Toby Keynes

An end to religious discrimination in our schools

By Toby Keynes | Thu 16th March 2017 - 12:37 pm

This Sunday, Conference will decide our party’s policy on state-funded faith schools – and in particular on whether schools should be able to select children on the basis of their religion or belief.

I would like to think this would be an uncontentious issue.

Surely we are defined as a party by our rejection of discrimination, and by our determination to oppose entrenched privilege and inequality.

And yet there are some within this party who believe that our children should be segregated by their religion – so that Catholic children only play and learn with other Catholic children, Jewish children only play and learn with other Jewish children, and so on.   And that the Jewish child whose local state school is in the same road but happens to be a Catholic school should be barred from that school because they are Jewish.  

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Joe Bourke

Irish Liberal Democrats and LDV St Patrick’s Day fringe at York

By Joe Bourke | Thu 16th March 2017 - 10:18 am

Theresa May dealt a blow to Ireland in her Brexit white paper when she said she wanted in effect to leave the EU customs union, confirming Brexit poses a huge threat to frictionless cross-border trade on the island of Ireland, the mainstay of the Irish economy.

The Irish Ambassador to the UK, Daniel Mulhall said last month that comprehensive customs and border checks between Ireland and Northern Ireland are not remotely possible

Northern Ireland polled more europhilic than other regions in the UK before the election. Its Remain vote of 55.7 per cent was the third strongest in the country. Nationalists wanted the UK to remain in the EU, but unionists generally wanted to leave. Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Ulster Unionists, Alliance and the Green Party wanted to stay. The Irish government also wanted a remain vote. The DUP, the TUV and the left-wing People before Profit party backed Brexit.

As Sinn Fein and the DUP jostle for position in a new power sharing agreement at Stormont the Brexit divide has come to the fore. If the parties are unable to agree an accommodation, we may yet see a return to direct rule of the province from Westminster.

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Caron Lindsay

Updated for York 2017: Caron’s guide to the craziness of Conference

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 16th March 2017 - 8:45 am

Federal Conference is probably the best fun that you will ever have in your life. You will thoroughly enjoy every exhausting moment. If you’re new, it can be a bit overwhelming until you get used to the sensory overload. I had a long break from going to them and when I returned, in 2011, I spent the first day wandering round in a state of wide-eyed amazement,  like a child in a toy shop. Spring Conference is smaller than Autumn, but a look at the agenda tells me that there are at least two things going on that I want to go to at all times.

So, with that in mind, I thought I’d throw together a fairly random list of tips and hints for getting the best out of the annual cornucopia of Liberal Democracy. If you have any other Conference survival tips, let me know.

1. Plan your days

The Conference day has a huge variety of things to do. As well as the debates in the hall,  there’s a comprehensive training programme.  There are spokespeople Q & As. There are competing fringe choices to be made, even though the overall selection has reduced in recent years.  You can guarantee that you will never be bored and that several things you want to see will be on at the same time.

Be aware as well that you can eat quite well for free by choosing the right fringe meetings – look for the refreshments symbol in the directory.

Believe me, it’s much easier if you sort out your diary in advance. The best laid plans will always be subject to a better offer or meeting someone you haven’t seen for years randomly in a corridor, but it’s best to at least try to get some order into the proceedings. The Conference App is a real help for this. You can download it from whichever App store you use on your phone (search for Lib Dem Conf). It allows you to add events to your schedule and is pretty flexible. 

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Nick T

Strong showing for liberals in The Netherlands

By Nick T | Thu 16th March 2017 - 7:38 am

Nick Clegg with Mark Rutte in 2010

As the FT reports, VVD, the liberal party of Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, will once again be the largest party in the Dutch parliament:

Prime Minister Mark Rutte looks certain to form the next Netherlands government, with his party projected to secure a clear general election victory over rivals including populist challenger Geert Wilders.

The projected victory was welcomed by moderates and pro-EU politicians across Europe and has calmed their fears that the continent was poised to fall under the sway of nationalists following the UK’s Brexit vote and the election of President Donald Trump in the US.

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Caron Lindsay

Another civil liberties victory for the Scottish Liberal Democrats

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 15th March 2017 - 7:24 pm

A couple of years ago, the SNP was planning to make this super ID database which made what Labour’s planned ID cards from 2008 look positively timid. They intended allowing 120 public bodies, including the Royal Botanic Gardens and Quality Meat Scotland, access to the NHS Central Register.

