Sal Brinton has explained that:
There will be a series of official Leadership hustings around the country (they are currently being arranged, so watch out for details near you), as well as some online or streamed events. In the last Leadership Election these hustings were very popular, as well as the SAOs who may also have social media Q&As with the candidates.In the event that there is only one nominated candidate we will discuss with them continuing with some of these dates as Meet the New Leader events.
The Social Liberal Forum has been quick off the mark. Our annual conference this year will be held on Saturday 15th July in London.
We had already rearranged the programme to include a slot for a hustings, and this will become a ‘Meet the New Leader’ event if there is only one candidate. The latter seems the most likely outcome at the moment, but not all MPs have declared whether they are in or out, and someone may yet put their name forward to ensure a contest. We will know for sure by next Wednesday.
The overall theme of the Social Liberal Forum Conference is ‘The Retreat from Globalisation’. In the morning we will be exploring some aspects of that topic including input from Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London and a member of the Chilcot Inquiry. Ed Davey will be tackling global warming and the impact of Trump’s response.
Before that William Wallace, who is our Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, will give the William Beveridge Memorial Lecture in which he will address our fate in a post-Brexit world and the shift towards the politics of hate.
In the afternoon our discussion will be more about domestic matters. A number of well-known Lib Dems, including Lib Dem Voice’s Caron Lindsay, plus Sarah Olney, David Howarth and Daisy Cooper will look at the General Election result from various perspectives. And we will end the day quizzing the Leadership candidate(s).
The conference is being held in London, at a venue just two stops on the Tube from Kings Cross. The Early Bird rate ends on Wednesday 5th July and you can register here.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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3 Comments
Why should it be a ‘meet the new leader’ event? In most uncontested elections in our party we have R.O.N on the ballot paper. Why not in the election for leader? No coronations are wanted in our party
@Mick
I also do not want a coronation, however you cannot force MPs to stand for Leader.
Where does RON get you? Nowhere. We become leaderless, unable to respond to the pressing issues of the day and become even more irrelevant to the general public. If RON wins it is pointless having another election, so we drift on to oblivion.
Far better to replace the hustings with a meet the leader/deputy leader so that a debate can occur between them and the membership.
Dear Sisters, Brothers, Friends and Supporters,
The Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats are very keen to hold a hustings to hear the views of the prospective candidate/s for the Leadership of the Liberal Democrat Party as it has previously done.
The membership look forward to hearing what a future Leader of the Party has to say about tackling Race Inequality and Intersectionality, and state exactly what they intend to do to remove the very real barriers that exist.
Given the recent comments from a prospective candidate about their naive understanding of the Gender Agenda and Race Inequality, it is apparent that we have a serious problem in our Party.
Along with EMLD I look forward to speaking and working with a future Leader to create the Party of ‘Equality, Fairness and Justice’ that many of us believe the Liberal Democrat Party can easily be, but this will require action and not merely a continuance of the laudable rhetoric that we have heard for far too long.
Yours sincerely and fraternally
Namaste
Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Chair – Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats