Only those people who are members of he Liberal Democrats at 23:59 tonight will be able to vote in the leadership election.

It has been a hell of a month for Lib Dem recruitment.

In the five weeks since our local election success, 17000 people have joined the party. This creates a hell of a lot of work for our amazing membership team, led by the brilliant Greg Foster, so huge thanks to them.

Welcome to you all and a special mention to the 1000 who joined yesterday.

Wow – 17,000 new members since local elections!
The Liberal Democrats are coming back strong after our best local and European election results EVER.
Thanks to all our members who have helped us achieve such amazing results.
Not a member yet? Join now > https://t.co/uhtmkhaCuA pic.twitter.com/jysitOubmO

— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) June 6, 2019

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. This is, I think, it’s fourth outing this month. 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

It was obvious before the election that there was trouble in the Change UK camp. The extraordinary interview Heidi Allen gave to Channel 4 News on tactical voting where she admitted she had offered to resign showed the tensions.

Last week, I was hearing rumours of an impending major split, with six leaving and five staying.

This is what happened today. We learned that Anna Soubry will lead the remaining five while Heidi Allen, Sarah Wollaston, Luciana Berger, Angela Smith, Gavin Shuker and Chuka Umunna are going to sit as independents.

There’s been some discussion on whether some or all of the breakaway will eventually come to the Lib Dems, and do we want them?

My view is that we need to work with others to achieve our liberal goals, but we need to be wise to the idea that some might be trying to undermine us and protect ourselves accordingly.

At Conference in York, I spoke against the proposals that would have given registered supporters a vote for leader. I think I was right to. It was a process rabbit hole and, actually, in the European elections, we saw what a pithy message could do for our performance.

Choose vision, not process, I said. That’s how you build a movement. And I think I’ve been proved right since.

But I’m very aware that we need to check ourselves if we get too tribal.

Let’s be welcoming to others who might want to join us. People like Heidi Allen and Sarah Wollaston are not a million miles away from us. I know that the pitch battles in Liverpool between us and Labour have been pretty bitter, but Luciana Berger is a decent MP we could work with. And we could happily vote down  Chuka’s proposals for national service at Conference while agreeing with him on a whole lot of other stuff. These are good people.

One of the best things I saw today was a twitter thread by the ever-wise Alex Wilcock, who suggested that being in a liberal party might free people up to be more liberal. I smiled when he mentioned Bob Maclennan as someone who surprised him with his liberalism. Bob had been a Labour MP who had joined the SDP, yet he was a passionate liberal. Bob was the first MP I ever really knew and his crucial first election as a member of the SDP in 1983 was the first I ever worked on.

Go and read this whole thread.

ICYMI: Why & how Liberal Democrats should welcome defectors (even with some crappy views) but also be bolder.
Featuring ugly ducklings, children raised by wolves and my favourite ex-SDP MP.

I’m not wholly sure I’m right, but I’m thinking out loud… https://t.co/ioUEow58RZ

— Alex Wilcock 🔶 🏳️‍🌈 (@alexwilcock) June 4, 2019

Alex remembered the times in the 90s when people joined us because we were where they were at on Europe.