Patrolling the new frontier: Regulating online extremism

By Ivor Roberts and Ian Acheson | Wed 11th September 2019 - 5:02 pm

A month after the horrific attack in Christchurch, which was live-streamed on Facebook, New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern said: “It’s critical that technology platforms like Facebook are not perverted as a tool for terrorism, and instead become part of a global solution to countering extremism.”

We wholeheartedly agree. Neo-Nazi and other far-right material, alongside Islamist and far-left content, spread swiftly on Facebook, with a potential to reach thousands in a matter of hours. Facebook is not alone; Social media platforms have been used by extremists to radicalise and inspire acts of terrorism across the world. Exposure to online extremism is not the sole cause of radicalisation, but in combination with other risk factors, it can weaponise a latent disposition towards terrorist violence.

Preventing online extremism has become a priority for policy-makers in Europe. In the U.K., the Home Office and DCMS have proposed to regulate internet platforms in the Online Harms White Paper, which considers a wide range of harms, including extremism and terrorism.

We offer several recommendations. First, a clear definition of extremist content can prevent uncertainty and over-blocking, and help ensure content is judged consistently by human moderators. Once human moderators have determined something is extremist content, platforms should use hashing technology to screen out known extremist content at the point of upload. One example of such technology is the Counter Extremism Project’s eGlyph – a tool developed by Hany Farid, a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley and member of the Counter Extremism Project’s advisory board.

eGlyph is based on ‘robust hashing’ technology, capable of swiftly comparing uploaded content to a database of known extremist images, videos, and audio files, thereby disrupting the spread of such content. We have made this ground-breaking technology available at no cost to organisations wishing to combat online violent extremism.

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Kirsten Johnson

Teachers’ voting intention switching to Lib Dems

By Kirsten Johnson | Wed 11th September 2019 - 3:15 pm

Check out this link to a recent survey of teachers. When asked how they would vote if a general election were held now, 30% of those surveyed said Lib Dem!

This is remarkable, as 60% in a previous survey said they voted Labour in the 2017 election. The move towards Lib Dems shows we are getting our education policy right – calling for increased funding and reversing school cuts; increased teachers’ pay and allowing teachers to teach rather than being put under unnecessary pressure from inspections; and supporting SEND pupils with increased provision.

You can read more of the Liberal Democrats plan for education here, Demand Better for our Schools.

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Lewis North

Why calling for Article 50 to be revoked actually makes stopping Brexit less likely

By Lewis North | Wed 11th September 2019 - 1:30 pm

I want to make the case that Jo Swinson MP’s proposed policy of revoking Article 50 if the Lib Dems win a majority government actually makes stopping Brexit less likely.

Calling for a final say referendum on any Brexit deal has been our defining policy for over three years and has brought this party back to life and back to electoral popularity. The reason a final say referendum has grown in popularity (with the public and in Parliament) is not especially because the arguments for voting Remain have become more persuasive than the arguments for voting Leave, but because it is seen as a sensible way of unblocking the Brexit process. If we change our policy and start calling for revoking Article 50, we risk narrowing our tent and losing people who are beginning to see the logic in having a second plebiscite on this issue.

On Tuesday Sir Oliver Letwin MP voiced his support for a referendum as a way to break the impasse. I fear we risk losing people like Letwin from this growing people’s vote coalition with this policy change. It makes us seem like the Brexit Party of Remain in that we will be perceived as Remain at any cost rather than willing to put our case to the public again in a referendum. In my opinion, the Brexit Party has made Brexit less likely as they have popularised the act of Brexit into an extreme ‘clean break’ scenario which has become untenable for a majority of MPs. If we pursue revoking I fear we will do the same to Remain.

I understand the attraction of going for revoke, we can better distinguish ourselves from Labour and clarify that we want to stop Brexit even further. This may have worked well in a European Parliament election with proportional representation, but in a General Election we need much broader coalitions. With our current policy we can say to even Leavers tired of Brexit that a referendum will end the Brexit mess for good.

So those of you going to Conference on Sunday please consider this policy carefully. We are the most pro-European party in the country, but we are also democrats and our policy of a people’s vote to stop Brexit is a product that people have just voted emphatically for in the European elections. Let’s not make our message Remain at any cost, but end the Brexit mess so we can move on and fix the real problems in our country.

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Katherine Rose and Rob Harrison

Brexit Impact for UK Citizens living in the EU outside the UK

By Katherine Rose and Rob Harrison | Wed 11th September 2019 - 12:00 pm

“This is the fourth of a five-part series of pieces highlighting the issues of concern to Liberal Democrat members beyond our shores. For the first in the series, click here…”

The 2016 Referendum result has plunged the lives of the 1.2 million British citizens resident outside the UK in the EU into a maelstrom of loss and uncertainty. It is important to remember that about 600 000 of them are disenfranchised by the 15-year rule for overseas voting and thus many of the individuals most heavily and directly impacted by Brexit are those with no democratic voice in the process of the removal of their EU Citizen’s Rights.

