Federal Communications and Elections Committee July report

General Election preparedness

As is our key focus, in our last meeting we continued to discuss our General Election preparedness and planning. 

In summary, our plan builds on what worked in the 2019 general election (and previous plans), changes what didn’t work, and looks to the future for new ideas and approaches. 

The plan is a live document and progress is being made in all the areas, with a relentless focus on ensuring that we can deliver gains at the next General Election: whenever it may be.

Westminster Candidates review

The Committee previously commissioned a review into our Westminster candidate selections. We felt strongly that the recent round of selections have been too slow and cumbersome. Change is desperately needed. 

We are thankful to Alison Suttie and Tim Farron for their comprehensive review, the thirty interviewees and more than 50 others who provided input in writing. The review points to a roadmap for a more efficient future process. 

Candidate selection is a State matter, and we are also thankful to the States for their engagement with the review. We look forward to taking this work forward as a team. The final version of the report will now go to the Joint Candidates Sub-Committee, the appropriate body for cross-state candidate discussions. 

We must not be this delayed again. 

Target seats

We also discussed our target seats, their activity levels and campaigns, and what more can be done to support them. 

It is critical for that Party's success that we build up our strength across the country - whether that's going from no councillors to our first, or from holding the Council to winning the Constituency. However, learning from 2019, we are making sure to focus our efforts more effectively. 

Some seats are performing extremely well and our target seat pool, as a cohort, are getting stronger and stronger. We are regularly reviewing the target seat list and the performance of seats pushing to be in that tier. 

Campaigns staff continue to engage at the Federal, State, Regional and Local level to make sure our work is aligned. 

FCEC considered a report from ALDC about next May’s local elections. In 2021 elections were held for the postponed 2020 elections as well as for the normal round in the election cycle. 

There are 2112 vacancies up for election with the Party defending 365. There are also 39 PCC and Mayoral Elections as well as London Mayoral and GLA. The party is defending control in 10 places. Although it is a smaller round of local elections, everyone in England will have an election due to the PCC and PFCC elections.

FCEC is encouraging Liberal Democrats to campaign where they live shows less active members and supporters of the value their membership brings.