Alison McInnes, our then Justice spokesperson was on it straight away, as was Willie Rennie and made such a big fuss that the idea has now firmly been consigned to the dustbin.

Following parliamentary questions from Liam McArthur, our new Justice Spokesperson, the Scottish Government admitted that it had “decided it would not …

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron writes: A nuclear weapons-free world?

By Tim Farron MP | Wed 15th March 2017 - 3:56 pm

 

I recently revisited an article that I wrote ahead of Autumn Conference in 2015. My article opened with the line, “Another Lib Dem conference and we find ourselves talking about our nuclear deterrent once more.”

And they say politics has changed in the last eighteen months!

In York this week, we will again debate the future of the UK’s nuclear deterrent. At conference’s request, the FPC has commissioned a policy paper on nuclear weapons (pdf). The paper, written by party members after long consideration, advocates a step down the nuclear ladder by moving to a medium-readiness posture, and proposes an end to continuous at-sea deterrence. It also calls on the UK to become a leader in the disarmament and control of nuclear weapons. This position reflects the UK’s continued need for a minimum nuclear deterrent, suitable for the 21st century, which sits alongside the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to working for a world free of nuclear weapons, working within international institutions, particularly the UN.

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Jonathan Hunt

Make cheating employers pay, not lone entrepreneurs

By Jonathan Hunt | Wed 15th March 2017 - 2:39 pm

 

Many politicians protesting, quite rightly, about the unfair hike in National Insurance contributions for the self-employed have missed the real solution.

The important contribution is the one paid by employers, at 13.8 per cent of wages for abroad middle range of employees. It is an expensive outlay on workers, and often claimed to be a deterrent to increasing the payroll.

More unscrupulous companies, mostly but not all US-owned multinationals, are evading this tax. They do not employ most of their workforce, but engage people labelled as self-employed.

As one who has been self-employed for many years, even while holding such executive positions as business editor on national newspapers, I recall that becoming self-employed was beset with hurdles. A principal test was to prove that you decided how the task was to be performed, not those paying you.

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Stephen Harte

The emotions of constitutional change

By Stephen Harte | Wed 15th March 2017 - 12:24 pm

 

Here we go again – Scotland is (if Westminster grants a S30 Order) being treated to yet another bitter, divisive and emotional constitutional referendum where lies and spin will confuse one and all and we will likely end up with a narrow result that satisfies no one. What joy!

I voted No before.  This time we are told that circumstances have changed (thus the SNP and the hyper-nationalist Scottish Green Party are demanding the re-vote that they would have demanded whatever happened) and some of my LibDem friends say that Brexit means they will now vote Yes.

Willie Rennie promises to make an “emotional case for the Union”.  I find it hard to get any more emotional about staying with the Union then separating from it.  Where can a liberal find that emotional call?

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Paul Tyler

Some progress on party funding reform – comments please!

By Paul Tyler | Wed 15th March 2017 - 10:35 am

 

The adage “if you want to keep something secret, say it in the House of Commons” certainly extends to the Lords on Fridays, when Private Members Bills are taken.

However, our team made significant progress last week in pushing the government to take seriously their own manifesto commitment “to continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform”.  We have been plugging away at this by whatever means possible, including by initiating a special Select Committee on party funding reform last year, and by introducing my Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure) Bill last week.  I opened the debate, and Chris Rennard and Ian Wrigglesworth both spoke too.  We received support also from Labour Peer Larry Whitty, and from the Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Paul Bew.

For decades, Lib Dems have sought a cap on individual donations – to limit the auction of influence and access to government and senior political figures which now takes place.  In return, a limited element of public funding – linked to support in the country – would be needed to ensure the parties could continue their campaigning.

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Tony Lloyd

This time we should be firmly pro-Independence

By Tony Lloyd | Wed 15th March 2017 - 9:00 am

 

At the last conference Alex Cole-Hamilton explained his opposition to Scottish independence by noting that he was a UK citizen, an EU citizen and wanted to remain both.

It is a fine sentiment.

The time, though, is fast arising when he and others may have to decide which is more important. When no amount of campaigning against the decision will prevent the outcome, when the Tory backbenchers melt and when the Labour leadership get behind the Brexiteers, then then people of Scotland are faced with a choice. It is a stark choice, it is a difficult choice and it is a choice, no doubt, that people do not want to make. But it is a choice they will be forced to: “UK or EU”, “both” will not be on the ballot paper.