As Prime Minister Johnson continues to wield the threat of a No-Deal Brexit to extract concessions from the EU and plays fast and loose with the rights of our EU citizen friends and relatives resident in the UK, he is entirely dependent on the goodwill of the other 27 EU Member States towards our Citizens, resident within their borders. For while it is in this British Government’s power to grant rights to EU citizens resident in the UK, British citizens must rely on the generosity of the EU Member States to maintain at least some of the rights that they depend on to conduct their lives.

There are a myriad of reasons why British citizens took the opportunities afforded to them by their EU Citizens rights and moved to live in other EU countries and the scenarios in which they now find themselves are no less diverse. There are those who depend on their Freedom of Movement in order to work across multiple countries, particularly those who are involved in the service sector, who will find themselves heavily impacted by the increased barriers to trade after Brexit.  Then, there are retirees, with pensions that have already seen their value fall by about 25% due to the Pound’s downward course since 2016 and now face the loss of their S1 reciprocal healthcare provision and the removal of pension uprating in 3 years time. So, while the British Embassy Outreach events seek to assure us that nothing much will change in our daily lives, it is actually hard to gloss over the fundamental erosion of rights and opportunities that is occurring.

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Patrick Maxwell

Revoking Article 50 is a highly risky strategy

By Patrick Maxwell | Wed 11th September 2019 - 10:15 am

Death is in charge of the clattering train!

(Edwin James Milliken)

The now seemingly inevitable general election that we are doomed to endure will without a doubt be one of the most divisive and decisive in British political history. Boris Johnson’s strategy is to divide the Remain vote and set himself as the people’s champion – no matter how irrational that theory is. Labour, who plan to try a rerun of their 2017 campaign and put Jeremy Corbyn forwards as a radical, reforming leader, and polling miserably for an opposition to a disastrous government. Dominic Cummings is intent on capturing northern working-class seats who want a no-deal Brexit, as he successfully did for the Leave campaign in 2016.

Both main parties will have to offer manifestos that capture the public imagination and offer clear paths forward. They will have unfunded spending sprees, promises of immigration caps, and patriotic tirades. No change there, then. The sceptre of Brexit does, however, add an extra dimension – the polarisation that has divided the country will shape any public vote.

For the Lib Dems to succeed, they need to offer a new message disenfranchised voters, beyond the boundaries of the Remain-Leave divide.

Jo Swinson’s announcement that the party will be arguing in their manifesto for an unequivocal reversal of the referendum result must be treated with caution therefore. Many voters on both sides of a traditional Liberal base – Tory voters despairing at the economic crisis of a no-deal and Labour voters outraged at Corbyn – are not natural Leave voters. Neither are they going to be brought over, I suspect, by the option of revoking Brexit without a public vote. Voters who want to revoke Article 50 would pick the Lib Dems as the main pro-European voice in Parliament as it is. This latest move brings little support and many even detract from it.

Brexit has divided many, but beyond the date Britain leaves the argument for revoking will become less. The argument for another referendum will become more credible, as the consequences of the exit become clearer, and the powerful Remain voice is no longer the establishment.

The recent surge in Lib Dem support and new recruits in parliament show that a new, radical liberal movement has palpable support nationally. This requires new policies that can bring swing voters over and ensure that the party does not continue to fall foul of the first-part-the-post method that shows no sign of being reformed.

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Kirsten Johnson

Government watchdog confirms the huge scale of the SEND funding crisis

By Kirsten Johnson | Wed 11th September 2019 - 8:49 am

The National Audit Office has today published their investigation into special educational needs support. Entitled “Support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities in England“, it has revealed that more than four in five local authorities are overspending their high needs budget.

A couple of months ago I sent a survey to all headteachers in my constituency asking how education cuts affected their pupils. All the surveys returned highlighted cutbacks in SEND provision as being a huge area of concern.

1.3 million pupils in England are identified as having special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Over a million (79%) do not have Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans.

The NAO report looked at how well pupils with SEND were supported, examining

  • the system for supporting pupils with SEND (Part I);
  • funding, spending and financial sustainability (Part II);
  • the quality of support and experiences of pupils and parents (Part III).

