Here is Tim Farron’s message to welcome the Year of the Monkey:
It is with great pleasure that I wish UK’s Chinese diaspora communities a very Happy Lunar New Year on the advent of the Year of the Monkey!
I am delighted that ties between UK and China have strengthened and deepened over the years and am deeply appreciative of the many contributions the Chinese living in the UK have made to our economy, enriching our local communities.
I am particularly proud that we have a British Chinese candidate from my party standing in the Mayoral and London Assembly elections this May. I therefore ask for your support and vote for the Liberal Democrats to elect the first British Chinese London Assembly candidate this May.
With new challenges confronting the world that we live in, I believe we will need to be resourceful and forward looking, and work together within Europe for greater progress and for peace.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a wonderful festive season and a happy, healthy and prosperous year in 2016.
Xin Nian Kuai Le! Gong Hey Fatt Choy!



4 Comments
Dear Sisters, Brothers and fellow liberal believers,
EMLD wishes everyone a happy, prosperous, healthy and otherwise fortunate New Year for this the year of the Monkey.
Fortune though is best reached by forward planning, so I would commend everyone to seek the compliance of our Party with the Equality Act, 2010, as this will genuinely aid us to become a more reflective and responsive Party to the needs, expectations and desires of our incredibly diverse society.
Let us make 2016 reflect within our Party the positive attributes of the ‘Monkey’, those being enthusiastic, self-assured, sociable, and innovative to make change, rather than the negative ones of being jealous, suspicious, cunning, selfish, arrogant and fearful of and towards change.
Our Party principles are fairness, equality and justice, this is the year to put the fine rhetoric into genuine action for all to see.
EMLD stands with and amongst you to achieve these goals.
Namaste
Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Chair – Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats.
Happy new year to the Chinese.
Looking forward to Tsai Ing-wen taking office as president on 20th May this year.
Why not just “Gong Hey Fat Choy” (I think that’s something like the Cantonese version)?