Lord William Wallace

Some good news for the Liberal Democrats from Lord Ashcroft

By Lord William Wallace | Tue 28th May 2019 - 1:30 pm

Lord Ashcroft, nowadays a relatively detached observer of British politics, usefully spends some of the money he used to give to the Conservative Party on opinion polling.  He has just published his post-voting analysis of the European elections – and it has some encouraging information for Liberal Democrats.

‘The biggest single chunk of Lib Dem support in the European elections came from 2017 Labour voters (37%), with 31% coming from previous Lib Dems and 24% coming from 2017 Conservatives.’

52% of Conservatives who had switched to voting for the Brexit Party said that they intend to stay with the Brexit Party at the next general election; while…

‘Conservatives who switched to the Lib Dems say they are even more likely to stay put: 61% now say they will vote Lib Dem again at the general election, with only 22% saying they expect to return to the Tories. Overall, only 43% of 2017 Conservative voters who turned out in the European elections say they will vote Tory at the next general election.’

‘Half of Labour-Brexit Party switchers said they expected to stay with their new party at the next general election, with only just a quarter saying they expect to go back to Labour. Just over half (51%) of Labour-Lib Dem switchers currently say they will stay with the Lib Dems. Just over half (56%) of 2017 Labour voters say they will back Jeremy Corbyn’s party for Westminster.’

He doesn’t provide a breakdown of respondents by age, social class or education; and he doesn’t provide comparably detailed information on voters who switched to the Greens, which would have been useful.  But this gives us some useful targets to go for: to hold onto our new voters, through continuing contact, and through getting across to them where we stand on policies other than on Brexit.  

Our leadership campaign should help us to get other policies across, as the media (at last) give us more coverage for a contest likely to be far more constructive and less bloody than the parallel Conservative race.  Both Ed Davey and Jo Swinson have done well in post-European election media comments, and we can hope for more media attention as the other two parties’ agonised arguments over what went wrong spill over.  

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Ed Davey

Ed Davey writes: Decarbonise capitalism to solve the climate emergency

By Ed Davey | Tue 28th May 2019 - 11:55 am

An ambitious UK Climate Change plan can reduce 1% of global emissions – but the UK has the power to cut 15% of global emissions, by decarbonising capitalism.

The Committee on Climate Change has proposed a net zero carbon target by 2050 for the UK. This is the minimum we should do – within our own country.

Yet the UK plays a massive part in more than 15% of the world’s greenhouse gases – because the City of London finances the businesses responsible for those emissions. So we could make a more radical impact on climate change – if we chose to decarbonise capitalism here. And we could set a new gold standard for global climate action.

And frankly, it would be grossly hypocritical to ask the British people to change, if we then failed to force our banks and financial institutions to do likewise.

The good news is that across the City, many people get green finance. But it’s still not mainstream. We won’t be able to solve the climate emergency just by adding in a bit of green cash: we need a system change. A diet only works if you eat salad and give up the doughnuts.

Just look at the greenwash by the fossil fuel sector. There are just 100 fossil fuel firms who’ve been responsible for 70% of global emissions since 1988 – and they have allocated on average only 1.3% of their total capital expenditure on green energy. This is utterly reckless and totally out of step with a net zero goal.

To reverse this, Government has to say: London will become a capital of Green Finance, and you will no longer be able to fund the climate crisis here.

This will be hugely challenging. Today 20% of the value of the London Stock Exchange is invested in high carbon and fossil fuel firms. By implication 20% of any pension funds tracking the LSE are too. To protect the incomes of pensioners today and in the future, their savings need new profitable homes.

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Andy Sangar

Next stop…Peterborough

By Andy Sangar | Tue 28th May 2019 - 10:25 am

Your next stop is Peterborough!

What a great result in the European elections. 

A clear bold message from the Liberal Democrats triumphed over Labour obfuscation and Tory division. Our clear commitment to Stop Brexit and give the people the final say, struck a chord with voters who felt they lacked a voice.

Back on May 2 we Liberal Democrats had our most successful local elections in a decade, gaining more than 700 councillors and taking control of 12 councils.