So which to choose?

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The Voice

WATCH: Lynne Featherstone on 5000 same sex marriages

By The Voice | Tue 14th March 2017 - 8:27 pm

The Liberal Democrats have discover that there are 10,000 happy people thanks to Lynne Featherstone’s persistence in getting same sex marriage through.

Watch her video on the subject;

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John Kelly

Royal indiscretion

By John Kelly | Tue 14th March 2017 - 6:55 pm

This week it was reported in the Times that President Reuven Rivlin of Israel had invited the Royal Family to send a representative to the country this year to celebrate a hundred years since the Balfour Declaration.  There is intense speculation in the Israeli press now that the Royal Family might break its longstanding reluctance to visit Israel officially.  It would clearly invite controversy to visit a country in such flagrant breach of international law – defying the United Nations with its illegal settlements, child detention, blockade of Gaza and marginalisation of its ethnic minorities.  The Balfour Declaration, as well as promising a home for the Jewish peoples, also promised that the rights of the Palestinians must be protected.  This was ‘a sacred trust of civilisation’ under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations which Britain took on when it accepted the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. We betrayed that sacred trust and, until that trust is redeemed, the Balfour Declaration should not be celebrated.  A petition to the Queen’s Private Secretary to discourage such a visit is circulating.

The idea that the Royal Family would give any sort of endorsement or honour to the State of Israel this year sadly fits with a pattern of inadvisable steps that have been taken in the last couple of years.  The weekend before her infamous visit to the White House, Theresa May told Andrew Marr that it was up to the Queen whether President Trump was invited to Buckingham Palace this year.  Within days she had extended an invitation on the Queen’s behalf, which was of course accepted, to great public outcry in the UK.  American presidents crave the publicity that goes with a State Visit to the UK – remember Ronald Reagan on horseback with HM at Windsor.  Normally US Presidents must wait until their third year in office – if indeed they get one at all.  That gives them a chance to show that they are a good friend to the UK and frankly deserve it.  George H Bush never had one at all.  Donald Trump hasn’t done anything for the UK yet, and is a major potential threat to the world order.  His visit, if it happens anytime soon, will be highly controversial and will embroil the Royal Family in politics.  It was unwise of the Palace to go along with Theresa May in approving Trump’s visit in his first year.

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Caron Lindsay

Lorely Burt calls for help for girls in “period poverty”

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 14th March 2017 - 5:30 pm

Every time I remember when I’m in the supermarket, I try to buy a packet of sanitary towels to stick in the food bank donations trolley because I know how difficult it is for women facing poverty to deal with the additional cost that periods bring. The BBC reports this week that girls are missing school because they can’t afford sanitary protection.

Girls in the UK are missing school because they cannot afford sanitary protection, a charity has said.

Freedom4Girls was contacted by a school in Leeds after it became concerned about teenage girls’ attendance.

The group provides sanitary products to women in Kenya – but is now doing the same in West Yorkshire.

One teenager told the BBC she taped toilet roll to her underwear and missed school “every month” because of her period.

Two teenage girls spoke to BBC Radio Leeds about how they tried to cope without tampons, sanitary towels or pain relief.

A discussion on Women’s Hour this morning also highlighted the problem.

It’s good to see that our Equalities spokesperson, Lorely Burt, is bringing this up in her speech in the Budget debate in the House of Lords.

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Arfan Bhatti

Preparing for 2020 Parliamentary Selections: Returning Officers

By Arfan Bhatti | Tue 14th March 2017 - 4:24 pm

With snap election candidacy expiring at the end of May, the selections for 2020 are drawing ever closer.

Returning Officers are the little known but crucial role to enable this. They’re the link that makes open selections possible and the more we have now the faster we’ll be able to get a full slate of candidates in place for 2020.

The good news is you can help enable a swift timetable of selections by training to be an RO as early as April via a two day training session run over Easter weekend. There’s also a great introductory session happening this Saturday at Spring Conference (11.00am to 12.30pm) and you can also get a feel of the role by shadowing Returning Officers if you can’t make any of those dates.

