Liberal Democrat Voice

Conference emergency motion options published

By The Voice | Fri 19th September 2025 - 7:50 pm

The following emergency motions have been submitted and chosen for ballot by the Federal Conference Committee:

-A Liberal Vision for Digital Rights
-Building a Fair Asylum System
-Standing up for the most vulnerable in society
-Trump’s State Visit

Two motions selected by a ballot of registered conference attendees will be debated at 09:00 on Tuesday 23rd September (F41).

The ballot to select the two motions to be debated is now open and will close at 5pm tomorrow, Saturday 20th September.

The motions in full are:

Posted in Conference | 1 Comment

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Mark Pack’s September report to members: Beating Reform

By Mark Pack | Fri 19th September 2025 - 2:27 pm

What makes us different

With the Labour government becoming deeply unpopular so quickly and with Reform on the rise, the need for us to expand into being a credible force across more of the country has never been more pressing.

We are the party that stands up against populist extremists, willing to call out Donald Trump and willing to take on Nigel Farage.

With the pernicious volume of extremist views – aided by Elon Musk’s love affair with extremism – there’s a crucial role for the Liberal Democrats in being willing and proud to stand against such extremism.

While both Reform and the Conservatives spend so much time trying to excuse it or benefit from it, and Labour prevaricates, we simply oppose it.

Rather than putting our energies into telling people how many fellow Brits we dislike and relentlessly seeking to stoke anger and division, our focus is on improving people’s lives through improving our NHS, fixing social care, reining in the excesses of water companies and tackling the cost of living crisis.

Central to growing our economy – to fund the better public services we need – is improving our trade relations with the European Union. Those promises made by Brexit campaigners have turned to dust. They broke their promises – and our economy.

That is why continuing to up our game is so important. We can see in local council by-elections week in, week out, the results where we do. We consistently can take on and beat Reform, even in wards where we were not in contention the previous time, while Labour and the Conservatives nearly always lose out to Reform.

That should give us optimism – and spur us to do more.

Balanced media coverage shouldn’t just be for election time

The BBC is our national broadcaster, people expect and deserve balanced news coverage.

It’s clear to everyone the BBC is giving Nigel Farage and Reform far too much coverage. Reform UK only have 4 of the 250 opposition MPs, but Nigel Farage accounts for 60% of the BBC website’s mentions of opposition leaders.

The BBC should have to balance its political news so it doesn’t boost Nigel Farage’s dangerous, divisive politics.

There are special Ofcom rules on balance at election time, these rules should apply all year round so people can trust the BBC.

That is the message for the new Liberal Democrat ‘Balance the BBC’ petition, which you can sign and share here.

(As usual, the data from this petition flows into the usual party systems, so local parties can integrate it into their work too.)

Internal elections

The big three-yearly round of Federal Party elections – such as for my successor as President and also to various party committees – is now underway. All members for who the party has the correct, opted-in email address (important caveats!) are receiving a series of emails from the Returning Officer and from Civica (previously known as Electoral Reform Services), the firm who is running the online nominations and voting system for us.

William Wallace writes: Understanding British liberalism

By Lord William Wallace | Fri 19th September 2025 - 11:55 am

Editor’s note: Jonathan Parry will be discussing his ideas at the Journal of Liberal History Fringe at the Durley Suite in the BIC at 8:15 pm.

Liberal Democrats have come to the party by all sorts of routes – some through specific campaigns, others through local activities, through parental encouragement or through education and persuasion. All of us within our broad church, whatever path brought us here, will benefit from Jonathan Parry’s short history, ‘Liberalism’ (Agenda Publishing 2025), which has been written to remind us of the continuities of ‘the ideas and visions put forward by Liberal politicians’ since the term ‘Liberal’ began to be applied to Whigs and Radicals in the 1830s. – emphasising the political practice of Liberals in politics rather than the theorists who have written on Liberal philosophy. ‘We cannot hope to find one single “Liberal ideology”, in the sense of a theoretically coherent set of principles.’ But he does trace a number of broad themes that have shared for nearly 200 years.

He argues that the continuity of British Liberalism is best defined as resistance to the concentration of power, either in central government or in vested interests, such as landowners, corporations or the established church. Liberalism promoted local government against central direction, pluralism in religion and education, and civil liberties against state direction. Today’s Liberal Democrats should take pride from the efforts their 19th century predecessors put into developing schools, sanitation, better housing and public transport, against Tory opposition, before moving under the 1906 Liberal Government to introduce pensions and national insurance through central taxation. He also tells us that the Liberals also legislated in 1906 to allow local authorities to provide free school meals.

‘Most of the confusion in discussing political liberalism comes from economics.’ Parry argues that laisser faire free market economics never persuaded leading Liberals to shrink the state – although after World War Two some outsiders were attracted to the party by the hope that it would adopt such an approach. Cobden and Bright saw free trade as a means to international cooperation, and retrenchment of central government expenditure as opposition to spending on war and government sinecures. Similarly, he argues that political liberals never preferred negative liberty – freedom from state interference – as more important than positive liberty – participation in public life and citizenship. He sees the domestic policies in Chamberlain’s 1891 Newcastle Programme as pointing towards the great reforms of the 1906 government, though blocked in Gladstone’s last government by the overwhelming problem of Ireland.

Posted in News | Tagged jonathan parry, journal of liberal history and liberalism | 4 Comments

In praise of volunteers!

By Richard Dickson | Fri 19th September 2025 - 10:25 am

This weekend our Conference in Bournemouth will be full of volunteers. And, for a myriad of very good reasons, tens of thousands of more Lib Dem volunteers will not be in Bournemouth. At Conference a handful of volunteers will receive awards from the Party for their service. And that’s right and proper. But all of them need cherishing and recognising as the heroes that they are.