British politics remains stuck in the quagmire of the June ‘16 referendum result; we do not yet know whether we face an autumn general election or have a chance to lead the Remain cause for a people’s vote on Europe.

But we do know we have a by-election in Peterborough; caused by the expulsion of the former Labour MP following the first successful recall petition in the UK. 

Our candidate Beki Sellick and the local team have been working steadily for the last nine months, never knowing when or if this by-election would take place. After two trials, there was a verdict, sentencing, appeals and finally the recall petition. The timing wasn’t great for anyone, but we now have polling day on 6 June. As you may have read elsewhere, there were sustained attempts to have a single strong remain candidate standing as an independent. Unfortunately, these efforts failed at the last minute, and I, as agent, was instructed to get the Lib Dem nomination papers in. 

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Duncan Brack

The 2019 European Election and Liberal History

By Duncan Brack | Tue 28th May 2019 - 8:08 am

Everyone knows the 2019 European election result in the UK was remarkable – but do you realise quite how much? 

It was the best Euro election result for the Liberal Democrats or their predecessor parties ever. 

This is true in terms both of seats (16) and votes (20.3 per cent). The party’s previous best seat performance was 12 in 2004, though the UK then had 78 seats in the European Parliament, rather than its current 73. Our previous best vote performance was right back in 1984, when the Liberal-SDP Alliance scored 18.5 per cent. That was in the days before PR, when the country was divided up into giant Euro-constituencies fought on first past the post; the Alliance won none of them. Post-merger, the best Liberal Democrat performance was 16.1 per cent, in 1994.

The Liberal Democrat performance looks even better when compared to the other main parties, outpolling both Labour and the Conservatives by large margins. This has never happened before. 

The last time the Liberal Party won more votes than Labour in a nationwide election (i.e. a general or Euro election) was in 1918 (by 25.6 per cent to 20.8 per cent), though only if you combine the votes of the two factions the Liberal Party was then split into, led by Lloyd George and Asquith. And in that election the Labour Party fought only just over half the seats, and the two Liberal factions about two-thirds, making comparisons tricky. The Labour Party, on 14.1 per cent this year, has never scored even remotely this badly since it started contesting all UK seats; its previous low point was 27.6 per cent, in 1983.

The last time the Liberals beat the Conservatives in a nationwide election was 1906, the year of the great Liberal landslide: 48.9 per cent and 397 seats for the Liberals to 43.4 per cent and 156 seats for the Unionists (as Conservatives were known then). The Conservative performance this time, a mere 9.1 per cent, is staggeringly bad; the party’s previous low was three times as much, 29.2 per cent in 1832 (though throughout the nineteenth century many seats went uncontested, and MPs’ allegiances were often fluid, making calculations difficult), or, in the modern era, 30.7 per cent in 1997.

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Caron Lindsay

Meet our new MEPs – Bedtime edition

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 27th May 2019 - 9:55 pm

What a night! Thanks to Mark for his excellent coverage overnight.

The results surpassed my wildest expectations. And the media can just stop with this “triumph for the Brexit Party” narrative. They are effectively a repackaged UKIP which, in 2014, got 27.5% of the vote. They’ve only gained 4.1% on top of that to end up with 31.6%. UKIP’s 3.3% on top of that gives unequivocal Leave 34.9%.  The combined total of Liberal Democrats, Greens, Change UK,  Plaid Cymru and SNP who are all committed to Remain is 40.4%.

You can’t really say with confidence what the Conservative and Labour votes mean. I suspect much of the Labour vote did so with gritted teeth so you could probably add another 10% to Remain which would take the total for Remain to over 50%.

So, enough with this Brexit Party victory narrative.

But enough of that for now. Let’s meet our new MEPs.

As of now, we have 15 new ones – 16 in total and . And they are a diverse bunch – a majority (9) women and two BAME candidates elected.

Two are Newbies who have joined the party since 2015 and one more joined in 2014.

And as Jo Swinson pointed out, we came within 30,000 votes of two more – Sam Bennett and Fiona Hall narrowly missed out in Wales and the North East respectively.