The report is a long read – 60 pages – but includes detailed analysis and charts to outline the current dire state of affairs. The conclusions reached are:

How well pupils with SEND are supported affects their well-being, educational attainment and long-term life prospects….The system for supporting pupils with SEND is not, on current trends, financially sustainable. Many local authorities are failing to live within their high-needs budgets and meet the demand for support. Pressures – such as incentives for mainstream schools to be less inclusive, increased demand for special school places, growing use of independent schools and reductions in per-pupil funding – are making the system less, rather than more, sustainable. The Department needs to act urgently to secure the improvements in quality and sustainability that are needed to achieve value for money.

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Caron Lindsay

Remembering Paddy

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 10th September 2019 - 10:42 pm

I still can’t get my head round Paddy being gone, even nine months on.

I am so glad I was in the room at Glee Club to see him tell the Joke in Brighton last September.

Paddy influenced a huge part of my development as a Liberal Democrat. I’ve been inspired by him, I’ve fought with him (yes, I dared answer back), I’ve admired the way he dragged us from an asterisk to a sizeable political force and then tried to do it all again. While I may have disagreed with him on a fair few occasions, I sought his counsel on many more.

I will never forget how, within seconds of me doing the Today programme at the nadir of our time in coalition, the aftermath of the 2014 Euro elections, I had an email from him praising me on my performance.

Every so often, he’d ring me up and tell me off or offer me some useful ideas. He was always worth listening to. I mean, he’d built a party from nothing and he’d put together a country in the aftermath of war. How could you not?

I was gutted that I couldn’t be at his memorial service at Westminster Abbey today. An impressive location for a giant.

As a party we fought the Major Government with a passion, but we knew that there was a respect between Major and Ashdown. It made me howl when I heard John Major’s tribute to Paddy today. While I opposed the Tories with my heart, Major reminds me too much of my Dad to ever dislike him. They both look alike and are incredibly kind and decent human beings. And the generosity and eloquence of his tribute to Paddy today cemented his place as one of my favourite people in politics.

Here are just some of the tweets from the service:

From our leader to one of our newest MPs

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Nick da Costa

Countdown to Conference: Amendments selected for debate

By Nick da Costa | Tue 10th September 2019 - 8:12 pm

With Autumn Conference just days away, the Federal Conference Committee met on Saturday for the selection of amendments, Emergency and Europ motions. You can see the full text of what we selected here:

As readers might be aware that the Vice Chair of Federal Conference Committee, Zoe O’Connell, and members of the committee, Jennie Rigg and Sarah Brown have sadly resigned from the Party, and thereby the FCC. In the first instance the FCC wants to express its thanks and appreciation for their service to the Committee and to the party. 

An election on the Committee was held for the vacant Vice Chair role, and Cara Jenkinson and Jon Ball have been duly elected as Co-Vice Chairs. Therefore, Cara Jenkinson and Jon Ball join myself as FCC Vice Chairs, with Geoff Payne as Chair. 

Please note that the submission for amendments to the Europe motion is by Thursday, 12 September at 13:00. You can submit your amendments here:

The Federal Conference Committee received 66 proposed amendments, 13 emergency motions, 5 topic debate requests, and 6 Europe motions, all of which were reviewed at the meeting. Unfortunately, as always, time is usually the biggest factor when selecting amendments and we are simply unable to accept all amendments that we receive. 

The list of all amendments, emergency motions, topical motions and Europe motions received is below, and to those less familiar to the terminology; there are two things that can happen to an amendment: selected for debate – this means that the amendment will be debated and voted on, and drafting amendment. These amendments have been accepted by the proposers of the motion and therefore are included in the motion and do not require a vote. 

With regards to the emergency motions; these will be balloted at Conference. As you can see from the list below, we received a large number of emergency motions and some of which are on the same topic. 

The summaries of the amendments below, are not those provided by the submitters, so they only give an overview of what the amendment addresses. 

Finally, don’t forget that you can now submit Speaker’s Cards electronically here. 

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Geoffrey Payne

So what happens after the next general election?

By Geoffrey Payne | Tue 10th September 2019 - 12:45 pm

Even now with just weeks before the next general election it is impossible to know where we will be with Brexit. For the sake of simplicity, I would like to put Brexit to one side for now. The Tories might find a way to implement hard Brexit by the 31st October and before the next General Election, we shall see. Discuss it elsewhere. There are plenty of other considerations we need to think about.

I can see 3 plausible scenarios for the next general election;

  1. The Tories squeeze the Brexit Party vote and get an overall majority, or;
  2. We have a hang Parliament

…

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Rhys Taylor

Championing freedom and liberty for all shouldn’t be comfortable

By Rhys Taylor | Tue 10th September 2019 - 10:45 am

I can’t count the number of people I’ve spoken to who are just as committed to equality as the next person, but maintain that pushing for further normalisation, rights, and freedoms for marginalised groups would be “rocking the boat”. That, essentially, we should be content with our lot.

