We have reached a key moment in British politics. The recent local election results show that the two party system is well and truly broken.

Of course we have been claiming that for many years, but the scale of the losses for the two main parties – both at the same time – were, according to John Curtice, unprecedented for local elections.

A lot of that was down to big Liberal Democrat gains, but most of that was down to the anti-liberal Reform UK party, who are now threatening to destroy the Tory party and to take away Labour’s working class base.

In addition to all that we see internationally that Trump’s threats to seize foreign lands and impose trade wars has seen a significant blowback against the rising tide of populism with the astonishing re-election of a Liberal government in Canada and a huge victory for Labor in Australia.

There is a lot for liberals to mull over right now and as it happens we have two big events coming up over the summer where we can debate all this and much more besides. For this article I will write about our conference and AGM event at the Manchester Friends Meeting House on the Saturday 7th June.

We are delighted to announce that the local MP Lisa Smart has agreed to speak at this conference. She is our Home Affairs spokesperson, and her brief covers the issue of immigration, which is one topic we will be covering. Clearly the Reform narrative on immigration is winning them support and increasingly winning over the Labour party as well. Can we win support by presenting a compelling liberal counter narrative?

We will also be covering the New International Order. Our speakers will be Christine Cheng is on the FPC and is a senior lecturer in War Studies at Kings College London and Phil Harris, who has an academic and business background in international trade. President Trump has a clear preference for bilateral trade agreements where he hopes he can take advantage of US power against economically weaker nations. He wants trade blocks like the EU to break up for that reason. He doesn’t care about the UN or NATO or the rules-based international order. What should be the liberal response in how the UK, EU and Canada navigate this much more difficult terrain?

And finally we will be looking at “Should the Liberal Democrats be the Community Champions? Is there a future in Community Politics?” Our speakers will be Maggie Lishman, deputy leader of Burnley council and Carl Cashman, leader of the Lib Dem group on Liverpool council. There is not much you can do in local government these days as the newly elected Reform councillors are about to find out. Not only that, many local councils are also facing financial disaster and the Labour government is not going to rescue them. So what can we do? Community politics is about devolving power so that people and communities can participate in the decisions that affect them. How far can we realistically achieve that?

Given the five party politics that we have today, we believe the Lib Dems need to have a stronger identity in the public debate and we all as Lib Dem members need to get involved to help the party to do that. You are very welcome to come long to our conference. Advance bookings make it easier for us to organise, so to that end we are offering an early bird ticket price up to 23rd May.

More details can be found on our website.

* Geoff Payne is a member of the SLF council