#lib-dems

Politics

Lib Dems vow to fight 'hard Brexit' after Richmond by-election win

The Liberal Democrats have vowed to fight against a "hard Brexit" in the aftermath of the party's stunning victory in the Richmond Park by-election. A buoyant Tim Farron, the Lib Dems' leader, said the Prime Minister must listen to calls to avoid a British exit from the EU that involves losing access to the single market. It comes after Sarah Olney overturned a massive Tory majority of 23,000 to oust pro-Brexit Zac Goldsmith, who resigned in protest against Heathrow expansion and stood as an independent in the southwest London seat.

It does look now as if we can have a vote in Parliament that might override the referendum. And I will, obviously, be voting to Remain because that is always what I have believed.

Mrs Olney told Sky News that the result paved the way for Parliament to "override" the EU referendum result

Mr Farron hailed the result as a "historic moment for the country", and said it was a verdict on Mrs May's "UKIP-ish" take on Brexit. He told Sky News that while one by-election result could not change governments, they can "change a Government's attitudes and direction". The result was seized on by the European Parliament's lead Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, who congratulated Ms Olney and said Europe "is watching". Conservative MP and Remain campaigner Anna Soubry said the result was "sensational", writing on Twitter that MPs "ignore Remainers at their peril & u can forget #Hardbrexit". A Downing Street spokesman said: "The referendum result was very clear and the majority of the country expressed an opinion for us to leave the EU. The Government is getting on with delivering that."

We at least end up with a soft Brexit, in which case, future generations of British people will have an awful lot to thank Sarah and the people of Richmond Park for.

It’s been a long while since I posted on here, partly because I was rather fed up with politics and I was more in the mindstate to yell about things and that’s for twits on twitter rather than for a (semi) serious politics blog.

But I got an email today informing me that this blog is one year old today, which means that it must be just a little over a year since I realised that my political loyalty lay with the Liberal Democrats. And what a year it’s been....

Starting off by taking up my mums delivery route of only our small road I eventually ended up joining the Liberal Democrats in mid-February, for the hefty price of £1.

Not long after joining I decided to actually get out and help on the front lines, my town Watford was a key battlezone for the Lib-Dems. We run the council, our directly elected mayor Dorothy (now Baroness) Thornhill is a Liberal Democrat and if the polls were to be believed it was a battle we could win. Let’s just take a moment to cackle at the “if the polls were to be believed”.

Done? Good.

During that time campaigning in Watford I met so many people, and I can safely say most of the Lib-Dems I met were some of the nicest people I’ve ever known. If they hadn’t been so welcoming I may not have got as passionately into the Lib-Dems as I did.

Election day was a hive of energy and I canvassed and delivered as much as I could, taking a brief break to attend some unimportant business known as college. At 10PM I left the office and went home.

And then I saw the exit poll. And then the actual results came. Those who know me will know there are a few things I passionately hate in this world, one of them is smoking. And yet, on May 8th, when asked how I was feeling after really thinking about it I replied “I feel like I now truely understand the “I need a fag” feeling”. It was....well I tried kicking various things and I think I managed to scare off a Tory supporting friend who tried to make a joke towards me. It was a bad day.

My main memory of that day was waking up to see Nick Clegg’s email annoucing his resignation to the party. I can stil remember just muttering “Oh....Nick...” and wanting to give the poor bastard a hug.

As the leadership election got into full swing I switched from supporting Lamb to Farron, a man I believed could give a new energy to the down hearted liberals and rebuild our base so we could really get back into action at some point soon.

Since then I’ve come to university and helped form the Liberal Democrat society here, it’s been slow going but it’s getting somewhere. And today I take part in the first meeting for the “Better In” campaign of Hull. I’m looking forward to having a new battle to fight, although god help me working alongside Tories will be an experience.

I’ve made some amazing friends in the Lib-Dems, and met some honestly outstanding and incredible people. Some of my best friends now are fellow Liberal Youthers and I’m booked to attend my first Lib-Dem Conference this March.

I promised a while ago that I would write a proper explaination as to why I decided I was a Liberal Democrat.

Well it’s an important question, since I have committed myself in so many ways to the party. I’ve spent hours of my free time canvassing or delivering for them, attended various events hosted by them, and even essentially dedicated a blog to them, although I write up my own views a plenty.

The explaination to why I’m not any other party I did earlier, and it was a bit all over but it’s hard to explain exactly why, as when it’s a loyalty like this it comes from the heart and gut as much or more so than it does the head.

How did I wind up coming to the Liberal Democrats? Necessity to start with. I was desperately looking around for MY party. The party I could stand with happily and support, without going tactical. I ended up looking into the Liberal Democrats out of fairness, I’ll be honest. I decided I should give them a chance.

That chance involved me going to their website and looking through policy, and policy alone. I liked what I saw. So I began to dig deeper, and deeper. And it was the mental health thing that hooked me. It was Norman Lamb’s efforts to raise awareness and support those with Mental Health issues. It was the promise of more funding and better care. As I’ve written before, my uncle killed himself when I was 15, and my partner at the time (and still my very best friend) suffers from no end of mental health issues herself. It’s something I care deeply about and that was enough to earn my support. Other matters such as supporting those less well off have an equal chance in education certainly caught my eye as well.

So I began to be a “keyboard activist”, sharing their posts on twitter and posting about them favourably. And then after not so long I decided to make this blog. Not long after I bit the bullet and turned up to my local party to help out. It wasn’t the tipping point, but it set things in motion. I was met with a friendly bunch of people, all passionate and all dedicated. After a great day I agreed to go out with them again the next day.

As that continued I ended up meeting a girl called Dipa via twitter, a local Lib-Dem who helped introduce me to the Liberal Youth and get me involved in the online community the party has. And that probably led to the tipping point if I look back.