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Martin Roche

Drive the wedge

By Martin Roche | Tue 14th March 2017 - 3:08 pm

The weekend’s media was full of reports of bitter disputes between No 10 Downing Street and The Treasury. Hitherto buried tensions have surfaced publicly, following the Chancellor’s NI debacle. Hard Brexiters, we learn, want to see Hammond off and have him replaced by one of their own. The Tory party is as split on Europe as ever it was. It is up to us to exploit those divisions. It is up to us to remind the public that the ruling party is a split party. Split on EU policy, economic policy, foreign policy and social policy.

In the very near future …

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Keith Legg

Why I’m supporting Yes this time

By Keith Legg | Tue 14th March 2017 - 1:41 pm

In September 2014, you could well be expected to have thought that it was all over. The “no” vote to independence – including mine – was 55%, the SNP broadly accepted the result, and it looked like there was no way the Tories would win an overall majority in 2015, effectively ruling out an EU referendum.

How things have changed.

In 2014, I started the referendum relatively open-minded but leaning towards a “no”, but by the end (and having been firmly put off the idea by Alex Salmond) I was quite firmly in the “no” camp.

But in my head I was clear about one thing. My priority was to remain a European citizen. I would prefer to do that as part of the UK, but if that wasn’t possible then other ways had to be considered.

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Joe Otten

Nick Clegg struggles to be polite about the government’s self-deluded piffle

By Joe Otten | Tue 14th March 2017 - 12:01 pm

Nick Clegg, blistering in the Standard, warns that the government is condemned to break its Brexit promises.

Recalling promises of a stronger trading position, the continuation of the benefits of membership, no hard border with Ireland (never mind Scotland), less red tape, taking back control – never mind the £350 million; Nick warns of an impending reckoning.

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Lord William Wallace

Reaching out to the ‘Left Behind’: what policies should we put first?

By Lord William Wallace | Tue 14th March 2017 - 11:08 am

The pitch which the Leave campaign successfully made to the poorest 10% of UK citizens in last June’s EU Referendum was that their problems of low pay, insecure jobs and waiting lists for affordable housing were all due to competition from immigrants, and would be eased by leaving the EU. The budget, with little on social housing and less on funds for schools or other public services in deprived areas, has made their situation worse, rather than better. Labour has been hesitating about how far to buy into their grievances about immigrants. How should Liberal Democrats respond …

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Aude Boubaker-Calder

The United Kingdom is my country and I will fight for it

By Aude Boubaker-Calder | Tue 14th March 2017 - 10:15 am

Dear House of Commons,

This evening, I have heard that you voted in a majority to be a place where the unrepresented are being devalued and brushed aside like piece of dirt on your suit. You, the country of one of the first parliamentary democracies who gave a voice to the people you represent. You, who decided that the absolute monarchy and aristocracy were unfair and a voice should be given to everyone. You just tarnished the name of democracy and multiculturalism.

EU expatriates might be your friends, your neighbours, the ones who serve your coffee in the morning before your session, …

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Joe Otten

Article 50 is not the only or the best way to leave

By Joe Otten | Tue 14th March 2017 - 8:33 am

Now that the invocation of Article 50 is imminent, I thought I would reflect on how we managed, as a country, to gain such momentum for such a bad way of leaving the EU.

Firstly, it should be understood that before Article 50 was agreed, it was not impossible to leave the EU. Greenland did so, by agreement, and without that agreement being subject to an arbitrary one-sided deadline. The point of agreeing Article 50 was not to make it possible to leave, but to make it harder. Article 50, like Trident, is not meant to be used; that is not …

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Caron Lindsay

Heartbreak

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 13th March 2017 - 10:30 pm

I’m feeling pretty heartbroken at the moment. Like Charles Kennedy, I’m a highlander, a Scot, a Brit and a European, with the first and the last most important. Now my rights as a European citizen (though I will be one no matter what) and a British citizen are under threat.

As I write, the Labour Party, the so-called opposition, is about to crumble  and let the Government have its way on the Bill that will pave the way for our exit from the European Union. It beggars belief that the Government has been able to get this through without any serious opposition. It’s the greatest issue of our time, and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party might as well have been part of the most right-wing, isolationist, dangerous government we have  had in my lifetime.

I’ve been fairly sure that the country has been headed to hell in a handcart before. There was the 80s, for a start, when Thatcher destroyed the industrial fabric of our country and championed selfishness over community. You thought things could only get  better with a Blair Government but he ended up ruining the country’s standing with the folly of Iraq.

