Yesterday, Together Alliance, a coalition of civil society groups aimed at standing up to the far right held a march in London at which our Leader in the London Assembly, Hina Bokhari, spoke.
Watch her speech here.
View this post on Instagram
Hina has written before for us about her own experience of racism and Islamophobia. Nobody should have to put up with that.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
What really happened? (Simon Banks)
Why community politics matters (Mark Corner)
A Federal Britain: 1. Renewing democracy through fair representation (Iain Donaldson)
A roadmap to Queer Equality (Tara Foster)
A strange but welcome feeling (Jennie Rigg)
From Norman settlement to a civic square
Northern Ireland debates the future of its railways in 1957
"The old savage England": D.H. Lawrence visits the Stiperstones
Church Green video
Doing my bit at Whickham Church Green
Have a goat day tomorrow!
Pride inside instead
Replacing a one party state with another
Thinking of standing for election or re-election next year? Helpful questions to consider
The Joy of Six 1528
Andrew Tampion 
Jeff 
Nonconformistradical 
John Peters 
David Raw 
8 Comments
Thank you so much Hina for being there and bearing witness for yourself and for the Lib Dems. Where we might ask were the Lib Dem MPs, and of course where was our Leader? Is the fight against the Hard Right and racism not their cause? Why was Zac Polanski the only main Party Leader there, with his Green MPs? Making the case that surely we should share? Great day for Hina for making the case but the Lib Dems absences should concern us too.
Excellent speech with a clear, simple, and unifying message.
A great speech from Hina & we are grateful for her being there, together with all those party members & councillors who attended. I agree with @ChrisCaswill that there appeared to be no official party presence under a Lib Dem banner. Unlike for example, our vocal & huge presence at the Anti-Iraq war demonstration led by Charles Kennedy. This was a missed opportunity to show our opposition to far right extremism, racism, hate & divisive politics in our society. Why would miss such an opportunity to demonstrate our values.
Yes Chris, the absence of Ed and all other Lib Dem MPs at this event is being widely noted. Many Lib Dem Friends of Palestine members were present, as they are on the regular all-inclusive peace marches in London (and round the country at peace vigils). But the party leadership seems to have given up on public promotion of our core liberal values. They’re giving the Greens a clear run, just before an election, and making many of us wonder…
Like @Chris Caswell, where was any official Lib Dem presence? where were the MPs, where was our President who vowed many times to “be a voice” for the Lib Dems.
Very thankful to Hina for standing up and speaking out, and doing so well, but she should have been one of a number.
I am not for one minute criticising what she said, grateful she was there and was good, but the coachload from Tees Valley that I helped to organise and fund should have be able to hear more than “we are London”. they are definitely not London, many of those on the coach are now citizens (small c, not official British Citizens yet) of the UK, and need to be made welcome and feel safe. Not for Hina to say that, but “someone” from the Lib Dems should have, people were there from all over the UK.
I don’t expect a Lib Dem spokes to come up here from London, but more than reasonable if people from Tees Valley go down to London to be able to hear a Lib Dem voice for them.
rant continued
I feel there is a brick wall round the Lib Dem establishment. I wrote to the President over a week ago with my concerns about the party, and the impact on me of the leaders speech at conference, waiting for a reply before deciding to leave, after 52 years, but that looks like it has stayed behind that wall, just as the small delegation that came to London to talk to an MP about some immigration issues (he was called away at the last minute, we had a constructive meeting with his researcher, but the issue is in that same bin behind the wall).
Signed, angry with the party (except Hina and her colleagues!) from Stockton.
Yet another bit of incompetence or uncaring from HQ. This should have been well attended by MPs and we should have had a top MP speaking. Ceding the ground to Greens to give a speech almost identical to our main talking points is such lazy, bad politics. Comms isn’t fit for purpose. the CEO who’s enabled this poor showing isn’t fit for purpose. We need change at HQ and this is just one of the many examples.
I’m ‘surprised’ that Ed missed this opportunity.. Surely he could at least have fallen off a paddleboard on the Thames?