There is almost nothing in paid employment that can prepare anyone for working with volunteers. Leadership and team management training in paid employment relates exclusively to working with colleagues who are paid to do what they do. Ultimately, where there is a formal contract of employment, the incentive of a positive appraisal, the reward of a performance bonus or even a promotion can be used to motivate people to get things done.

But managing people where they are doing what they’re doing simply out of a sense of belief and conviction is another higher set of skills altogether. Especially when the volunteer is almost certainly juggling their own paid employment, as well as being stressed with domestic responsibilities, the burdens of elected office and other community commitments. It’s about winning over the volunteer’s head and heart, their hands and their feet, their time and their wallet.

I’ve worked in the corporate world, higher education and in the voluntary and community sector. The latter is often wrongly referred to as The Third Sector, as though somehow it’s inferior to whatever are the first and second sectors. Sadly the charitable sector is littered with examples of organisations that have taken their volunteers for granted. Look at the damaging impact on volunteer engagement that can arise from service changes, from botched reorganisations and from the miscommunication of a rebranding.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged volunteers | 7 Comments

When Newton Ferrers Mums outface Whitehall

By Mark Corner | Fri 19th September 2025 - 8:55 am

Some thirty years ago (according to his famous Diaries) Alan Clark MP, at the time a minister in Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, was sent to Truro in Cornwall to beef up support for the Conservative candidate in a by-election caused by the tragic death of local Liberal MP David Penhaligon in a road accident. Clark complained that despite Truro being ‘natural’ Conservative territory, the candidate he supported was likely to lose (indeed he did). This produced a lament in the Diaries about the way the Liberals got ‘dug in’ by working hard in constituencies (his visits to his own constituency in Plymouth from Saltwood Castle in far-off Kent were notoriously infrequent) and once dug in were very hard to dig out! They geared people up on local issues of limited importance, Clark claimed, and made them feel that they were able to challenge the establishment and take on the world. Hence the reference to the Newton Ferrers mums.

What Clark lamented in Liberal (about to become Liberal Democrat) behaviour has been a feature of the party’s commitment to community politics for a long time. In a speech to the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in March 2023, Ed Davey declared that ‘community politics is something our party is built on. It is what sets us apart from other parties.’ The Lib Dem leader talked of candidates being ‘connected to the communities they represent’, ‘hearing their concerns on the doorstep’ (as opposed to making cold calls on a phone) and of ‘first winning their trust – and then ultimately their votes.’

Of course, it can be said that this is what all politicians say, whatever party they represent. But it isn’t. Keir Starmer caused some criticism in The Guardian a couple of weeks back, when he talked of focusing on ‘delivery, delivery, delivery,’ as if he was managing a company that was trying to deal with angry customers who found their deliveries behind schedule. The electors had been turned into passive recipients of goodies from their elected representatives.

Where politics is concerned, the voter is a citizen, not a customer. It may be an advantage that Lib Dems, unlike Labour and the Conservatives, have never had a natural constituency (at least since the time of the nonconformist conscience) to which they could ‘deliver’ when they were in power. They have had to build up support in the way Ed Davey describes.

Nowadays there is also Reform to reckon with. As John Curtice pointed out in a recent analysis for the BBC, Reform appeals to those who, like the Brexiteers a decade ago, feel threatened by changes in society they cannot handle. Foreigners are undesirable, some sexual orientations are undesirable if they’re even possible, refugees are deceiving at best, dangerous at worst and climate change is an invention of woke scientists. Meanwhile speeches emphasise the ‘destruction of Britain’ and the ‘erosion of Britain’ (Elon Musk), offering a constant litany of all things bad so that people can convince themselves that everything is hopeless. It is at this point that the would-be dictator inserts himself as the ‘deliverer’ who will put things right. Stay passive and watch what I can do with the power you give me. It is a technique perfected by Trump. Elect me and I’ll end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. Then everyone can sleep safely in their beds. Be nice to me with your royal pageantry and I’ll deliver you a nice deal on tariffs.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged community politics | 1 Comment

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Why the Conference debate on protecting the rights of Hong Kongers is important

By Nicholas Chan | Thu 18th September 2025 - 3:15 pm

The long awaited ‘China Audit’ was not published other than a ministerial statement. Legitimate reasons? Though in 2023, the Intelligence & Security Committee (‘ISC’) of Parliament published their report. The China Audit could provide elected representatives a comprehensive document demonstrating the complexity of the UK-China relationship, Britain’s interests and UK’s strategy and position. The government cannot be held accountable without its scrutiny. Why do PM Starmer’s ministers try to wave through Beijing’s application for a mega Embassy as a mere “planning application”? Why is his Chancellor attempting trade deals when former PM Cameron’s warm relations with China clearly demonstrated a history of broken promises on trade? Hence, when it was announced that China is left off the Enhanced Tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme in the hope of illusional economic benefits, the public is less informed of the risk of Chinese government’s influence. Subsequently, our agencies are less able to monitor and shield our institutions from China’s meddling in our democracy. China is notably omitted from the Enhanced Tier which included Russia, North Korea and Iran. President Xi asserts his strategic leadership in this triumvirate bloc. I would reason that by adding China to the FIRS Enhanced-tier, is even more critical now given that no publicly available version of the China Audit has been released.

The threats from China are real.

