Conference is nearly here…

Autumn Federal Conference

Our Bournemouth Conference (20-23 September) is nearly here. It may be only our second Autumn Federal Conference since the start of Keir Starmer’s time in 10 Downing Street, but already politics has moved on hugely. With the dramatic failure of Labour to fail to get to grips with government, the rise of Reform and Kemi Badenoch being… well, Kemi Badenoch, there are new and important political opportunities for the Liberal Democrats.

We see that week in, week out in council by-elections where it is only the Liberal Democrats who can consistently take on and beat Reform. Even in former Labour seats where we start a long-way behind, it is so often us who surge in support, making the contest a Reform versus Liberal Democrat one.

But this is not only a matter of political campaigning tactics, with our campaigning being the answer to Reform. At a more fundamental level, our political philosophy is also the antidote to Reform’s. 

Understanding the need to fix social care for our NHS to prosper, the need to reform how we are governed, believing in working closely with our neighbours rather than seeing them as enemies - and loving our country rather than having long lists of fellow citizens who we dislike, those are all the liberal and democratic answers to the extremism and populism of Reform. 

All those challenges require us to keep our policies fresh and our campaigning skills sharp. There is no better place to debate policy or to get high quality training than at our conference. 

So I hope you can join us at Conference, whether in person or online, and take part in shaping our party, departing even better equipped to promote our values and win elections.

Registration information and further details about Conference are on the party website.

I am also intending to make it to the Scottish Lib Dem conference this autumn, so for members who cannot make it to Bournemouth, I hope to see many of you there.

Helping local party officers

One of the conclusions from our general election review was that the party needs to find ways to better support our local party officers, both by reducing burdens on them where we can, and also by more positively making it easier for local parties to increase their capacity for campaigning.

In the last few weeks, therefore, a survey has been sent to local party officers as part of the work to implement that part of the review. It is people’s chance to highlight what would most help. 

There are of course many broader factors that are relevant to the success of local parties too. But the survey deliberately focuses in on how we can make it easier for you to run a local party really well.

An email about the survey went to all the local party officers recorded in our membership records and for whom we have a working email address with permission to email it. If you or anyone you know should have received it but did not, please contact help@libdems.org.uk so that any issues about the party’s records can be sorted out and a replacement survey supplied.

If you are a local party officer, thank you for your time taking part in this survey - and for all you do for our party.

Federal Board business for Conference

Along with the many other items on the agenda, there are a clutch of party business items from the Federal Board. 

There is the usual motion on membership subscriptions and related financial matters. It does not propose making any changes to the core numbers but does propose a little more flexibility for future membership recruitment pilots.

It is also the time in the five year cycle for Conference to agree names for the Federal Party members of the Federal Appeals Panel.

Spring Conference agreed an updated set of election regulations for the imminent party internal elections. However, since then several people have spotted a technical problem with some of the very longstanding wording over how STV counts are done. Although that wording has been in place for decades, once the problem was spotted, the Board decided it was better to take the opportunity at this Conference to correct it.

The Board is also reporting to Conference an update to the party’s Complaints Procedures. These changes are a general tidy-up of the wording, intended to make the process easier to understand and simpler to administer, rather than to make substantive changes. 

Finally, there is also a constitutional tidy up motion. Again, this is not intended to make major changes to how the party is run, but rather is a bit of good periodic housekeeping, sweating the detailed wording and following up on previous decisions that require some further tweaks to implement.

More details on all of these are in the Federal Board Report to Conference, and if you have any queries about them, please do drop me a line.

Do you have questions on any of this report, or other Lib Dem matters? Then please drop me a line on president@libdems.org.uk. Do also get in touch if you would like to invite me to do a Zoom call with your local party or party body.