This fatalism, that we should accept any level of discrimination or othering as inevitable, is fatal to any effort to extend further rights and freedoms to all marginalised groups and to defend the rights we have already won.

As liberals we champion freedom, equality and liberty of every individual, whoever they are. We reject …

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Mark Valladares

10 September 2019 – the overnight press release

By Mark Valladares | Tue 10th September 2019 - 9:32 am

Parliament shutdown will not silence Lib Dem campaign to stop Brexit

Responding to Boris Johnson shutting down parliament, Liberal Democrat Leader Jo Swinson said:

The Liberal Democrats, along with other opposition parties, voted against the Prime Minister’s election this evening. We will not allow him to use an election to sneak through a dangerous No Deal Brexit, for which he has no mandate.

We relish the chance to take on Boris Johnson in an election, but only once Article 50 has been extended. And thanks to cross-party legislation, the Prime Minister must request an extension to Article 50 rather than crash us

…

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Mark Valladares

9 September 2019 – today’s press release

By Mark Valladares | Tue 10th September 2019 - 12:13 am

Lib Dem Lords Leader boycotts Parliament shutdown

Today, Lib Dem Leader in the Lords, Dick Newby, and the Labour Lords Leader, Angela Smith, have refused to participate in the Royal Commission that will prorogue Parliament.

In addition to this, Liberal Democrat peers will boycott the House during the ceremony which shuts down Parliament.

Speaking ahead of the shutdown, Liberal Democrat Leader in the Lords, Dick Newby, said:

The attempt to shut down Parliament by Boris Johnson is authoritarian and anti-democratic. The fact that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom wants to silence the people and their representatives shows that Boris Johnson will pursue

…

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Paul Walter

An unusual piece of street furniture seen in Sheffield

By Paul Walter | Mon 9th September 2019 - 4:08 pm


Like most of us, I have spent an inordinate amount of time wandering around the streets of England and Wales. But last week in Sheffield was the first time I have seen one of these.

It is really remarkable.

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Paul Walter

In case you missed it… How the Welsh did for Margaret Thatcher

By Paul Walter | Mon 9th September 2019 - 11:55 am

Embed from Getty Images

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The Liberator Collective

New issue of Liberator out

By The Liberator Collective | Mon 9th September 2019 - 10:25 am

New Issue of Liberator Out

Issue 397 of Liberator will soon be on its way to subscribers and the free sample articles for this issue are former Tory MP – now a Lib Dem – Harold Elletson on why Boris Johnson has no ‘bottom’, and Roger Hayes on how the Lib Dems can start to rebuild a broken Britain.

See: www.liberatormagazine.org.uk 

Liberator will be on sale at our stall in Bournemouth along with the new songbook – come and see us.

Also in this issue:

ANOTHER ALLIANCE? – Should there be a Remain Alliance involving Liberal Democrats at any imminent general election? Liberator canvassed some views, this is what we got

IS IT OUR FAULT? – Pro-European politicians have been too scared to make a robust case for the EU, and that includes the Liberal Democrats says David Grace

THE LEADER OF THE PACK – Jonathan Calder looks at the Social Liberal Forum’s new book on liberal ideas Wolves in the Forest

JUST THIS ONCE – The enormity of Brexit demands that Remain parties stand aside for each other, says Naomi Smith

THOUGHT SLAVERY WAS ABOLISHED? – Modern slavery is rife despite legislation, with UK nationals often the victims, says Isabelle Parasram

BRAZIL: BACK TO DARKNESS – A supported of torture, military dictatorship and white supremacy rules a potential economic giant and makes Donald Trump look like a liberal. Jonathan Fryer reports

THIS MAY NOT LAST LONG – Liberal Democrat MEPs have no idea how long they will serve in Brussels, but are making the most of their opportunities, says Jane Brophy

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Mark Valladares

7-8 September 2019 – the weekend’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Sun 8th September 2019 - 11:00 pm

Swinson: Rudd resignation another blow to Boris Johnson

Responding to the news that Amber Rudd has quit both the cabinet and the Conservative Party, Liberal Democrat Leader Jo Swinson said:

Amber Rudd’s resignation is yet another blow to Boris Johnson and his reckless plans to crash the country out of Europe without a deal. His disregard for the country’s interest and those who are meant to be his colleagues is symbolic of how broken our politics has become.

As this Government continues to decay, the need and urgency to stop Brexit cannot be clearer – we need a people’s vote with the option

…

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NewsHound

LibLink: Willie Rennie We can change the course of the UK with Jo Swinson

By NewsHound | Sun 8th September 2019 - 1:45 pm

Willie Rennie writes for the Herald, saying that the Liberal Democrats can win big in the coming election because we have the solutions to the current chaos.