First, in the era of misinformation, it is easy to discount the ambition, depth and scale of malign influence in the UK, especially given the breadth and depth of the work of the CCP’s United Front Work Department. This is something many liberal democracies have only recently begun to grasp. For example, for years the Chinese influence agent Christine Lee was called out. But these concerns were casually discounted by many. Entrenched within UK’s political parties, other agents orchestrated community-aid groups to frame a “democratic voice” against these warnings. Another example is Beijing’s “elite-capture” – getting UK politicians to become a poster child for its global institutions. Politicians have attempted to discount the risk of AIIB and IOMed to the Rules-Based International Order by framing these institutions in the language of multipolarity and multilateralism. However, these institutions are not truly multilateral, as by design they imply and facilitate Chinese, meaning the CCP, leadership. Enhanced-tier FIRS will improve awareness among UK politicians, ensuring China is correctly framed, like its strategic partners – Russia, North Korea and Iran, as a threat.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged conference countdown and hong kong | Leave a comment

For people, for planet

By Duncan Brack | Thu 18th September 2025 - 1:45 pm

One of the key debates at this year’s autumn conference will be on the party’s new climate policy paper, For People, For Planet – on Sunday afternoon, kicking off at 3.15pm.

In the six years since we last published a comprehensive climate policy paper (Tackling the Climate Emergency, 2019) much has changed. With record-breaking temperatures, wildfires, floods and droughts, the threat posed by uncontrolled global heating is becoming ever-more obvious. In the UK, however, at least we now have a government that takes the issue seriously, unlike Boris Johnson’s (which paid lip service to the challenge but didn’t achieve much) or Rishi Sunak’s (which became actively hostile). Yet Labour’s approach is still not good enough – in supporting airport expansion, for example, or in failing to understand the linkages between the climate and nature emergencies, or in being too slow to undo the damage caused by Brexit.

The Liberal Democrat approach is different. For People, For Planet is based on three key themes. First, putting people first: the measures needed to address the climate, nature and resilience challenges must be equitable, fair and affordable. This includes lowering electricity costs and offering support to all households for investments such as insulation and heat pumps; assisting low-income households with a social electricity tariff and targeted free home energy improvements; creating a Just Transition Commission to develop just transition plans and provide funding support for vulnerable communities; and developing policies in partnership with those they affect, including citizen input through a National Climate Assembly, and local engagement.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged climate, conference countdown and environment | 12 Comments

What liberals need to know from Reform UK conference

By Conference Tourist | Thu 18th September 2025 - 11:45 am

Reform UK held their party conference at the Birmingham NEC at the start of the month. Delegates queued for an hour to get in on the first day as an estimated 6,000 activists attended.

The mood amongst delegates could not have been more buoyant – this is a party that believes it is going places. Delegates who had been to a previous Reform conference said it was unrecognisable compared to last year’s event.

News organisations, especially GB News, were everywhere. Wherever you looked, the branding and presentation was highly professional. Whatever outsiders might think, this is a party that believes it can form the next Government. Both the polls and the bookies’ odds suggest they might be right!

Obviously we’re some distance from the next General Election, but this Conference showed that the party is thinking seriously about how it would USE the power of Government.

First up, Nigel Farage appointed Zia Yusuf to be Reform’s Policy Chief and he will develop the policies for a Reform Government across the board – which will not necessarily be tied to positions they held at the last General Election. Reform’s membership or conference will likely have little say on what those policies will be – this is an incredibly top-down party.

But even without the details of the policies, there’s some things that are crystal clear about how a Reform UK administration would start.

Reform UK wants to restore ‘Parliamentary democracy’. What they mean by that is removing anything that might restrict a Government’s power to take action – annoying things such as the law, human rights, experts, scientists, senior civil servants, scrutiny, oversight, checks and balances and so on. They’ve got the Project 2025 Trump playbook and they will bring it to Westminster if they win power.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged reform uk and uk politics | 13 Comments

Calling out the Gaza genocide

By Judi Conner | Thu 18th September 2025 - 10:13 am

Genocide. Genocide. Genocide.

For two years this word has been taboo as we’ve watched Israel carrying out its atrocities in Gaza. Most of us have avoided using it for fear of….what? Yes, we’ve rightly considered ‘genocide’ a powerful, extreme word, largely associated with the horrors of the Holocaust and Rwanda: a word that mustn’t be used lightly, without proper investigation of the true facts. But let’s be honest. We’ve also been terrified to call out the blatant killing of civilians and ethnic cleansing in Gaza for what it is, because in all likelihood we’d be accused of antisemitism or supporting Hamas terrorism.

But on Tuesday this week things changed. The United Nations’ Human Rights Council published a report by an Independent International Commission of Inquiry into Israel’s actions in Gaza. It concluded that “Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Commission of Inquiry urges Israel and all States to fulfil their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and punish those responsible for it.”

Suddenly ‘genocide’ in Gaza is no longer the subject of conjecture and hypothesis. it brings us back to facts, using international law and carefully-researched evidence as the yardstick.

More specifically, the Commission, which has been investigating the events on and since 7 October 2023 for the last two years, concludes that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.”

“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the genocide in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission, who headed the tribunal into the Rwanda Genocide. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.” At the report’s announcement Judge Pillay also called the findings “a moral outrage and a legal emergency”.

Defending the Report against an intense backlash from Israel, Pillay and her colleagues have been quick to point out that, far from being pro-Hamas, the Commission took a strong stance against Hamas on 10th October 2023, denouncing Hamas atrocities against Israel as war crimes. They also stress that “explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group.” In other words, key evidence of Israel’s intentions of genocide has come from the blatant words and actions of Israel’s leadership itself.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged gaza, israel, middle east and palestine | 8 Comments

Trump in the UK: On the importance of respecting the office, if not the man

By Alan Grant | Thu 18th September 2025 - 8:03 am

I don’t expect to find many fans of Donald J. Trump on Lib Dem Voice. Maybe from the old days when he was the gold-lined host of the US version of The Apprentice who delivered every iconic catchphrase with the un-self-conscious bravado and camp cattiness of a drag queen, but certainly not now.