I thought I had felt heartbreak in 2011 when I saw so many of my friends lose in the Holyrood election, when we lost our MEPs and the turmoil that followed, in 2015 when the General Election result was the worst we could have anticipated. None of that, tough that it was, comes close to my sadness and fear for the future.  I feel like we’re throwing away our safety net in so many ways. What will be left of workers’ rights and human rights in ten years’ time?

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Caron Lindsay

Labour crumbles into farce but Lib Dems stand firm in opposition to Article 50 Bill

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 13th March 2017 - 9:38 pm

It’s time to report the Labour Party to Advertising Standards or something. They certainly shouldn’t be allowed to call themselves an opposition after they have spectacularly failed to provide any on the most crucial issue of our time.

The amazing Lib Dem Press Office has been providing some rather entertaining commentary as the country falls apart.

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Caron Lindsay

Rennie and Farron react to Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement on the second independence referendum

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 13th March 2017 - 9:09 pm

It looks like either a second referendum on Scottish Independence in 5 years is on its way. Either that or an indefinite stalemate between the Tory Government in London (who must give permission for the vote) and Nicola Sturgeon’s nationalist government in Edinburgh.

This was inevitable ever since the Brexit vote. That a large majority of Scots voted to remain in the EU was always going to lead us to this place. Nicola Sturgeon built a very big tent in the hours after the result was declared but she and her ministers spent the rest of the Summer dismantling it piece by piece. They talked about independence incessantly. Now, they’re a nationalist government. They are not going to give up on independence because they lost a vote any more than I’m going to give up on the EU.

You have to govern for all of your people, though and, at the moment, there is no sign that anything like a majority of the  Scottish people want an independence referendum. For many, relationships from the division and polarisation of the last one are only just healing over.

Willie Rennie and Tim Farron have both been reacting to today’s announcement. Willie said:

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David Grace

Is Trident’s successor a white elephant?

By David Grace | Mon 13th March 2017 - 6:30 pm

On Saturday afternoon Spring Conference debates motion F11 “Towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons” which actually endorses the government’s plans to replace Trident with Successor at a cost of £200 billion, twice the original estimate.  The motion also talks about developing multilateral negotiations and ending Continuous-at-sea Deterrence (CASD) but in essence it supports a like-for-like deterrent, which we opposed through the coalition years.

I was on the working group which drafted the report which this motion approves, but I don’t agree. I’m tabling an amendment which agrees with most of the motion’s analysis and call for beefing up negotiations but also calls for Trident to be phased out and NOT replaced.

Many party members have long supported ending the UK’s nuclear weapons but others have placed their faith in nuclear deterrence on balance.  People may feel the global security situation inclines them more than ever to support replacing Trident with the Successor programme.  The argument can be summarised as “Oh my God, Putin !, Oh my God, Trump !  We better have our own nukes”.  I originally felt that the party’s latest working group on the subject was a waste of time.  Nothing had changed.  But I was wrong.  

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John Leech

John Leech writes…Help save fire-rescue hero from deportation

By John Leech | Mon 13th March 2017 - 4:57 pm

If I asked you to imagine your ideal community, who and what would be in it? What kind of people would you choose to have as your neighbour? Would you want a neighbour who would be there in your moment of need – maybe even go as far as risking their life for you?

Well, you may have heard that just over a month ago, a resident here in Manchester did just that.

Robert Chilowa ran to the scene of a ferocious blaze engulfing a neighbour’s house after hearing screams of terror. He rescued two young children from the flames and assisted another who had broken her ankle in the disaster that had already claimed the lives of their grandparents. His heroic efforts were the only saving grace in an otherwise tragic event.

Now, I’ll take a pretty good guess that you’d want this man as your neighbour, right? Well, despite braving the devastating fire in Withington, rightly garnering national headlines, he has now been threatened with deportation.

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Antony Hook

Join @timfarron for Euro campaign photos at conference

By Antony Hook | Mon 13th March 2017 - 4:17 pm

I’m really proud to be the Liberal Democrats’ Brexit Spokesman for the South East.  Working with Nick Clegg, our national Brexit spokesman, to hold the government to account and fight for the true national interest could not be more important.

One of the most successfully ways to communicate a message is visually. Pictures speak loudly.

I would like to mention two opportunities, if you are coming to party conference this weekend, to join photos that you can use at a local level.