He explains why we have to wait a few weeks to have that election:

So we want an election before the end of the year but I’m afraid we can’t trust the Prime Minister to abide by the law of the land and request an extension to negotiations with Europe. So we need to hold his feet to the fire until he does and until we have seen an end to the no deal aspirations of this reckless Prime Minister. That means waiting until November before we choose a new Parliament.

Jo offers fresh leadership at a time of crisis and we can stop Brexit.

It’s not necessary or desirable to break up the UK in response to the possible break from the European Union because we have another way. We can stop Brexit together across the UK.

I draw hope from millions who marched in London to stop Brexit or the six million who signed up to revoke Article 50, or the hundreds of thousands of people who backed the Liberal Democrats in the European Elections.

And we are absolutely going for it:

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Ian Wicks

Closing the Citizenship gaps

By Ian Wicks | Sun 8th September 2019 - 12:15 pm

Britons everywhere should share the same rights.

The government treats British citizens differently depending on where they live. It does so for convenience and cost management and that isn’t fair.

For example, most of our working lives we contribute to the state pension via National Insurance. If you live in the UK when you retire or one of the 48 countries that currently have an agreement in place you’ll receive your state pension in full along with an annual uplift to help it keep pace with inflation. If you live in one of the other countries during retirement – including Australia, New …

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Lorenzo Cherin

Why Luciana Berger joining the Liberal Democrats is important

By Lorenzo Cherin | Sun 8th September 2019 - 10:40 am

As someone who has been both involved in campaigns against the growing, vile, antisemitism, and for the engaging with the Independent Group members of parliament, the decision of Luciana Berger, to become a Liberal Democrat gives real delight and is a pivotal defection, and, indeed,  a poignant one. This warm, eloquent, dynamic woman, is a courageous and feisty opponent of the prejudice and abuse she and others experience, and in support of a better more caring society and politics. She is a voice for mental health and a dedicated mp. She has been the target of far left Labour baiting.

For researching articles I have written for the Ustinov Prejudice Awareness Forum,  at which I am a member and writer, I have been made aware of the extent of frequent taunting, inappropriate insinuation, direct insults, ongoing trolling, many who are Jewish, experience. This particularly complex and insidious prejudiced attitude, is a racism that has developed more, not less, in our country, in Europe, and even in the US. In the UK, it is statistically, thankfully, less. We are a more liberal and tolerant country, but victims of racism do not want to be tolerated.

The extent of her opposition to Brexit, as with Liberal Democrats , is obviously based in part, on her, and our belief, that only by greater unity, more harmony, real involvement, in each other’s societies, do we, as Europeans, counter the emerging narratives of populism and nationalism, that we witness, but must not  and, as Liberals, do not ignore. Racism is a consequence of extremism, ever since modern societies emerged, and at periods in history before such things were fully realised, these two have been bed fellows.

The resilience, determination, creativity, humour, of Jewish communities, and individuals from within them, over hundreds of years, has been and is, inspiring and inspired. These fellow citizens of this and any country, are amongst the most longstanding, to have emerged from immigration. It is no coincidence that Emma Lazarus, the remarkable young woman, lost to this world so young, was Jewish. She  was the writer of the great poem, that is on the plinth of the Statue of Liberty. ” Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” This is a rallying cry for liberals, progressives, humanitarians worldwide. It is now denigrated from the right. Even in the US.

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Ruth Bright

Ruth Davidson and the Dinosaurs

By Ruth Bright | Sun 8th September 2019 - 9:10 am

Whereas the thought of being on the road fighting two elections in twenty months would once have fired me up; the threat of spending hundreds of hours away from my home and family now fills me with dread.

So said former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson in her resignation letter last week.

Most campaigners, candidates or MPs will know exactly what she meant when she said those words. Politics can be fun, addictive and all-consuming (especially in these extraordinary times) but we nearly all reach a point when home and hearth tug in a way that canvassing a whole street in the rain certainly does not!

Even 14 years later I am haunted by the words of my toddler daughter when I was a busy parliamentary candidate. Playing with her plastic animals she told her babysitter: “This is Baby dinosaur. This is Daddy dinosaur. But Mummy dinosaur is at a meeting”.

Jo Swinson and Ruth Davidson have been inspiring role models for working mothers. They have both been honest that it isn’t easy. Obviously the pressure on them as party leaders is vastly greater than on us bog standard PPCs. But Davidson and Swinson did at least have two things that pregnant parliamentary candidates do not: 

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Caron Lindsay

+++Breaking…Angela Smith MP joins the Liberal Democrats

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th September 2019 - 9:57 pm

Now we are 17.