He is not our kind of chap.

The Donald offends mainstream British liberalism. He is brash, it is considered. He is ostentatious, it is reserved. He talks about how great he is and the amazing things he has done. British liberalism would rather die.

His affront to the quiet civility of our brand of liberalism is so potent that it has altered perspectives in Britain of what America is. Trump is such an all-encompassing, room-dominating character that is difficult to separate him from anything around him. This power has led to London Mayor Sadiq Khan criticising Trump as he touched down for his second state visit to the UK, it also led to Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey declining an invite to a state banquet.

The pre-emptive hangover from Brand Trump is so strong that it has led many of us down a dangerous path. His once-in-a-generation ability to generate headlines has meant that many have forgotten that there is a difference between the Presidency and the President.

Donald John Trump is the President of the United States of America; he is not the Presidency.

He occupies the Oval Office now, not for all time.

In just a few years, the people of America will pick another person for the job and Trump will be barred from holding it again. Such is the nature of their Constitution. Trump is temporary, the Presidency, and what it represents to the American people, is forever.

Perhaps British people, including liberals, struggle with this because we have a permanent, non-political institution, embodied in one person, who fulfils our head of state requirements.

For us, the duties of representing the country, its people, and its way of doing things are forever barred from the political arena so it’s hard for us to imagine its politicisation. God Save The King indeed!

But, thanks to a little family squabble beginning in the mid-1770s, our American cousins do have a political appointee as their head of state and he is, at time of writing in our country. We should, as much as many of us find the man himself lacking in decorum, afford the customary and due respect and welcome to the office. Keep calm and, with gritted teeth, if necessary, carry on!

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump and trump state visit | 3 Comments

Time for English members to vote on their representatives

By Callum Robertson and Simon McGrath | Wed 17th September 2025 - 5:35 pm

A week ago, Party members in England received an email that may have left some of them puzzled. It asked if they wished to nominate candidates for an election for the English Party representatives to various Federal Party Committees, such as the Federal Policy Committee and the Conference Committee. The unusual thing is that while they can nominate candidates, they don’t get a vote.

Ten years ago, as the Party confronted a disastrous general election result, the Autumn Conference made a significant change to who could attend our twice-yearly Conferences and how people were elected to the Federal Committees that run the Party. It decided that any member could attend Conference and all members would be entitled to vote in the elections to a number of Federal Committee – One Member, One Vote ( OMOV)

It seems extraordinary now, but that wasn’t how things were always done. Before then, each local party elected representatives to Conference, and only they could vote in Federal elections. At the time of the debate, Mark Pack wrote an article for LDV entitled, “Would you abolish One Member One Vote if it was already in place?”

With the benefit of ten years’ experience of OMOV we can see he was spot on.

Following the decision in 2016, Regional Party Constitutions in England were changed to reflect the principle of OMOV in the way Regional Parties were organised, so that all members could attend their conference and vote for Regional Executives. But that change was not reflected in how English reps to Federal Committees are elected.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged conference countdown and english party | 5 Comments

The Lib Dems have a rare opportunity to make the case for migration

By Ben Rich | Wed 17th September 2025 - 4:00 pm

The Lib Dems have a rare opportunity to make the case for migration

Rarely has there been so much space on the political spectrum for the Lib Dems and so little appetite on their behalf to fill it.

Ok, that maybe a little harsh: Ed Davey’s refusal to attend the banquet with Donald Trump is more than a stunt but by tying it to Gaza alone it has become a tactical weapon with which to outflank Keir Starmer, rather than a wider statement about the threat of authoritarianism and the corruption of democratic norms embodied by the US President. It is the right target and the right action, but the wrong critique.

His call for a cross-party response to Musk’s weekend rant is potentiall more substantial, but the question now is whether this is a space he intends to own or he will revert to type.

In contrast, the Lib Dem leadership has absented itself from the summer’s debate around immigration and small boats. There is a compelling argument to be made that immigration numbers have little to do with small boats. What’s more, the underpinning assumption behind the whole argument – that immigration is bad for Britain – is well worth challenging, but no one will challenge it, other than the far left who, as message-deliverers, merely damage their own cause.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged radix and radix big tent | 3 Comments

Keep calm and carry on urgently re-arming

By Tony Paterson | Wed 17th September 2025 - 1:30 pm

Is our Party facing up better than others to the high cost of the UK re-arming? l have recently seen senior Lib Dems whom I rate highly, saying (in their own words but probably echoing the similar thoughts of many senior Lib Dem colleagues) :-

‘We support the aim, demanded by Donald Trump, of spending 3.5% of our GDP on defence, with an additional 1.5% on ancillary spending – but that is as long as we can have until 2035 to achieve this – and as long as we won’t be required to reduce spending on the NHS or welfare as a result.”

You can see where they’re coming from with this mindset (shared by many Labour MPs), not only because the latter are our two cherished spending priorities but also because everyone knows that whichever Party sticks its head above the parapet first over the cost of re-arming, is likely, except in the long term, to get its head shot off by voters.

This is because (for the same reason) voters haven’t been prepared yet. Living in a nationwide bubble of self-deception is more comfortable, with leaders and led relying on each other’s lack of realism.

The best way round ‘ostrich’ thinking on this supremely important issue is for:

The Lib Dems to say to Keir Starmer, privately : “lf you tell the voters the truth” , “we will then openly back you up and not cheaply and cynically undermine you over your courageous stand.”
Us to urge Labour, in the same confidential communication, to coordinate with EU Governments about ‘coming out’ with their own voters, saying the same thing to them at the same time as we and Labour proclaim it in the UK.

