Nine years ago, Nick Clegg’s resignation speech prompted a surge of new members to join the party as it reeled from the 2015 general election.  Many of those new members, who by then had formed a Facebook group to welcome new members to the party, attended the autumn conference in Bournemouth and met for an informal drink the night before it started.

At every in-person autumn conference since (except for last year), the Lib Dem Newbies Pint has been a fixture, the evening before Conference opens.  It’s been attended by hundreds of members, by MPs, peers, and has even been addressed by party leaders.

We’re pleased to announce that the Newbies Pint is back for a special edition this year, marking how far we’ve come since those dark days of 2015 when the surge of new members gave us hope amid the crushing blow of the election result.  Of the thousands of new members the group has welcomed to the party online, many have gone on to become councillors, MPs, and even MEPs.

We’ll be hearing from two fantastic newbie MPs, Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) and Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne).  We first met in 2015 in the aftermath of our worst election result ever; this year we’ll be celebrating our best.

Come and join us in the Steinbeck & Shaw bar at Pryzm, near the conference centre, from 7pm on Friday the 13th of September.  Entry costs only £2 and all proceeds will go to the Newbies Fighting Fund supporting first-time candidates.  Newbie-ness is a state of mind, not a joining date: all members are welcome.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Brighton!

Yours,

The Lib Dem Newbies admins