Making up my LIb Dem MEPs Twitter list was pretty satisfying.

So who are our new MEPs? Here are extracts from their biographies on the party website and a few more notes. 

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Mark Valladares

European Elections 2019: results from across the sea… (part 2)

By Mark Valladares | Mon 27th May 2019 - 8:53 pm

For earlier results, check out part 1…

First, an update. The BBC have got the Latvian result wrong, and our sister Party, Attistibai, have retained their seat. Unexpected that, the BBC getting it wrong…

Time to look at some of the bigger stories, and we start with Romania, where the USR have gained eight seats as the main element of the Coalition Alliance 2020. The collapse of the ruling Social Democrats has been followed almost immediately by the news that the Prime Minister, Liviu Dragnea, has lost his appeal against a prison sentence for corruption. He’s already been transferred into captivity…

In France, …

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Dan Whitehead

The Liberal Democrats are back and the electoral opportunity is huge

By Dan Whitehead | Mon 27th May 2019 - 7:02 pm

I’m not a Lib Dem. I’m Labour and I hope that in voting as I did I will help the Labour Party see sense and do the right thing for the country.

This was Alistair Campbell tweeting about his support for our party on Sunday night, following the European election results.

In some ways history is repeating itself. Through his work in convincing the Blair government to go to war in Iraq, Campbell was also partly responsible for the last great surge of support from Labour to the Liberal Democrats. What we learnt from that episode in our history is that …

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John King

Let’s leave Brexit for another time

By John King | Mon 27th May 2019 - 5:03 pm

Referendums are strange things. Uniquely divisive, and their outcome unpredictable. No matter what the issue, voters flock to opposing sides like supporters at a football match. There is no sitting on the fence.

You could have a referendum on whether we leave the earth and live in outer space, and it could succeed, who knows? Humans will have to colonise space sooner or later to survive, but the time is not here yet. And the time for leaving Europe is not here yet. It may come, if the EU fails to reform itself and technology solves the Irish border problem, but it is not here yet.

Revoking article 50 was proposed by Chuka Ummuna just recently as a solution for our crisis, though it did not stir much reaction. But perhaps it deserves a second look.

The big advantage of revoking is that it keeps our powder dry. We can always trigger article 50 again at any time, and thus retaining our negotiating power. What we can’t do is unbrexit once we have left, and lost all our negotiating power. The fact is that we currently have the best deal of all 28 countries, and the other countries are jealous of us. If we throw it away, we will never get it back.

So what we can do is say to the EU “We are halting our departure to give you a stay of execution. Take note of our discontents and reform yourselves, otherwise we will leave for real next time”.

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Mark Valladares

European Elections 2019: results from across the sea… (part 1)

By Mark Valladares | Mon 27th May 2019 - 3:29 pm

Overnight, we’ve had some of the results come in, and we’ll start with the bad news first, with none of our ALDE sister parties gaining seats in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Malta or Portugal. We had only held seats in Portugal (two), but the combined vote of the three liberal parties totalled just 2.41%.

Little change in the Baltics thus far, although in Estonia, the opposition Reform Party gained voting share and won overall, retaining their two seats, whilst the Centre Party lost significant voting share having gone into coalition with the far-right and nationalists. They retained their solitary seat in …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Mark Valladares

European Elections 2019: Scotland and Northern Ireland declare, and the inquests begin…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 27th May 2019 - 12:28 pm

19.39 And it’s really all over, with Naomi Long successfully elected…

It’s a truly historic day in Northern Irish politics, and congratulations to everyone in the Alliance Party for a quite astonishing advance.

Thanks to everyone who has commented here, and that brings our coverage of the European Parliamentary elections to a close…

18.44 STV can be quite dramatic sometimes, with candidates seemingly dead and buried, coming back to snatch victory. It hasn’t been like that here, as Naomi Long has gradually pulled away to make it certain victory. Here’s the result at the end of the fourth count…

What this means is that, …

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Caron Lindsay

Meet our new MEPs – Breakfast edition

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 27th May 2019 - 7:30 am

What a night! Thanks to Mark for his excellent coverage overnight.