George Cunningham, ex-Army Officer and one of our Party’s most persuasive spokespeople on the threat posed by Putin to Western Europe, is right to have been saying, for some time now that we have to plug whatever gaps in our defence we can by around 2027.

Expecting Putin to give NATO until 2035 is, as recognised by many in Liberal Democrat Friends of Ukraine (LDFoU) and our sister Party `Affiliated Organisation’ (AO) Liberal Democrat Friends of the Armed Forces, a pipedream.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged armed forces, defence and ukraine | 14 Comments

Capital punishment: how can we get national government to love London again?

By Gareth Roberts | Wed 17th September 2025 - 11:55 am

In many ways, London represents a triumph of liberalism.

London is a city where people from all backgrounds come to make their home. A city of dynamism and enterprise, closely intertwined with the global economy. A city of remarkable history and forward-thinking culture. A city thriving as a cosmopolitan melting pot, with strong communities and individuals free to be themselves.

It is for precisely these reasons that certain politicians denigrate the capital, portraying it either as a suspicious, crime-ridden hellhole or an effete hub of snooty, overprivileged elitism. Or sometimes all of these at the same time.

I vehemently disagree with their illiberal views, but at least I can understand why reactionary populists target the capital.

What perplexes me, however, is the government’s attitude.

London is undoubtedly a UK success story. In economic terms alone, the capital accounts for almost a quarter of the UK’s entire economic output. London creates a surplus for the Treasury of upwards of £40 billion – providing much-needed money for housing, education, social care, and other public services across the country. London’s wealth creation is vital to the UK’s prosperity.

But ministers and their officials give every impression that their feelings towards the capital are lukewarm, at best.

In recent years we have seen the explicitly anti-London policies associated with ‘levelling up’, leaving London excluded from various funding streams and opportunities.

Although ‘levelling up’ is no more, the current government still seems to prefer highlighting investment it makes outside the capital, and reluctant to acknowledge both London’s needs and crucial contribution to the UK.

London’s devolution settlement is 25 years old and in need of modernising. Compared to other major cities around the world such as Paris and New York, London’s devolved powers are fairly pitiful. Greater Manchester and the West Midlands have more advanced devolution arrangements than the capital. Why has London been left behind?

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged conference countdown, featured and london | 5 Comments

The first freedom: Autonomy of the Body

By Esther Foulsham | Wed 17th September 2025 - 10:25 am

The First Freedom: Autonomy of the Body

If you cannot respect another person’s right to do with their body as they please, liberalism has no place for you.

Most people who consider themselves liberals will consider a (usually unspoken) list of rights they hold sacred. Freedom of speech is usually the first to come to mind. But what about the others? The right to a fair trial? The right to privacy? The right to own property?

While often rarely cited, we passionately believe bodily autonomy is the right that is foundational to all others, thus we, as liberals, have a duty to defend it. Although we must defend a wide plethora of human rights, including a core commitment to freedom of expression, we must, however, be clear: free speech should never be used as a justification to undermine other fundamental liberal values. This includes, above all else, our right to bodily autonomy and the freedom to define our own identities. But rights don’t exist in isolation; they are always tested in the tension between individual freedom and state control.

To understand the liberal commitment to bodily autonomy, we can contrast it with a more conservative principle: paternalism. Paternalists claim that the State should determine what people can and cannot do with their bodies. This is most glaring in the United States, where attacks on abortion rights are justified under the guise of ‘protecting the rights of the unborn’, and gender-affirming care for minors is (being increasingly restricted) in state legislatures across the country, reflecting an increasing desire of the State to exert control and insist that kids and their parents do not know best.

In the UK, paternalism takes subtler forms—often cloaked in the rhetoric of so-called “gender critical” activism, found across all political parties, including our own. It also manifests in outdated legal structures: for example, many are unaware that under current UK law, even with the decriminalisation of abortion, a pregnant woman must still obtain the approval of two doctors in order to access a safe and sanitary abortion. This is control wearing a convenient freedom-shaped disguise.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged LGBT, Trans Rights and transgender | 4 Comments

Reclaiming our flags

By Matt McLaren | Tue 16th September 2025 - 7:30 pm

I am a patriot of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and a proud Englishman.

Nevertheless, in one way or another, for pretty much my entire life I have been seeking – mostly through electoral politics – to improve our shared country, as well as the wider world.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged flags and union jack | 8 Comments

National debt: The (very expensive) elephant in the room

By Callum Robertson | Tue 16th September 2025 - 6:35 pm

Depending on your preference for maritime references or classical musings, the national debt is weighing our economy down like an anchor and hanging precariously above the head of our GDP like the sword of Damocles, ready and waiting to kill stone dead the already sluggish growth that is crippling the economy.

None of this is news to the politicians who look at the budget and to the economists and think tankers for whom it is prescient within their work. However, for one particular groupof people it sails past, untroubled to enter their psyche. That is of course, our political class.

Posted in Conference | Tagged national debt | 19 Comments

The elephant not in the room at conference

By Colin Bloodworth | Tue 16th September 2025 - 5:28 pm

The Lib Dems have the talent, knowledge, and electoral experience to win even bigger at the next General Election (GE) – even to help govern the country – thanks once again to the incompetence of another incumbent party in power.

What could prevent us from succeeding? In a nutshell, the Reform party, whose leader is using Donald Trump’s copybook to whip up emotions. Of course, the next GE should be a long way away and Farage’s popularity

…

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged immigration | 17 Comments

Labour and the British National (Overseas) visa policy: Why is it causing concerns among Hongkongers?