What I met was a group of passionate, often very down to earth people who really cared about what they discussed. I met people who could possibly have been successful in another party but were there because they were liberals at heart, and success was secondary.

And by god, I found leading figures who CARED. My local Mayor and parliamentry candidate Dorothy Thornhill, introduced to me on my first day ever so briefly, recognised me each time afterwards and always at least seemed happy to see me. I was new but even on the first day I was asked my views in matters and listened to seriously by councillors who’d known me for 5 minutes. And it didn’t stop in my local party. Others I saw or spoke to always made the effort to hear out the views of the membership. It’s telling that at conference the membership gets to put forward their own motions and vote on them, and in the last conference “One Member, One Vote” was approved for future conferences, meaning that you didn’t have to be a voting member for your local party to decide.

Credit should also go to Caron Lindsay and the wonderful people who run Liberal Democrat Voice, where all members can speak their views happily and debate freely. I know other parties have websites like this but having looked at both Conservative Home and Labour List I’ve found LDV to be the most inclusive in terms of freedom for all members to contribute and on how listened to they are.

It was about a month or so from the election when I realised that I had in fact, found a home in this party. That these were people I was HAPPY to put in the hours for, not just to be a good trooper but because I WANTED to help them.

Since the election this feeling has only increased. I’ve seen new members like Joanne who I’ve mentioned previously listened to and be treated kindly by so many in the party (especially our new leader Tim Farron), as well as my own experiences of it that removed any idea of snobbery within the party (at least that I’ve met).

Willie Rennie the Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader’s full UNEDITED piece in the National on the refugee crisis

On 8 May the leaders of the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party resigned following a shock Conservative victory at the general election. Nick Clegg said that it had been “a huge privilege and unlimited honour” to serve as leader for the Liberal Democrats but that the party had suffered “catastrophic losses” and that they must “reflect on these in the time ahead”; meanwhile, Ed Miliband stepped down claiming that the Labour party “needs to have an open and honest debate about the right way forward”.

Both parties had done worse than expected at the polls and both now desperately needed to reorganise in order to move forward and start rebuilding so that they may once again be seen as electable come 2020.

However, this is where the similarities between the parties’ post-election woes end. The leadership elections that followed the resignations of the leaders have taken two very separate routes. While the Liberal Democrats have elected Tim Farron as their leader in a very private, respectful leadership contest that took just 10 weeks, Labour’s leadership election has been an incredibly public vicious battle that is set to drag on for a total of 18 weeks until a leader is finally elected in September.

Given the extent of Labour’s loss the acting leader of the party, Harriet Harman, claimed that the party’s leadership contest must take place in the public eye. She said: “We have to go back and ask local people from those areas [in which we lost] to be brutally honest about what they think of us and what they want from us”. As a result hustings were to be televised and take place in marginal seats so that all candidates could be properly scrutinised by the electorate.

In contrast to the Labour election, the Liberal Democrat leadership contest was much more low key. Instead of appealing to the wider public the party who were in government with the Conservatives before the election opted for a contest that was much more focused on their party members. Sal Brinton, the Liberal Democrat president, argued that the party had chosen for a swift election so that they can begin campaigning immediately. She stated: “We know we have some major elections to fight next year, the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly, the London assembly as well as a very large number of council seats.”

When it was announced last Thursday that Tim Farron was to be the new leader of the Liberal Democrats the mood from his party was one of excitement and eagerness. The party was ready to move forward under their new leader and do everything they could to re-engage with the electorate.

There was no divide in the party with supporters of the only other leadership candidate, Norman Lamb, equally anticipating with enthusiasm the challenge ahead. Lamb himself congratulated his rival on twitter claiming that Farron would be a “passionate leader of our party, championing social justice and leading from the front in our campaign to rebuild the liberal voice”.

The future of the Labour Party couldn’t look more different. Through their “open and honest debate” the factions within the party have become visible: The party is divided between Old Labour, New Labour, Blairites, Brownites and everything in between. The stark differences between the policies offered by leadership candidates Liz Kendal and veteran MP Jeremy Corbyn highlight the differences in beliefs of party members. In reality, Labour seems less like one untied political party and more like a coalition of MPs of opposing beliefs.

Ed Miliband was criticised by many for not being a strong leader but one thing he did do was hold a divided party together and make them work as a unit. In his absence, the invitation for MPs to express their opinions openly has caused the party to fall apart as Labour MPs begin to fight amongst themselves.

Chuka Umunna has accused some members of his party of “behaving like a petulant child who has been told you can't have the sweeties in the sweet shop” during the leadership election and Harriet Harman has seen MPs revolt against her decision for the party to abstain on a vote to changes to welfare benefits.

It is impossible to imagine how that party will be able to work together and MPs put their differences behind them post the election of a new leader, especially now that the range of opinions have been so widely circulated by the media.

With a new leader now elected and the whole party fully behind him, the Liberal Democrats looks like a party who are ready to fight the government over the next five years and make their voice heard so that they may once again become a relevant party within the political system. Labour however look nowhere near ready to fight for the hearts and votes of the British electorate.

Tim Farron’s First Speech as leader of the Liberal Democrats

I watched this speech from the back of the crowd you see behind Tim, and it was incredible. I almost wished I’d been in the main crowd to be able to watch Tim’s face. Not the best view from the back after all.

It was incredible. It was fantastic. Inspiring. There were grins and cheers and the crowd’s reaction was fantastic. I saw tears from some. There was a wonderful set of glares towards the news man who started talking on the upstairs balcony during the speech but luckily it doesn’t seem to be picked up.

Tim’s caring nature showed through when the guy collapsed/fell over in the middle of his speech. I was surprised by how he reacted, expecting a brief check if they were okay. I like to think that got flagged up in news reports but I doubt it.