Angela Smith, the MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, who joined Change UK from Labour back in February has tonight announced that she had joined us.

https://twitter.com/RosamundUrwin/status/1170436255273967617?s=20

Angela said:

I am delighted to be joining Jo Swinson and the Liberal Democrats. We need a more inclusive, tolerant politics for our country that values diversity. The Liberal Democrats are the strongest party to stop Brexit and build a society that gives opportunities to everyone, tackle the climate crisis and invest in our public services.

We are facing a national crisis and people deserve better than the choice of the old two parties. I am relishing continuing my work with the Liberal Democrats to not only fight against Brexit but to also campaign for the constitutional reform needed to mend our broken politics.

Jo welcomed her to the party:

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Caron Lindsay

Is Jo trying to tell us something?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th September 2019 - 5:30 pm

She does love her cryptic tweets, does our leader.

Of course, she could just be introducing her boys to one of the best films of all time.

If she is, she could take inspiration from this song which should be our anthem in the weeks leading up to the expected General Election. Certainly, Jo is determined to absolutely go for it, with no limit to our ambitions.

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Neil Stockley

Labour claims credit for the NHS, but Liberals laid the foundations

By Neil Stockley | Sat 7th September 2019 - 11:11 am

One of the enduring myths of British politics is that the Labour Party was uniquely responsible for founding the National Health Service. “It was the Attlee government’s introduction of the National Health Service which will rightly go down as Labour’s greatest achievement,” says the party’s website. “Labour created the NHS,” maintains the party’s shadow health secretary.

But this partisan, somewhat sentimental version of history has been demolished over the years by historians of the welfare state. In 1995, Nicholas Timmins started his magisterial (and recently updated) study, The Five Giants: A Biography of the Welfare State, by highlighting the vital role …

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Caron Lindsay

Jo tackles Boris on sexist insults

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th September 2019 - 9:44 am

Twice this week, Boris Johnson has used sexist insults. In deeply dignified and mature behaviour for a Prime Minister, he called Jeremy Corbyn a “big girl’s blouse” the other day. And now we discover he called David Cameron a “girly swot.”

This is how Jo Swinson responded.

She took the fight for liberal values to him the other day and he was all over the place as a result. Jo is usually very prepared about what she is going to say, but she was clearly furious with his dismissive answer when challenged on his dangerous racism and she handed his backside to him on a plate.

Jo is fired up and ready to go when the inevitable election eventually comes along, after she and others have protected the country from government shenanigans which could force no deal on us.

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Mark Valladares

5-6 September 2019 – two days of press releases

By Mark Valladares | Fri 6th September 2019 - 11:00 pm

Gosh, that’s embarrassing. Yesterday evening, I came home from a meeting of my County Association of Local Councils and felt the urge to both write it up for my blog and produce a report for my Parish Council and clean forgot about Liberal Democrat Voice. And so, you get a bumper(ish) edition at the end of what has been an utterly bewildering week…

  • Luciana Berger MP joins the Liberal Democrats (covered here)
  • Lib Dem membership rises to over 120,000
  • Bill to stop no-deal passes through the Lords

    • Lib Dem membership rises to over 120,000

    The Liberal Democrats have today announced that there are

…

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Caron Lindsay

“God I felt in the right place” LDV talks to Dr Phillip Lee MP about his dramatic entrance to the Lib Dems.

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 6th September 2019 - 10:00 pm

It was a moment of high drama. As Boris Johnson started his statement on the European Council on Tuesday afternoon, Phillip Lee walked into the Commons Chamber. Rather than turn left to the Government benches as he had every time since his election in 2010, he turned right and took a seat next to Jo Swinson.

This afternoon I spoke to him, just after he had been talking to the Washington Post and he relived that moment.

It wasn’t easy on a personal level. You can imagine, I was a member of a political party for 27 years, I’ve got relationships that are well established and some of them are going to be strained by all of this.

After he’d sat down, his watch started buzzing to tell him that his heart rate had been over 120 beats per minute for over four minutes. He had to do some deep breathing to coax it back to normal.

Today was his first day back in his constituency since crossing the floor. A walk around a new shopping centre in Bracknell had laid bare the polarisation our country faces today:

It was love and hate. It was really quite remarkable.

He’d been thinking about joining us for a few months, talking to friends and family and reading the Preamble to our Constitution and said that he felt that our ideas of equality, justice and community were where he was. You don’t, he said, just have a hissy fit and change political parties, but the final event that propelled him our way was Jacob Rees-Mogg’s LBC interview on Monday in which he disparaged Dr David Nicholls, who had contributed to the Yellowhammer Report on no deal preparations. Mogg made “dreadful statements, comparing him to someone who had been struck off.”