By Larry Ngan | Tue 16th September 2025 - 12:06 pm

There’s no doubt that Labour are concerned about the rise of Reform UK and their drum beat on immigration. Yet, PM Starmer’s immigration white paper and his speech in July has caused a ripple effect on the Hong Kong (HK) community in the UK.

One key area in Labour’s new immigration rules was about extending the path to settlement to ten years. This could potentially affect Hong Kongers’ resettlement in the UK under the British National (Overseas) BN(O) 5+1 route. Furthermore, additional and language requirements may affect the promise that all BN(O) passport holders have the opportunity to safely bring their HK families to the UK.

When being asked whether the BN(O) scheme would be affected, Labour Ministers appeared to be non-committal. Meanwhile, Liberal Democrats MPs are continuously highlighting the need for clarification, such as Pippa Heylings MP’s question on the 7^th August 2025, which emphasised that it will be unfair to change the length of settlement mid-journey for a community who have close historic ties and a unique commitment.

Posted in Conference | Tagged hong kong | Leave a comment

The conference app goes live

By Paul Walter | Tue 16th September 2025 - 10:34 am

The Bournemouth 2025 conference app has now gone live.

A tip: firstly make sure you delete the spring conference app in your phone, if it is there. Then go into your friendly App Store where you will need to search for “Lib Dem conference” and click on the spring conference icon which comes up. Yes I know.

The app is brilliant this year, with all the documents in one place. You can use the timetable to add hall debates, fringe meetings and training sessions to “My schedule”. You can also add your own …

Posted in News | 1 Comment

What is the Lib Dem vision for growth?

By Steve Wotton | Tue 16th September 2025 - 9:04 am

Before writing this article I searched Lib Dem Voice for articles on the economy, economic growth and the hot topic of “abundance”. I was surprised how little the economy seems to be discussed or written about, at least as the main topic of an article. This contrasts with the uncomfortable reality that the UK is in a terrible economic position.

UK real wage growth has been flat for getting on for nearly 2 decades. This is not news to anyone. It has had plenty of focus in the media, and from economic think tanks on the right and left. This is a direct reflection of stagnating real GDP per capita and, in turn, means that tax revenues are not growing at a rate able to keep up with the demands of our aging population. Hence Rachel Reeves finds herself in a horrific fiscal position.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged economic growth and rachel reeves | 22 Comments

Mathew on Monday: Free speech… and its limits!

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 15th September 2025 - 4:30 pm

On Saturday I was live on the ‘Debate Desk’ segment on Peter Cardwell’s programme on Talk. One of the issues we discussed was free speech and what its limits should be, indeed if it should have limits.

I’m not a free speech absolutist. Whilst being able to express ourselves freely and enjoy robust debate (as I do on the national broadcast airwaves most weeks) we all, and quite rightly, have limits on our speech. There are laws, for one thing, and beyond that there are cultural norms which, you hope, most people abide by not because they have to but because they want to. Because they respect minority groups, for example, and would never want to do anything to cause offence.

Sadly, however, it would seem that a sizeable minority are happy to not only cause offence but say things quite openly which are likely actionable by law. For example I saw a video on social media from the truly dreadful ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally in London at the weekend in which one ‘protester’ said, quite freely, openly, and apparently proudly, that Prime Minister Keir Starmer should be ‘assassinated.’

Words cannot express how truly vile that is, especially coming at the end of a week in which we saw a political assassination in the brutal killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk when he was debating students on a university campus in America. A wife denied her husband, two young children denied their father.

However much you may disagree with someone (and some of what Kirk advocated was beyond awful) the answer is to take him on in debate not to engage in political violence which is always, always, unacceptable. We, as Liberals, must guard the ability to express yourself robustly but also defend the all important guardrails of speech and cultural niceties.

I despair the views of an increasingly sizeable fringe but I cling on to the hope (perhaps naively) that most people are good, decent, and liberal.

Are Reform UK just New Tories?

As I write these words on Monday lunchtime leading the radio news headlines is the defection to Reform UK of Tory Shadow Minister Danny Kruger. In his speech, sat alongside Nigel Farage grinning like a Cheshire Cat, Kruger says the Conservative Party ‘is over.’

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged assisted dying, constitutional reform, freedom of expression and reform uk | 13 Comments

William Wallace writes: The leader of the illiberal world is visiting Britain

By Lord William Wallace | Mon 15th September 2025 - 11:55 am

Trump’s state visit will throw a harsh light on the links between the American and British right. Proponents of Brexit sought to protect our sovereignty against continental Europeans, but have always been ready to follow the United States. Daniel Hannan’s book, ‘How We Invented Freedom and Why it Matters’ (2013) proclaimed the supremacy of the English-speaking peoples and the inferiority of others. Nigel Farage is almost as often in Washington as in Westminster. Those around Trump see Britain as a country that ought to be like their America, and that they plan to recapture for their version of freedom.

Much of the right-wing press and its comment contributors are far more familiar with Washington think tanks and American conferences than with political currents in any part of Europe. Climate change denialism, opposition to diversity programmes, dismissal of liberalism in all its aspects, blind faith in lower taxes and fewer public services, all flow across the Atlantic from West to East. Finance also flows, into the right-wing think-tanks of Tufton Street and other anti-liberal bodies. Charlie Kirk (sadly now shot in Utah) founded Turning Point UK in 2018 to extend his well-funded campaign to recapture American universities from the ‘liberal elite’ to British campuses. British politicians and conservative intellectuals are invited to National Conservative conferences; American anti-abortionists train British activists. Paul Marshall’s ‘Alliance for Responsible Citizenship’ brings together likeminded anti-liberals from across the English-speaking world, with prominent Republicans and hard-right Americans among its speakers. J. D. Vance’s visit to the Cotswolds this summer, where he met with several of Britain’s leading right-wing figures, showed that the American new right see Britain as part of their natural territory.