First, we know that hard Brexit is putting our future under the axe. No-one voted for the Brexit axe to fall on family …

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Posted in Conference, Europe / International, Europe Referendum and Events | Leave a comment
Tom Papworth

Hammond is right to break the Conservatives’ National Insurance pledge

By Tom Papworth | Mon 13th March 2017 - 3:17 pm

Philip Hammond’s decision to raise National Insurance contributions (NICs) for self-employed people has been the most eye-catching and controversial aspect of the budget. No less captivating for a Liberal Democrat has been our party’s response. Lib Dems are understandably keen to hammer the Tories for breaking a manifesto promise. And MPs have been quick to paint themselves as the defenders of entrepreneurs and small business people (though patronising them as “White van man” is probably unwise).

For all that, the Chancellor’s policy is right – though it goes only a tiny way to treating all workers equally and fairly. Let us look first at the tax break and then deal with some objections.

  • Employees pay class 1 national insurance at 12% on earnings from £155 to £877 a week and 2% on earnings above that. The weekly sums are supposed to equate to £8,060 and £43,000 a year.
  • Employers also pay 13.8% on top of what the employee pays. Despite the myth that “employers pay” and that this comes out of profits, this is a tax on employed people’s wages. This is the biggest part of the injustice in the tax system and the chancellor has not touched it.
  • Self-employed people pay class 4 national insurance at 9% on profits between £8,060 and £43,000 and 2% on profits above £43,000.
  • Self-employed people also pay class 2 national insurance at a flat rate of £2.80 a week if they earn over £5,965 a year. So silly is this policy that George Osborne killed it (from April 2018). Interestingly, as part of that it was announced that class 4 national insurance would be increased to compensate, so there is some cover for Mr Hammond’s move.
  • Those incorporated as companies are able to take their income as dividends rather than salary, and so avoid NICs altogether.
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Posted in News | Tagged and | 18 Comments

What’s the REAL state of the parties?

By Brian Milnes and John Grout | Mon 13th March 2017 - 1:49 pm

Frequent Opinion Polls since May 2016 show one picture; Conservatives way ahead, Labour & Liberal Democrats suffering, UKIP hanging on.

But when we look at “Real Votes from Real People”, from a 310,000+ sample size, from 3 countries since May 2016, we get a much different picture:

 

Local government by-elections may not be translatable into General Election results, but they show a remarkably different position – and one that is much more attuned with feedback from the doorstep.

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Keith Aspden

Welcome back to York and join us campaigning!

By Keith Aspden | Mon 13th March 2017 - 12:37 pm

As the countdown to party conference continues, I would like to say how pleased I am to be welcoming Spring Conference back to York.

Visit York estimate that the weekend will boost the city’s economy by more than £600,000. And I know that pubs, hotels, B&Bs, guest houses, and restaurants will be reporting soaring demand. Added to the short-term economic boost is the long-term impact that the continued national exposure will bring. It is a showcase for York as a destination for conferences and events. York is a beautiful, well-connected city with the potential to hold many more big political and business conferences.

It is also a chance for our members in York to meet our MPs and peers as well as councillors and campaigners from across the country. And as we all know, a chance for local party members to actually debate and decide national party policy.

In York, our councillors and members have been working hard since we formed a joint administration in May 2015 to run City of York Council.

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Katharine Pindar

Now we must stand firm, and proclaim our own powerful vision.

By Katharine Pindar | Mon 13th March 2017 - 11:25 am

So we come to the crunch. We have voted against triggering Article 50 in both the Commons and the Lords. We are being attacked, as Tim Farron was on Radio 4’s Any Questions last Friday night, for being anti-democratic.

I have read this accusation many times here on Liberal Democrat Voice. I have occasionally heard it on Copeland doorsteps too, during the recent by-election. No amount of pointing out, as Tim did again that night, that the people who voted Leave in the Referendum had not voted to leave the EU Single Market has cut much ice with those voters who simply demand, ‘We voted to leave – get on with it!’  Theresa May’s government will shortly obey them.

Were we wrong in what we insisted on? And if so, are our electoral chances being harmed by that public perception? Maybe the latest Tory wins in local elections, maybe the commanding Tory lead in the opinion polls, maybe the too-few votes for us in the recent by-elections – perhaps they all had some small connection with public disagreement over our known stance. Could that be the case?

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