Our party is a bit like a family, including the fights, factions, and fallouts. But like a family, there are lots of different interests that bind us together alongside our belief in liberal democracy.
In the past, interest groups who wanted to formalise and become recognised by the party had to go through a process to become an “Associated Organisation” or a “Specified Associated Organisation”. Back in 2020, however, the Federal Board asked for a review of the way this worked, and how these groups interact and work together with the wider party.
Since then we (Flo Clucas, Tim Pickstone, Bess Mayhew and Steffan Aquarone, ably assisted by Jack Coulson) have spoken to dozens of party organisations and surveyed hundreds of their members – from the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors, to Liberal Democrat Women, and everything in between. We found a number of consistent themes.
There were lots of ways we identified that could make the process simpler, and more broadly appealing to the richly diverse range of interests that are aligned to our cause as Liberal Democrats – resulting in the simple status of “Affiliated Organisation”.
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