It made me feel as a practising medical doctor that I’d made the right decision.

That feeling intensified the next day at Prime Minister’s Questions, which he described as the worst display he’d seen by both Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition.

His friend, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, the Labour MP for Slough, asked Boris Johnson to apologise for the derogatory and racist remarks he’d made on many occasions in the past and which had led to a rise in hate crime. The PM’s dismissive answer fired up Jo Swinson so much that she handed Johnson his backside on a plate. shortly afterwards.

Phillip knows Slough well. He has worked there as a GP for over a decade and knows its diverse communities, where 60 languages are spoken, backwards.

God I felt in the right place.

All of that appalling language in that article, it matters in communities like that because language matters and for the PM to be so dismissive confirmed in my heart that I was in the right party.

As a doctor, he said that he had problems with the Health and Social Care Bill during the coalition years. He raised his issues privately with then Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and regrets that he toed the line and voted in favour of it – a view no doubt shared by many Liberal Democrats.

His move to our party has not been without controversy. There has been considerable anxiety, which has led to the resignations of Federal Conference Committee and LGBT+ office bearers Sarah Brown and Jennie Rigg. Both of them are close friends of mine and I’ve felt intensely sad this week. The party is already missing the massive amount of work that they do and I hope that we will be able to welcome them back one day.

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Greg Foster

News from the Membership Department – 60k people joined us this year – and how to get a replacement membership card

By Greg Foster | Fri 6th September 2019 - 6:38 pm

There are now (as of the time I’m typing) 120,995 members and 17,083 registered supporter of the Liberal Democrats.

That’s a record high – and means that just shy of 60,000 people have joined the Liberal Democrats as either a member or supporter this year. Most of them have joined, since fantastic local elections in May.

This latest membership surge comes after six months of extensive work to try and make membership better for everyone.

This all started with the implementation of the Supporter’s Scheme – which enabled us to do some really extensive work on the party’s membership database and fix a lot of long standing issues with how memberships were managed.

There’s still a lot more work to do (more on that further down) but we have made huge improvements to how the system works and it’s far more reliable and accurate than ever before.

Of course, the supporter scheme itself has proved both successful and popular – even without some of the more generous rights originally proposed.

The team have pulled together a report on the first three months of the scheme, which you can read here: www.libdems.org.uk/registered-supporter-report 

One of the big things those database changes enabled was to allow us to introduce a lot more automation.

Some of you will have already had it – the vast majority of our renewal communications happen automatically and members new get a confirmation when they’ve renewed their membership.

We’ve got big plans for where we want to take this next year – especially when it comes to supporting Local Party Officers and making sure they get support and advice on their new roles.

The next set of improvements will be a bit more visible than everything that’s been done so far.

We’re planning to replace the existing Salesforce interface local parties use with a user-friendly web interface we’re developing in conjunction with Prater Raines.

Prater Raines (as many of you know) are long-time suppliers to the party and almost all of their staff have been local party officers – so they’re the ideal people to help us build this.

The new interface won’t replace Salesforce – that will still be there in the background and be used by HQ, but local parties will enjoy a tailor made way to handle their donation reporting, manage memberships and their local parties.

We’ll also be able to implement a number of long asked for improvements which have not been possible in the current system – like knowing who your moved out members area.

The development timetable is tight but is intended to deliver access to the new portal from the start of January 2020. 

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Richard Kemp

Liverpool Lib Dems welcome Luciana Berger

By Richard Kemp | Fri 6th September 2019 - 11:55 am

On behalf of Liverpool Liberal Democrats, I have  welcomed the news that Luciana Berger has joined the Liberal Democrats. I do so not only as the Leader of the Lib Dems in Liverpool but also as the now ousted Lib Dem PPC for Liverpool Wavertree!

Yesterday was an exciting day which started at 9.15 with a call from Jo Swinson giving me the news. I was able to tell her that I was certain that Liverpool Lib Dems would be supportive of this. We had already agreed as a Party to not fight against as a Change UK candidate. We were unsure what to do if she tried to stand as an Independent but I suspect that we would have come to the same decision.

Basically, we were able to move to this position with little debate because we have always respected her as an individual and have tried to work with her both locally and nationally. Last night, we held an emergency Executive Committee in accordance with the Party’s protocols and after hearing from James Gurling, the chair of the Party’s Federal Campaigns and Elections Committee,  endorsed her membership of the Party and then she became  officially the Lib Dem MP for Liverpool Wavertree!

