Of all the topics that my first Lib Dem voice article might have been about, I never dreamed it would have to be this one. 

The recent change, during an election, of our party’s diversity quotas is nothing short of shameful. The decision itself is abominable, the manner in which it was taken was disingenuous, the announcement was cowardly, and the justifications have been fundamentally flawed.

There are many authors on this site and members in our party who are trans or non-binary, and their opinions and thoughts on this situation should carry far more weight than mine. However, in the light of this newest betrayal when it comes to the rights of our trans and non-binary siblings, there sprung up a fundamental contradiction in our party that I felt required sharing.

Many of our sister parties around the world look to the Liberal Democrats as torchbearers on matters of LGBTQ+ rights. On the world stage, we are seen as being among the most progressive, the most committed, and the most forward looking on these issues. Indeed, colleagues from around the world have, and continue to, actively look to us for advice and guidance on these matters, believing our positions to be the standard to which many wish their own parties would hold themselves.

Yet, lately, the gulf between the way we are seen by our international friends and the reality of our party here at home seems to be widening.

One of my first experiences representing the Liberal Democrats was on bilateral trip to Finland. The youth wing of one of our sister parties there had invited the Young Liberals to come and advise them on how to improve their policy on trans rights in the face of the prevailing laws at the time, which were draconian.

At the time, my colleagues and I could sit with confidence in the offices of our Finnish friends and point to Liberal Democrat policy and party structure as evidence of approaches that were liberal, inclusive, and effective. We were proud to have been invited, and we were even more proud to be able to share with our sister party the progress we had made.

Years later, those laws in Finland at which we took aim in those meetings have been changed. Meanwhile our laws here at home have only gone backwards, and our party seems to be going the same way.

Abroad, we still fight tooth and nail for the betterment of LGBTQ+ rights around the world, but it is becoming harder and harder to back that fight up with evidence of our own actions at home. 

This change to our diversity quotas is yet another inexplicable attack on trans and non-binary people from a party which purports to be a political home for all. I, like many others, joined this party precisely because of that promise – a promise that is now being broken time, after time, after time.

And it is a move that fundamentally contradicts everything we stand for when looking out to the world. How can it be that we have, for decades, remained at the forefront of global LGBTQ+ rights, but are failing so miserably at home to apply that same compassion and commitment to members of our own party?

With this most recent betrayal of trust by the party, I and many others who have the privilege of representing our party to the world, are at our wits end. In a world that is so mindlessly hostile to trans and non-binary people, where once we could proudly stand in defence of equality and compassion for all with the full backing of our party, we now have to defend these principles seemingly alone, as our party becomes ever more weakened by the hatred and bile spread by an unwelcome few.

We must put an end to this. For the sake of our country, for the sake of our party and, most importantly, for the sake of our trans and non-binary friends. We have an ideal to live up to. The image so many of our international friends have of us in their heads is exactly the kind of party we should be aiming to be. We were that party once and, I hope, with every fibre of my being, that we can be that party again.

* Sean Bennett is a member of the Federal International Relations Committee and an elected Bureau member of LYMEC, the youth wing of the European ALDE party. He has formerly been the International Officer of the Young Liberals and was the 2024 parliamentary candidate for Norwich South.