An extraordinary Op-ed in the Times on September 8th, by a British journalist – Dominic Green – who writes for the Spectator as well as the Wall Street Journal, set out the US Right’s approach to their ‘special relationship’ with Britain. ‘The frontier of the American empire is hardening as an economic, military and digital frontier. America expects Britain to do its duty and remain inside it.’ He reports ‘the view, now unanimous on the American right, that Britain is an accelerated case study in the willed decline of the West. … ‘The Americans cannot afford to lose Britain. That means they must pressure Britain into line, not just with Trump’s open disapproval at a press conference but by withholding intelligence or slow-walking economic preference.’

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, international, liberal democracy and trump state visit | 6 Comments

How to fight the far right

By Rob Blackie | Mon 15th September 2025 - 8:58 am

The last few weeks have been a worrying time. Friends of mine have told me that, because they aren’t white, they are worried about visiting parts of our country. Robert Jenrick and other politicians have implied you are only properly British if you are white. Last weekend we saw shocking violence on London’s streets from far right racist thugs. It’s like an horrific throwback to the 80s – a ‘This is England’ nightmare.

Most worryingly, our Prime Minister failed to condemn these threats.

In this climate we Liberal Democrats must call out racism, and say, at …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged far right and immigration policy | 21 Comments

13-14 September 2025 – the weekend’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Sun 14th September 2025 - 10:30 pm

Government proposals for carer’s allowance compensation would be “victory” for carers and campaigners
Mandelson appointment: Lib Dems call for independent investigation with access to documents and messages
Farage must come clean on who’s bankrolling his US trips to “badmouth Britain”
Greene: Scotland is lagging behind in research and development investment
Greene urges all parties to support key victims’ proposals ahead of final vote

Government proposals for carer’s allowance compensation would be “victory” for carers and campaigners

Responding to reports that the Government is considering compensation payments to those caught up in the carer’s allowance scandal, Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat Leader, said:

I really hope the government will give the victims of this appalling scandal the compensation they deserve. It would be a milestone for carers across the country, and a victory for all those who have campaigned tirelessly for justice.

The government has a chance here not just to compensate the victims, but to overhaul carer’s allowance so it properly supports carers and doesn’t punish them for working. We will keep pushing ministers to seize that chance.

Mandelson appointment: Lib Dems call for independent investigation with access to documents and messages

The Liberal Democrats are calling for an independent inquiry into what was known about ex-US Ambassador Peter Mandelson’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein at the time of his appointment, saying that victims must be “put first.”

The party’s Cabinet Office Spokesperson Sarah Olney MP said an independent investigation is needed to uncover what was known, when and by whom regarding Mandelson’s connections to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The Liberal Democrats are also calling for relevant text messages, WhatsApps and emails to be handed to the inquiry for proper independent scrutiny of how the appointment was made.

It comes as Peter Kyle, the Business Secretary, claimed in an interview with Laura Kuennsberg this morning that “if we had known the information we know now, it is highly unlikely that would have been appointed”, calling the new information “materially different” from the content reviewed during vetting.

Sarah Olney, Cabinet Office Spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, said:

The Government has serious questions to answer about what they knew when. The current explanations just don’t add up.

Number Ten must put the victims of Jeffrey Epstein first, not their own reputation. We need an urgent, independent inquiry into how details of Mandelson’s ties with a convicted paedophile slipped through the cracks of Government vetting.

This inquiry must be given access to all the relevant messages, texts and documents so it can get to the bottom of this appalling mess.

Posted in News, Press releases and Scotland | Tagged carers allowance, daisy cooper, ed davey, jamie greene, Lord Mandleson, nigel farage, research and development, sarah olney, scottish economy and victims of crime | Leave a comment

Caron’s catch-up – a worrying week

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 14th September 2025 - 7:27 pm

There has been much this week to worry us. Israel continues to shock and horrify, not just in Gaza, worrying escalations of the Ukraine conflict in Ukraine itself and Poland make that whole situation more dangerous and yet more political murder in the US.

Yet we’re all talking about Peter Mandelson and whether the beleaguered Prime Minister can survive. If you’re not a political nerd, it all sounds as chaotic as, say, a Boris Johnson administration.

Obviously Mandelson should never have had that job in the first place and only found himself in the running because the Government thinks sucking up to Donald Trump is the only way to limit the damage he inflicts, particularly in terms of trade. It should concentrate on building ties with European neighbours stop debasing itself and quietly stand firm against his excesses. I doubt that rolling out the red carpet for someone as erratic as Trump will help us beyond the end of his State visit.

If he had left the previous ambassador in post, Keir Starmer would most likely not have so many people in his own party questioning his position to the press. Next year’s local elections are now being openly spoken about as a deadline for improvement.

He also now has a Deputy Leader election to worry about. Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell are unlikely to give us the drama of the 1981 Benn/Healey contest but it will give those in the party who are dissatisfied with him to send him a message.

I hope that as a party we are properly thinking about where we might realistically make gains from Labour in those critical local and national elections in May. We need to make sure we have both our feet on the ground when assessing these things but we will be in a position for the first time in 15 years to challenge them in some places and we need to take full advantage of it.

Charlie Kirk

Every right minded person will have been horrified by Kirk’s murder this week and all our hearts go out to his wife and tiny children. Yes his views were terrible, yes he stoked fear and division but nobody deserves to die for expressing their views.

Yet the President does not condemn all such incidents equally. Where is the posthumous Medal of Freedom for murdered Minnesota Speaker Melissa Hortman? Flags were not flown at half mast when she and her husband were killed in June.