The results surpassed my wildest expectations. And the media can just stop with this “triumph for the Brexit Party” narrative. They are effectively a repackaged UKIP which, in 2014, got 27.5% of the vote. They’ve only gained 4.1% on top of that to end up with 31.6%. UKIP’s 3.3% on top of that gives unequivocal Leave 34.9%.  The combined total of Liberal Democrats, Greens, Change UK,  Plaid Cymru and SNP who are all committed to Remain is 40.4%.

You can’t really say with confidence what the Conservative and Labour votes mean. I suspect much of the Labour vote did so with gritted teeth so you could probably add another 10% to Remain which would take the total for Remain to over 50%.

So, enough with this Brexit Party victory narrative.

But enough of that for now. Let’s meet our new MEPs.

As of now, we have 14 new ones – 15 in total so far. And they are a diverse bunch – a majority (8) women and two BAME candidates elected.

We hope that the Fabulous Fifteen will become the Sensational Sixteen at about 11 am this morning once the Western Isles has finished counting. Two are Newbies who have joined the party since 2015 and one more joined in 2014.

Making up my LIb Dem MEPs Twitter list was pretty satisfying.

So who are our new MEPs? Here are extracts from their biographies on the party website and a few more notes.  I will update this later if, as projected,  we win in Scotland but do not want to tempt fate.

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Mark Valladares

European Elections 2019: the results…

By Mark Valladares | Sun 26th May 2019 - 10:26 pm

Exciting, isn’t it? The anticipation of election results where we’re almost bound to improve on last time. And with the wind in our sails. Now, I’ve been around long enough to expect disappointment, but let’s see, shall we?

00.51 So, with only Scotland and Northern Ireland to report, here’s the current picture;

  • Brexit Party – 28 seats (up 28)
  • Liberal Democrats – 15 seats (up 14)
  • Labour – 10 seats (down 8)
  • Greens – 7 seats (up 4)
  • Conservatives – 3 seats (down 15)
  • Plaid Cymru – 1 seat (no change)
  • UKIP – no seats (down 23)

The Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party is pretty much gender balanced, seven men, …

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Mark Valladares

European Elections 2019: meanwhile, on a continent far away…

By Mark Valladares | Sun 26th May 2019 - 8:27 pm

Welcome to Liberal Democrat Voice’s coverage of the results from the other 678 seats in the European Parliament. I’m your host, Mark Valladares, a member of the Party’s Federal International Relations Committee, and I’ll be highlighting some of the interesting results from across Europe. Stay tuned for the drama to come… I’ll be adding to the piece at the top, i.e. read upwards from the bottom…

01.00 We’re still awaiting final results from across most of Europe, given that they mostly voted today. But we can summarise thus. It’s been a good night for liberals, Greens and, unfortunately, the disruptive right. …

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Caron Lindsay

European election results: What do we think will happen?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 26th May 2019 - 5:00 pm

On Thursday night when every part of my body hurt like hell and my eyes were melting with exhaustion, I couldn’t sleep. My body expected to be at a count and couldn’t understand why I was in my bed.

The three day wait to know whether our advance in the polls has been confirmed is excruciating.

By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to the count in Edinburgh. We won’t know the Scottish result tonight because the Western Isles don’t count on a Sunday. That means that our result will be declared in a dramatic Royal Mile ceremony by noon tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed that Sheila Ritchie makes it. Some polling suggests that, in equal second, we could be contesting the third or fourth seat, but it is more likely to be a scrap between us, the Brexit Party and the SNP for the last place.

In the rest of the country, the outlook looks a lot sunnier. Support was coalescing around us as the Remain alternative to the Brexit Party. By the end of the campaign, we were polling 20%. This is way beyond anything we have ever polled in a European election before if it is realised. Everyone I know has stories of friends and acquaintances who had never supported us before turning out for us on Thursday.

Election Maps UK has a prediction which is equally stunning and sobering:

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1132622260613931008

While it would be fantastic to have 13 MEPs, the thought of 30 Brexit Party representatives is not pleasant.