Luciana arrived in Liverpool at the 2010 General Election where was a tense campaign in which we were quite aggressive (more than I would have liked) about the fact that she was arriving fresh from London and had no Liverpool roots at all. That, of course, is not our tradition. We are used to helping work up our local patch and riding a tide of support that we helped to create.

Since then she made her home in this City, got to know her patch well and has given birth to proud young Scousers who we hope will “lern to tork proper!”

We have always respected Luciana even when she was a Labour MP and have come to know her better in the last few months. She has endured an appalling hate attack in the Labour Party since the rise to power within the Party of Corbyn and his cult.  She was female, Jewish and bright. Unforgiveable sins in the eyes of many Labour members. She was subject to vicious abuse both inside her Party and externally. Even as a Labour MP we extended a hand of friendship to her to try and help her.

Liverpool Wavertree Constituency Labour Party is not a good organisation to be part of. Of the four Labour councillors elected this May one has resigned first as Lord Mayor and then as a Council for distributing racist video. Another one has been suspended for sexism including calling local Labour MEP a f*****g b***h on a video filmed is a pub!

Locally, she has worked hard and has not always been on the same side as the Lib Dem team on local issues. However, as many Lib Dems will tell you MPs and councillors in the same Party often have to disagree because they have different jobs and see things with a different perspective.

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Humphrey Hawksley

The Lib Dems must draw up a road map to take us out of the abyss

By Humphrey Hawksley | Fri 6th September 2019 - 10:25 am

As opportunity unfolds with the current political crisis, the Liberal Democrats could appoint a unit to examine three issues on which the Party can lead. Coupled with its grass roots organization, these initiatives, messaged skillfully, could help propel the Party into government. Their aim would be to ensure that:-

The United Kingdom’s political system never again produces the geographical and economic divide that has led to a critical mass of citizens feeling ignored and left-behind.

Europe’s modern institutional structures create both regional cohesion and sovereign flexibility so that the type of divisiveness experienced in Britain is addressed long before it risks tearing the European Project apart.

The Liberal Democrats take a global lead in drafting new mechanisms for the international rules-based order and its institutions.

Once formulated, each could be presented for discussion so that minds can begin to reach beyond the acrimonious technicalities of Brexit towards a wider and more positive future.

We do not know how many of the tens of thousands new members are using the Party as a temporary ideological life-raft and how many are here for the long term to forge through to government and restore British values to the United Kingdom.

But we do know of the crying need to address issues that have led to today’s restlessness both here and around the world. On this, the Liberal Democrats, and the counter-part networks within Liberal International, are ideally placed to take the lead.

It is tempting in the middle of this crisis to focus on each twist and turn. But this is exactly the moment to task a team to take eyes off every-day events and map out a bigger picture.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Bunkum history

By Tom Arms | Fri 6th September 2019 - 8:55 am

History does NOT repeat itself. But that does not mean that there are no parallels between the past, the present and future or that we cannot learn from the lessons of the past.

At the moment Remain pundits are busy drawing comparisons between the dark days of 1930s with the current state of British and world politics. The populists and Brexiteers dismiss such suggestions as fear mongering and claim that the dark clouds on the horizon are actually the sunny uplands.

History is not an exact science. Political axioms cannot be tested in a sterile laboratory environment that allows historians to confidently pronounce that if “x” occurs “y” will result. There is a mathematical element to the study of the past, but it is based more on probabilities than scientific certainties. For instance, if you punch your neighbour in the nose, it is probable—but not certain—that they will punch you back.

The study of history – and its application to current events– involves an understanding not only of past events but a comprehensive knowledge of human nature and how it is likely to respond to similar events in the future.

In the 1930s there was no internet or social media. Air travel was still in its infancy. Oceans were crossed by ship .Television was in the prototype stage. Space was a totally unknown frontier and although the weapons of war were frightening, they were slings and arrows compared to today’s nuclear arsenals.

But there are still parallels likely to result in similar—but not exact—results.

The 1930s was the tail end of a long period of European imperial history and a strong belief in the nation state. It came just 20 years after a disastrous Great War involving 40 million casualties.  The peace that followed was judged by the loser as manifestly unjust. The world’s great economic power decided to withdraw from the world stage and crawl back into its outdated and traditional isolationism. At the same time its irresponsible economic policies created a Great Depression that spread across the globe.

Life became very complicated. Political and economic problems multiplied and had an impact on the daily lives of the butcher, baker and candlestick maker.  Faced with a confusingly complex world, populations turned towards populist leaders. Solutions are simple they were told. Kill the Jews. Hang the capitalists.  Then they tied their solutions to nationalism. Other groups should be killed, invaded and/or subjugated because the Aryans were a superior nation race.

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