoutout to the Liberal Democrat Membership team and the Lib Dem Newbies team for all they are doing to process memberships and welcome people.
New members, please feel free to join the Lib Dem Newbies page on Facebook. It’s a great place to meet others of like mind.
* 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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17 Comments
Fantastic news ….. welcome one and all 🙂 🙂
Can you confirm that the Lib Dems will keep us in the single market
@Daphne: Yes.
At 8.30 this morning my daughter, who has accounts in Europe and is a firm supporter of the single market, goes into work to be ribbed by two ardent right wing brexiteers. After half an hour of how wonderful May is and how we are going to get our country back she had enough. She went on the internet and joined the Lib Dems.
Some of us aren’t really new having been members for majority of last 30 years…we have just needed to see the illiberal state of current UK democracy to be motivated to come back to the fold after a short absence due to 2010-2015
This is great news! But. . . can I urge constituencies where there is little realistic prospect of winning to ensure that these newbies are not just welcomed but given something to do, even if its only leafleting.
Since becoming active again in the party (after an almost 20 year gap) I have noticed a real change. First of all new members are often not interested in doing anything other than declaring their support for the party and paying their dues. Whether this is genuinely because those in work are often under tremendous pressure and have to work long hours or it’s because they genuinely don’t realise that success for our party depends so much on local campaigning, I don’t know.
In Stevenage we focus strongly on canvassing with leaflet delivery often paid for. If new members aren’t up to canvassing there’s not a lot for them to do.
So make sure they given something to do, that way they begin to feel part of the local team and they begin to understand what we’re all about.
A hearty welcome to all who have joined or rejoined in the last few days!
To some of you it will be a revelation. If you become active in electioneering and campaigning, you will start to become aware that there is lot more to effective politics than a General Election campaign of a few weeks every 5 years or so, in spite of the way it is all too often covered by the national media. Elections can be won or lost in the campaign, but the work before is what got the campaign to the starting blocks.
A party also needs enough of two sorts of people – those who devote part of their lives to keeping the local organisation going and and those who keep continuous campaigning going – much of the country has elections every year. If your party is to achieve more success, some of you will have to take on these roles.
To quote Winston Churchill’s 1942 speech, our surge in membership is ‘the end of the beginning’; there is much for all of us to do in the months and years to come.
Awesome 🙂 Let’s hit 100,000!
I can say that whilst cross party discussions can go on, I am being told by a significant number of our newbies that unless Tim rules out coalition with the Tories they memberships will be cancelled and on the ground we know that this is being exploited by Labour. Get this sorted and now
Yes, agree. Tim must rule out Coalition with the Tories – and I’m not a newbie. 2010 to 2015 stretched the elastic to breaking point and we know what the consequences are when that happens.
There is a simple answer to the question we will be asked every day.
We will only even consider a coalition with a party that has indicated up front that it would consider a coalition with us.
Stephen Booth
Paying for delivery is a slippery slope into Torydom!
Have you tried canvassing specifically to recruit local deliverers, then giving them something to do?:
Re coalition:
No coalition with the Tories, and no coalition with Labour, or the SNP. But we will enter a temporary pact with any Party that pledges to deliver another referendum on the terms.
If Caroline Lucas wants to join us we would probably accept her!
It would be extremely difficult and unwise to agree a coalition with any party that rejects a referendum on the Brexit deal. It is the fundamental issue in this election. That rules out the Tory and Labour parties although not necessarily individual MPs from those parties. That should rule out anything other than a temporary deal on a supply and issue by issue basis. We need a clear statement from Tim beyond saying that we want the max number of LD MPs to form a government on our own. We need to be brave and bold
I would imagine that most of our new members will be relatively young. Therefore the first thing that new, young members can do is to ensure, through all the social media at their disposal, that there pier group is registered to vote and the vote turns out. I think today’s young are wonderful and are having a pretty hard time of it. This election could well revolve around turn out. This is your future. Seize it.
Will you allow all British people, including those out of the country > 15 years to vote in elections that affect them?
Please ,please ,please no talk of coalitions or progressive alliances it is counter productive and would indecate a wiilingness to prostitute ourselves to the party that offers the best deal. dont do it.Let the electorate decide at a local level their preferred candidate plurality of choice in a multi party system has always been close to our hearts .Unlike the one party state the conservatives wish to achieve with no credible or coherent opposition party .