This gives us 3 in London, 2 each in the South East and East of England, 1 each in Scotland, East and West Midlands, South West, Yorkshire and the Humber and North West. It would be disappointing not to get a seat in Wales. These MEPs would also be joined by Naomi Long for the Alliance Party.

That, if it came true, would be incredible. It would mean that we would have come first in London which would be unheard of.

This is the first time I’ve been to a European count since PR came in. In 2009, I was lying in bed with my days old baby as the results came in and we learned that Nick Clegg had won to become the first Liberal parliamentarian in the East Midlands in nearly 70 years.

To put in perspective, here is how we’ve polled in every European election since 1999.

1999 12.10% 10 seats out of 77

2004  14.9% 12 seats out of 78

2009  13.7% 11 seats out of 72

2014 6.87% 1 seat out of 73

You can see the effect of PR when you consider that in 1994, we actually polled 16.7% and got just 2 seats under first past the post.

So anything more than 15% is our best result in 20 years.

The thought of the Brexit Party doing well is pretty horrible, though. However, if the turnout is higher than expected, this might dilute their vote share.

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Caron Lindsay

UPDATED: The Lib Dem Lowdown – European elections surge special

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 26th May 2019 - 1:59 pm

Welcome to the thousands of people who have joined the Liberal Democrats in the last few weeks, and a special mention to those of you who joined this morning. You were noticed by our Head of Membership.

It’s actually been really heartwarming to wake up every morning for the last few weeks and see a whole rush of “I just joined the Lib Dems” posts on Twitter.

Every so often I roll out this post, which is basically a rehash of an article that I first wrote in May 2015 when many joined the party in the wake of the General Election result. I thought it might be useful to tell you a little bit about how our party works and give you a bit of an idea of the opportunities open to you. If you are not yet a member, if you like what you read, sign up here.

What do we believe?

Before we get into the nitty gritty of organisation, the best statement of who we are and what we’re about can be found in the Preamble to our Constitution which underlines how we believe in freedom, opportunity, diversity,  decentralisation and internationalism. Here’s a snippet:

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.

We look forward to a world in which all people share the same basic rights, in which they live together in peace and in which their different cultures will be able to develop freely. We believe that each generation is responsible for the fate of our planet and, by safeguarding the balance of nature and the environment, for the long term continuity of life in all its forms. Upholding these values of individual and social justice, we reject allprejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality.

We have a fierce respect for individuality, with no expectation that fellow Liberal Democrats will agree with us on every issue. We expect our views to be challenged and feel free to challenge others without rancour. We can have a robust debate and head to the pub afterwards, the very best of friends.

Obviously, our priority at the moment is to stop Brexit, but there is so much more to us than that. That bit about no-one being enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity shapes everything that we do.

Your rights as a member

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John Grout

What happens in a Lib Dem leadership election?

By John Grout | Sun 26th May 2019 - 10:25 am

Since the first of the great membership surges in 2015, which coincided with the last leadership election, we have enjoyed at least three further surges, taking the party to comfortably more than 100,000 members.  But as a result, fewer than half of our members actually took part in the passionate and sometimes heated contest between Tim Farron and Norman Lamb.

So, what happens in a Lib Dem leadership election?

Candidates

After proposals to extend the range of possible candidates failed at last year’s Autumn Conference, the rules around candidates are unchanged – candidates must be sitting Lib Dem MPs in the House of Commons, who are nominated by their fellow MPs and backed by at least 200 members from at least 20 local parties. The nominations must all be in by the 7th June.  Candidates have until 16:00 on the 8th to withdraw after this time – at which point, the official candidates will be declared.

Voting

Again, after proposals to extend the franchise to supporters failed at last year’s Autumn Conference, in order to vote in the leadership election, you must be a member of the Lib Dems before midnight on the 7th June.  You’ll receive an online ballot on the 1st July, if you have given the party an email address; members without a known email address will have paper ballots issued on the 28th June.  If there are more than 2 candidates, voting will be by instant-runoff AV (so, ranked preference).

Result

The ballot – both online and postal – will close at 15:00 on the 23rd July.  Votes will be verified and counted at HQ, and a winner will be announced the same evening.

