In May, we at the English Young Liberals got massively stuck into campaigning for the local elections! Proving ourselves to be a massive driving force in the locals, we held multiple action days in twenty different locations across the country, with many often happening on the same day. We’d like to thank all the local parties in supporting us setting up these action days, and to give a huge thank you to every Young Liberal that turned up and made the action days a success!

As well as campaigning, we also saw at least thirty-five Young Liberal Councillors get elected across twenty-five Council areas! This is a fantastic result for our organisation, and we know these councillors will be excellent young voices for their local communities.

Seven of those elected included members who were part of the Future Councillors scheme, which is a joint programme run by ALDC and Young Liberals to give our young candidates the training and boost they need to win – thank you to ALDC for their part in delivering this! The scheme will continue to run and get more people elected in 2024 and 2025.

Many young candidates were recipients of our own campaign fund, Young and Winning. If you’re a young person hoping to get elected, do make sure to apply to Young and Winning! Successful applicants will receive funding, enabling them to get out that extra round of literature they need to win. To help us to support as many young people as possible, donate to the Young Liberals here.

Throughout planning our action days, we wanted to make sure that all of our members had an action day nearby that they could turn up to. As a result, we had action days running in parallel up and down the country on weekends leading up to polling day. Over the course of the campaign, we are proud to have advertised action days in all eleven English regions!

I had the pleasure of going along to our Stratford-Upon-Avon action day, which was a massive success! Coming from the University of Warwick, and the University of Birmingham, our team of Young Liberals got out on the doors canvassing for the brilliant Letty Petrovic. At the election, I’m pleased to say that she got elected! Congratulations to Letty and to everyone in the team in Stratford-Upon-Avon for the amazing result they achieved – we were delighted to play our part!

In sunny Surrey Heath, my Co-Chair James joined the amazing Surrey Heath PPC Alasdair Pinkerton on the doors! They had a great day on the doors campaigning for local candidates, and we hope to see Alisdair on the campaign trail again soon.

Pulling the absolutely classic move of point-at-the-pothole, here are two of our members out and about canvassing in York! Like the look of Jack’s Young Liberal branded tote bag? You can buy some YL merch for yourself from our online shop!

Over in Ely, Young Liberals Vice-Chair, Cllr Nathan Hunt, popped over from his patch in Huntingdon to get on the doors for the local team there!

Overall, we had a brilliant turn out up and down the country – I can only imagine how many doors knocked and FOCUSes we delivered! Congratulations to everyone who got elected, and once again a huge thank you to everyone who helped us have such a successful polling day!

* Joe is a Town Councillor in his home town of Rushden, and is Co-Chair of the English Young Liberals for 2023.