Tag Archives: english council

There is a substantial debate taking place within the Liberal Democrats at the moment, though you may have heard nothing about it: should the Party be a member-led, volunteer-based organisation or become professionalised, organised by a paid staff funded mainly through high-value-donor contributions?

You may remember that at Spring Conference in Harrogate, the Federal Party adopted a constitutional amendment to take on the responsibility for candidate approval and selection (item F10 on the conference agenda), putting these into the hands of the paid campaigns team.

In that way, F10 was a step towards the “professional” Party route.

Whereas, the current system for candidates, which in England consists of regional candidates’ chairs working together though the English Candidates Committee, with the elected English Candidates’ Chair, represents in this case the “member-led” approach.

As the Liberal Democrats are a Federal organisation, the F10 amendment will only come into force if it is approved by the three State Parties: England, Scotland and Wales. (Here we should recognise Matt McLaren and other members of the English Council who were able to confirm this in the meeting.)

Therefore, on Thursday last week, there was a meeting of the English Council, the 150 members elected to govern the Liberal Democrats in England, with the main item on the agenda being a constitutional amendment submitted by the Chair and officers to transfer those responsibilities to the Federal Party.

If you are a member of the Liberal Democrats in England you may already have read an email from the English Chair, Caroline Pidgeon, laying out the result.

There were 132 members of the Council present.

80 (60.6%) voted for the amendment (as amended).

52 (39.4%) voted against.

Leaving the motion 8 votes short of the two-thirds needed to amend the constitution.