If any MP from any party had had a family member attacked in this country, I can’t imagine Keir Starmer being anything other than sympathetic and supportive. In the US, Donald Trump mocked Nancy Pelosi months after her husband Paul was brutally attacked in their own home.

What was needed was a call for calm, for respect, for people to express their differences robustly and peacefully. For the country’s leader to behave like a grown-up. No such luck. Trump tried to pin the blame on the left and stoked rather than tried to end the division.

It’s what he does and what he will continue to do while he uses the tools of the state to repress and intimidate.

All political activists will feel a bit more anxious now that political violence or the threat of it seems to be on the rise, particularly on the US but if those of us who want a fair, free and open society stop doing what we are doing, everything gets worse.

100,000 racists in London

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged charlie kirk, peter mandelson and tommy robinson march | 2 Comments

New Lib Dem Candidate for Mayor of Sussex: ‘We will win with unity, not division’

By NewsHound | Sun 14th September 2025 - 2:07 pm

Sussex Liberal Democrats have nominated environmental expert Ben Dempsey as their candidate for the upcoming election for Mayor of Sussex. The party says that with the Conservatives and Labour in free-fall, they are the only party that can beat Reform by standing up for unity over division.

The latest YouGov MRP poll shows Reform leading in Sussex at 24.4%, with the Liberal Democrats close behind at 22.8%. The Conservatives (19.7%), Labour (17.1%), and the Green Party (14.2%) trail behind. The Liberal Democrats have five Sussex MPs and lead several district councils in both West and East Sussex.

Ben Dempsey, 46, grew up …

Posted in Selection news | Tagged ben dempsey and sussex mayoralty | 1 Comment

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 14th September 2025 - 10:41 am

United States

A prerequisite of a successful foreign policy is a stable domestic base.

And in today’s interconnected world, a successful foreign policy has a positive impact on home affairs.

At the moment Donald Trump is in big trouble on the home front. This in turn is having an impact on America’s ability to influence world affairs.

To start with there is the Epstein Files—the paedophile sex scandal which refuses to go away.

But even more troubling is this week’s economic news. The Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that new job creations were a mere 22,000 in August—a third less than anticipated. On top of that, …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, peter mandelson, qatar, ukraine and united states | 5 Comments

Vince Cable writes: Boycotting Trump

By Vince Cable | Sun 14th September 2025 - 8:50 am

Whoever advises Ed Davey gets full marks for suggesting the boycott of next week’s Trump banquet at the Palace. And congratulations to Ed for taking up the right issue in the right way at the right time.

A boycott signals clearly that Lib Dems reject the Labour government’s obsequious, subservient cultivation of Trump. And to focus on Trump’s active complicity in the horrors of Gaza touches the moral core of British public opinion.

I set something of a precedent by boycotting the state dinner for the King of Saudi Arabia when I was Acting Leader. There was some tut-tutting from party grandees as well as the anti-Lib Dem press (ie. most of it). I was accused of disrespecting the Royal Family.

But we should argue that the use of royalty to massage the vanity of appalling guests – from Mobutu and Ceausescu to Trump – is, itself, disrespectful to the head of state. I never experienced any subsequent rebuke from the Palace for my boycott and I very much doubt if Ed’s dealings with the King will be affected.

The focus on Gaza is timely and correct. But there is a wider issue: the way in which the government has turned the UK into a supplicant, vassal state of Trump’s America. The implications go beyond the indignity of bowing and scraping to Trump. Of course, the USA has been our close ally since wartime and is the centrepiece of NATO. Continued US support is currently needed to help support Ukraine in its existential struggle. But clinging to hope and sentiment isn’t a strategy.

The Trump presidency should surely be wake-up call to Britain and other European countries. If the ‘Special Relationship’ amounts to no more than the American President’s susceptibility to flattery, a love of royal photo-opportunities and a liking for Scottish links golf courses, it is worthless. It could evaporate as quickly as Peter Mandelson’s role as Trump ‘whisperer’ and courtier-in-chief. Any defence guarantee to Ukraine or the rest of Europe is unreliable and is discounted in the Kremlin accordingly. Trade agreements are even more precarious.

The choice facing the UK and other Western allies is stark. One is to ‘hang in there’ in the hope that Trump will continue to smile in our direction, will mellow and be succeeded by someone less capricious, avaricious and opportunist. That appears to be UK government policy. Sadly, there is little sign of mellowing or of a more tractable successor. The recent humiliation meted out to the Japanese in their negotiation over trade is a warning that even the most craven of supplicants will be trodden underfoot if it suits Trump’s mood.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, ed davey, europe, featured, trade, trump state visit and usa | 12 Comments

Hina Bokhari challenges London Mayor’s decision to stop funding Southall Black Sisters

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 13th September 2025 - 11:55 am

This week Lib Dem AM Hina Bokhari has challenged Sadiq Khan’s inexplicable decision to cut funding for Southall Black Sisters. For nearly half a century, this organisation has been helping marginalised women, including those who are subject to the cruel “no access to public funds’ restrictions, flee gender based violence.

They Mayor has changed the funding model so that this vital organisation has had to struggle to find funding for the second half of the financial year and faces future problems.

The group protested the cut to their funding at City Hall on Thursday and Hina was there to support them.

Today Southall Black Sisters battled the tube strike to be there at City Hall when I asked the Mayor why their funding had been cut – putting the survival of their vital service in danger. Sadly, it was an incredibly disappointing response from Labour & Sadiq Khan. Here’s why⬇️

— Hina Bokhari OBE AM (@hinabokharild.bsky.social) September 11, 2025 at 5:41 PM

She has a petition on the London Lib Dems website where you can find out more about the background to this.