Tag Archives: lib dem vice president election 2021

Amna Ahmad is our new Vice President

The following announcement has been published on the party website today by Chief Executive, Mike Dixon:

Amna Ahmad has been elected and will take up the role of Vice President responsible for working with ethnic minority communities.

Thank you to Amna and all of the candidates for taking part in the election. The results can be found in full here.

As this was a by-election, Amna’s term will run until January 2023.

Posted in News | Also tagged and | 3 Comments

Vice President Election: Elect a VP for inclusion, Elect Marisha Ray

Editor’s Note: Liberal Democrat Voice has invited all six candidates for Vice President to submit an article in support of their candidacy. They are allowed to include two photos and video content. You can find out more details about the candidates and election, including the hustings tonight (Wednesday 8 December), here. Votes must be cast by 12 pm on Friday 10th December. 

This article is by Marisha Ray

Are you a Liberal Democrat member? There was never a better time to join than now, just before the North Shropshire by-election.

If you are, please vote in the election for a Vice President for minority communities and give me, Marisha Ray, your first preference?

I work to end the exclusion of people from all sorts of minority communities from many areas of UK life. We need your contribution to tackling this within our communities and also within our party.

Simply being from a minority community, and I am, does not make a person able to tackle these issues.

A person who has the grit to tackle these issues as a private individual, which I have, and a person who has successfully worked on equalities in other sectors has the experience to tackle the issues here.

I successfully campaigned for the Alderdice inquiry on barriers to people from minority communities in the party and worked at board level in the NHS and local government on this in one of the UK’s most diverse areas.

Starting young, I have worked on board level governance for over three decades, and have stood as a candidate for parliament three times, including at a by-election, and the London Assembly also three times including this year. For eight years, I was a leading councillor in the UK’s fastest improving council reaching out to many communities in an area with great diversity, in addition to being a party returning officer for almost two decades, and a member of the Federal Policy Committee advising on diversity.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | Leave a comment

Vice President Election: I will end the BME Deficit says VP Hopeful Rabi Martins

Editor’s Note: Liberal Democrat Voice has invited all six candidates for Vice President to submit an article in support of their candidacy. They are allowed to include two photos and video content. You can find out more details about the candidates and election, including the hustings tonight (Wednesday 8 December), here. Votes must be cast by 12 pm on Friday 10th December. 

This article is by Rabi Martins

I have not taken the decision to seek election as Party Vice President lightly. It is too important a post for that. I realise that Isabelle Parasram has done a great job of raising the profile of Liberal Democrats amongst many BME Communities in England, Scotland and Wales. Yet within the Party BME members struggle to make any significant headway. The new Vice President must redress that balance.  I know it is a challenge I can rise to because, as a member colleague told me “no one has worked as hard or for so long on Race Equality and Diversity Issues within the Party as you have.”

Back in 2001 I persuaded Lord Dholakia to review Diversity and Racial Equality within the Party. Consequently we established the Ethnic Minority Election Task Force which led to the election of our first BME MP since 1892. Soon after EMETF was disbanded and progress has stalled.

So bar that one significant achievement with EMETF and despite concerted efforts by me and several others, Liberal Democrats continue to remain the least BME friendly Political Party in the UK. How a Party that claims to campion a Fair, Open and Equal Society is able to live with that label beats me.  Yet time and time again attempts by internal campaign groups such as EMLD and LDCRE to persuade the leadership to initiate corrective action are met with platitudes and excuses.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 5 Comments

Why you might want to wait before casting your vote for Vice President

Over the past few days, information on how to vote in the Party’s vice presidential election have been emailed and posted to members.

The Vice President is responsible for working with ethnic minority communities. This is the first time there has been an all-member ballot for the election. The Federal Board chose the first VP – Isabelle Parasram, who has stepped down to take a politically restricted role.

There are six candidates in this election, listed in alphabetical order of surname. If you click on their name it will take you to their manifesto.

Amna Ahmad

Roderick Lynch

Tahir Maher

Julliet Makhapila

Rabi Martins

Marisha Ray

Voting is open until 10th December. I would recommend holding off casting your ballot until you have seen the candidates in action at one of the hustings events. Conference chose to impose a zero spending limit on candidates for their campaigns. The Federal Board had offered conference a choice and the arguments in favour of a zero limit prevailed. These were based on making the contest more accessible.

Posted in News | 7 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Simon R
    @Tom: The proposal seems plausible - and personally I'm open to anything that might help Ukraine on the battlefield. The idea has the advantage that Trump would...
  • Tom arms
    I am delighted that my article spawned all the comments that it has. In fact I’m a bit chuffed. But none of you have addressed my central proposal which is th...
  • Craig Levene
    Rearm Nigel ; Labour have just commited to raise spending from 2.3 to 2.5 %. I don't think that will be enough to make dent in the deindustrialization that's ha...
  • Caron LindsayCaron Lindsay
    Thanks to everyone who noticed we had missed out on Nadia Whittome’s actual quote - now fixed....
  • nigel hunter
    DEI has indeed taken the reason for young men to exist when one of its priorities, for example, is the empowerment of women so that young men feel left out. The...