Hustings

At time of writing, ten hustings in ten regions have been organised, and more will likely be planned – you can find a full list here.  If you want to attend, make sure you use the RSVP link so the organisers ensure there’s enough space – in previous years people have ended up sitting in the aisles!  Previous contests have seen online Q&As and virtual hustings as well, and it’s easy to see how Lib Dem Newbies might end up hosting one, for instance, as might the Green Lib Dems and other affiliated organisations.

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Richard Kemp

Radical policies and persuasive, angry voices – the next steps for the Lib Dems

By Richard Kemp | Sun 26th May 2019 - 8:55 am

When I joined the Liberal Party in 1967, I did not do it because I wanted a career in politics or a safe seat. Just as well really as I would have been doomed to eternal disappointment. I joined because I wanted to ‘march to the sound of gunfire’ as Jo Grimond wanted us to. I wanted to see radical alternatives to the tired establishment Brylcreemed and three-piece suited men of the Tory and Labour Parties of the time, most of whom defined their view of themselves and society through the prism of the two world wars that shaped the 20th century.

Politics then was quite different than it is now. It was much more genteel and respectful and of course, did not have the 24 hour a day exposure of modern media. But it was far more tribal than it is now. (95% plus voted for the main two Parties. Liberals, if we were lucky got to a whole 3% in the opinion polls, the Green Party didn’t exist and the Scottish and Welsh Nationalist Parties were thought of as a fringe of Celtic extremists.

We started to move upwards then because we dared to be different. I joined the Young Liberals who were often described as the ‘’Red Guard’ and in some ways were more influential than the Party itself. We campaigned then for gay rights, when no-one else did, we campaigned to join the European Economic Community from day one. On these and others issues we began to create a distinctive niche in politics which was not centre ground in terms of lacking a radical edge but it was centre ground in the context of not being on the loony extremes of either the Labour or Tory Parties.

What also made us distinctive was our approach to the business of politics. We started to pound the pavements. We started to make policies discussed in remote Town Halls and the even more remote Parliament in Westminster relevant to the day to day life of people we aspired to represent.

Since the sixties there have been many surges in Liberal and then Liberal Democrat fortunes. In 2015 and 2017 we went down further than in most of my 52-year political lifetime. In 2015 we were within a few thousand votes of losing our Parliamentary Party (with the exception of Alistair Carmichael in Southern Scandinavia!) If that had happened, we would have become an irrelevance. We would, quite simply have died.

I am not going to recount the last 4 years but I simply want to say that it was the thin orange line of Lib Dem Councillors that held the line. Yes Vince and our team did great things in Parliament but it was resolute and bloody stubborn councillors that both held the line and then began slowly to move us forward leading to the great rush in Lib Dem votes and councillors at the beginning of May and what everyone hopes (except our opponents who dread) will be a great advance when the EU votes are declared tonight.

There are three key lessons to me.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem leadership timetable in full

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 25th May 2019 - 7:55 pm

Here is how we get from here until the announcement of our new leader on 23rd July.

The most important date in that is 7th June. If you aren’t a member then, you won’t get a vote. So join here if you like what we are doing.  And share that link around, too. It’s a special one for us.

12th May Nomination forms available

22nd May Opening of nominations

7th June Closing date for delivery of completed nomination papers
Closing date for membership registrations

8th June (4pm) Deadline for withdrawal of candidature
Release of membership lists

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Caron Lindsay

Were you denied the right to vote on Thursday? Let us know

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 25th May 2019 - 6:14 pm

Two Lib Dem MPs expected to stand for the leadership of the party have called for action after EU citizens were denied the right to vote on Thursday because local authorities hadn’t properly processed their applications. The Guardian reports that the Government may face action:

The government is facing calls to launch an urgent investigation into the treatment of EU citizens in the European elections after many people reported being denied their democratic right to vote.

Voters across the country told of their devastation at finding their names crossed off the register due to clerical errors by local councils. Experts said the situation was a “scandal we knew was coming” and that the government may have a case to answer in court.

