Tag Archives: omov

Paul Walter

++Conference passes “One member one vote” for party elections and conference votes

By Paul Walter | Mon 21st September 2015 - 6:49 pm

Hallejujah!

We have got there! We have at last completed our arduous journey over mountain, through thick jungle and through crocodile infested waters. We have at last arrived in the Elysian Fields!

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Posted in Conference | Also tagged and | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

Conference Countdown 2015: Would you abolish One Member One Vote if it was already in place?

By Mark Pack | Wed 16th September 2015 - 11:55 am

A good test of a proposed new rule is to imagine: if it was already in place, would you be convinced by arguments to abolish it? So imagine with me that the Liberal Democrats had one-member, one-vote (OMOV) in place, instead of our conference representatives system, for electing our federal committees and for voting at party conference. A world with all party members able to vote in both.

It would not be nirvana. You can imagine some being concerned about the time and cost involved in coming to conference and the members who therefore miss out. You can also imagine complaints when ballot papers come round that members do not know enough about what the candidates are like or their track records.

So take one more step down imaginary lane with me and picture me at a podium in front of you, laying out all these problems and revealing – hooray! – I have an answer.

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Posted in Conference and News | Also tagged , and | 15 Comments
William Hobhouse

It’s time to change the distinction between voting and non-voting members at Conference

By William Hobhouse | Fri 24th July 2015 - 10:25 am

A couple of years ago, when we moved house and constituency, I had the new experience of going to Conference with a second class label hanging around my neck. I did what I could to carefully adjust my pass so that my picture and name was facing out. But these passes have always had a mind of their own and I would walk from Hall to Fringe all too often as someone labelled as ‘Member’ rather than the important or well-connected ‘Voting’ people.

And now we have thousands of new members, some of whom will be looking forward to their first conference. Pretty well all of them will be unable to vote. Nor will a good chunk of the party’s activists who have stood locally in May.
This distinction between voting and non-voting members doesn’t separate the activists from the sleeping members. It seems primarily to protect privilege, to protect the well connected, those with the ear of the constituency officers. It is a privilege in a thoroughly conservative sense.

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Posted in Conference and News | Also tagged | 20 Comments
Robin McGhee

Opinion: Should all-member ballots replace conference on policy votes?

By Robin McGhee | Mon 20th October 2014 - 3:43 pm

Laptop and mobileThe Liberal Democrat conference’s decision to support the use of One Member, One Vote (OMOV) in federal conference decisions is to be welcomed. It means any member who attends conference can vote on conference decisions, not just leading figures and those elected by their local parties to be conference representatives. While this is all very good news, we can go a lot further.

Instead of conference making policy decisions, it is a logical next step to give all members the power to make policy regardless of whether they attend conference. We can do this by conducting all-member online ballots.

The most obvious benefit of this is it would enormously increase participation in decision-making in what is already, by miles, the most democratic of the four biggest UK parties. It seems fairly obvious ordinary members should have a say on the policies their party proposes, without having to fork out hundreds of pounds to attend conference. Older and wealthier members are more likely to attend conference because they have more time and money, meaning policy-making is less representative. Letting all members have their say would eliminate these problems.

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Posted in Op-eds | 60 Comments
Stephen Tall

All in a day’s Lib Dem conference: hustings, fringes, OMOV and sex work

By Stephen Tall | Sat 4th October 2014 - 7:00 pm

It’s felt like a slow start to conference – I’m habituated to the Friday night rally and meaty policy debates starting at bleary o’clock on Saturday morning. But with the rally moved to Saturday night, conference itself wasn’t opened until this afternoon.

20141004_100527_resizedHowever, that meant there was time this morning for the first official hustings of the Party Presidential contest, with Sal Brinton, Daisy Cooper, Linda Jack and Liz Lynne all present. In fact, there was possibly too much time – 90 minutes in a too-efficiently air-conditioned room at times dragged a little. No fault of the candidates themselves – they were all fluent and thoughtful – but they also all agreed on pretty much everything of substance. All pledged to be the independent voice of the membership and to speak truth unto leadership power.

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Posted in Conference | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , and | 8 Comments
Daisy Cooper MP

Opinion: Less than 2% of members will vote at Conference: this is not an ‘internal democracy’ of which we can be proud

By Daisy Cooper MP | Thu 2nd October 2014 - 12:45 pm

We make much of the fact that we’re the most internally democratic of the political parties. We say that it is our members who vote on policy, elect those who organise our conferences, and those who hold our party officers to account.

But in reality, it is just a fraction of our members who perform these functions: less than 2% in fact.

Of our total membership, just 5% are appointed as voting representatives. Of this 5%, just 1.63% have – as of today – registered to attend our forthcoming Autumn conference (these figures were provided to the FE sub-group tasked with looking at One Member One Vote). That means that just 1.63% of our total membership are entitled to vote and have registered for conference.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 50 Comments
Louise Shaw

Opinion: Let’s move to one-member one-vote

By Louise Shaw | Thu 6th March 2014 - 2:59 pm

Following on from Sue Doughty’s excellent invitation to the consultation session on one-member one-vote (OMOV) for our party’s important committees, I’d like to give my perspective as a young(er) member on why I will be supporting this move at conference this weekend.

Sometimes people on the inside of the party can forget what it’s like to be on the outside, and also what it’s like to be a new member. Imagine for a minute you’ve just joined the party, your eyes and ears full of ideas. You’ve joined the party because of a shining commitment to involving members …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 34 Comments
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