The affected voters said they felt they were being “silenced” as this was the only election they had a right to participate in, being ineligible to vote in the referendum or general elections.

Our two as yet undeclared expected leadership candidates have had strong words to say on the subject.

Ed Davey put out a call for evidence from those affected.

And Jo Swinson called for an investigation:

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Mary Reid

Putting a bomb under it, and other polling day stories

By Mary Reid | Sat 25th May 2019 - 1:42 pm

There was a bit of drama in Kingston upon Thames on Thursday morning. Construction workers uncovered a 250Kg unexploded WW2 bomb near the town centre.

A large exclusion zone was set up, and 1500 people were evacuated from their homes.

The area included the town centre campus for Kingston University, two schools – and two polling stations, which had to be relocated.

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Caron Lindsay

Join the Lib Dems and help choose the next leader

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 25th May 2019 - 11:25 am

Last night, people were joining the Liberal Democrats at the rate of one every five seconds as our Head of Membership, Greg Foster, said on Twitter.

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Caron Lindsay

How Liberal Democrat Voice will deal with the leadership election

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 25th May 2019 - 9:43 am

After Vince formally kicked off the leadership contest yesterday, announcing that we’d have a new leader by July 23rd. The likely candidates are Jo Swinson and Ed Davey, although neither has, at the time of writing, announced.

They will have to get on with it as the first hustings take place on Friday 31st May in London. In total the candidates will be attending at least ten meetings organised by the party. You can see a full list here.

I’m looking forward to an interesting and friendly leadership campaign which will be about how to consolidate our excellent results in the local elections and to build on the profile we had during the European elections.

This will all be very different from the really tough contest between Tim Farron and Norman Lamb in 2015. During that contest, we were still going through all the stages of grief after the disaster of the General Election and it was at times a bit fractious and horrible. Now, we have a much more optimistic outlook and we have to work out who will best help us make the most of it.

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Mark Valladares

24 May 2019 – today’s (other) press release

By Mark Valladares | Fri 24th May 2019 - 11:28 pm

Swinson demands Electoral Commission investigate EU election debacle

Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats Jo Swinson has written to the Electoral Commission demanding an investigation after countless EU citizens were unable to vote in the Euro elections this week.

In a letter to Sir John Holmes, Chair of the Electoral Commission, the Liberal Democrat MP said “it is an outrage that so many people were denied the right to vote in yesterday’s European elections.”

She added: “Not only were European citizens turned away at polling stations, but many UK citizens abroad were also disenfranchised due to breakdowns in the postal …

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The Voice

+++Vince to hand over to new Lib Dem Leader on July 23rd

By The Voice | Fri 24th May 2019 - 4:10 pm

So Theresa May isn’t the only leader to resign today.

Vince has just sent this message to party members announcing that he will be handing over to his successor on 23rd July.

The difference between the two departures is that Vince is going as part of a managed transition first announced nearly 9 months ago and is going out on a high. We’ll see just how high on Monday when we know all the results of the European elections.

Vince deserves our thanks for taking on the challenge of leadership and building on what Tim Farron had started. When we think of the bloody mess we were in after the last European elections, we can see how far both men took us.

Here is Vince’s email.

Dear Member,

Last night, the British people finished voting in the European elections. We have fought a very strong campaign and when the votes are counted on Sunday, I expect us to do well.

I want to thank the volunteers who have made that possible I was very touched while campaigning around the country by the enthusiasm and optimism of our members and supporters.

Many who kept going through difficult years for the party are now enjoying our resurgence as a major national force.

Our long and proud tradition of success in local government was revived this month by the best local election results in our party’s history. In the last two years, we have gained 780 more council seats and 15 new councils.

And membership is at record levels with a strengthening base of supporters amongst students and young people.

Together, we have rebuilt the Liberal Democrats – thank you.

I said earlier this year that the time would soon come to hand over the leadership of the party to a new generation. That process begins today: I will be proud to hand over a bigger, stronger party on July 23rd.

If you have friends who would want to vote in the election to choose my successor, urge them to join by Friday 7th June. Every new member can help shape our future.

There are major challenges ahead. One is to win, finally, the battle to stop Brexit. Our campaigning has given hope; now we need to secure a referendum in Parliament, and then win it.

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 14 Comments
The Voice

Cable: Conservative Party interest has always trumped national interest

By The Voice | Fri 24th May 2019 - 11:03 am

Responding to the PM’s resignation, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable said:

The Prime Minister is right to recognise that her administration has reached the end of the road.

Sadly her compromises through the last three years have too often been with the right-wing of her own party, rather than about bringing the country together.

Conservative Party interest has always trumped national interest, and yet Conservative MPs continue to demand an ever more extreme Brexit policy.

The best and only option remains to take Brexit back to the people. I believe the public would now choose to Stop Brexit,

…

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Posted in News | 57 Comments
Joe Otten

+++Theresa May to resign – End of Theresa May open thread

By Joe Otten | Fri 24th May 2019 - 10:39 am

Theresa May has announced that she will resign as Prime Minister on 7 June. (BBC)

The Conservative Party is now expected to choose an even truer Brexit believer as leader and PM, who will move the goalposts even further from the easiest in history cake and eat it deal we were promised before the referendum, and consequently have even less chance of getting an outcome through the House of Commons, never mind past the European Union.

Meanwhile, the UK has an extension on the Article 50 process, which is not to be wasted. Any suggestions what the UK …

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Posted in News | 15 Comments
Mark Valladares

23 May 2019 – today’s press release

By Mark Valladares | Thu 23rd May 2019 - 10:42 pm

Turning EU citizens away feels like a deliberate attempt to silence voices

Responding to reports that EU citizens are being turned away from polling stations and denied a vote, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Ed Davey said:

It is an utter disgrace that so many EU citizens have been unable to vote in these historic elections.

This feels like a deliberate attempt by the Conservatives to silence the voices of our fellow Europeans.

Liberal Democrats will hold the government to account for this bureaucratic shambles and ensure that the voices of EU citizens are heard.

Posted in News | Tagged , and | 11 Comments
The Voice

It wouldn’t be an election without a Willie Rennie stunt

By The Voice | Thu 23rd May 2019 - 8:53 am

And here he is, waterskiing to show the Lib Dem wave of support.

https://twitter.com/katie_armour/status/1130784202755063808

Sone people enjoyed it too much.

And there’s video too:

Former Scottish Camapigns director Adam Stachura had his own take

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Time for some Lib Dem sunshine

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 23rd May 2019 - 5:53 am

It’s been a bloody awful three years. Politics dominated by the psychodrama in the Conservative Party over Europe and the splits in a Labour Party which refuses to declare whether it is for Brexit or Remain.

Finally, the sun shows a willingness to break through the storm clouds of British politics. A strong vote for us with a high turnout could see us beat the Brexit Party.

This whole campaign has been an absolute joy. We’ve had the clearest message – vote Lib Dems to stop Brexit – with its fruitier alternative, Bollocks to Brexit – and we have been able, for the first time in years, to approach doorsteps with confidence. It’s been such a good feeling. People have spontaneously told us that they are voting for us and you can see in their eyes that they are pleased about it.

All of you who have been involved in the campaign have played an absolute blinder. Our candidates have been energetic and spirited. In Scotland, Sheila Ritchie has travelled thousands of miles and led campaigning in paces where we haven’t been seen for years. She so deserves to win.

It’s been an exhausting campaign, coming for many people on the heels of the local elections.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 147 Comments
Mark Valladares

22 May 2019 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 22nd May 2019 - 11:00 pm

It’s not easy being in a political party’s Press Team when the governing party is in meltdown. After all, Theresa May is seemingly holed up in 10 Downing Street, a chair wedged under the door handle to prevent anyone from getting in. The Leader of the House is gone, and who knows if she’s merely the first of many?

And all this on the eve of European Parliamentary elections in which the Conservatives are expected to take a kicking not dissimilar to that the Liberal Democrats took in 2015…

  • Lib Dems: Botched Apprenticeship Levy implementation hurting most disadvantaged
  • Gove clutching at straws with

…

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