South Lincolnshire Liberal Democrats

The Federal Conference Committee (FCC) met on Saturday, 15th January to start its work on the final agenda for Spring 2022 Conference, which will be taking place virtually via the Hopin platform.

If you haven't yet registered for Conference, I would recommend doing so here.

We've had a few departures from the FCC in the last few months and welcomed two new members. Jennie Rigg ceased being the English Party's Representative to the FCC and Jenni Lang stepped down as the Scottish Party Representative after becoming the Convenor of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. I would like to place on record our thanks for their service to the FCC, they will be missed, and we would like to wish them all the very best for the future. We welcomed Matt McLaren as our new English Party Rep and Paul McGarry as our new Scottish Party Rep to the committee.

The headline "two new MPs so far in this Parliament" is a welcome one. Winning, especially winning with record swings, is what we all want.

Underneath the headline is a lot of hard work, plenty of tough decisions, and a drive to improve. We should all be thankful to our activists, staff and supporters.

A series of free to attend, direct engagement events taking place across the East of England designed to hear what you, our members, have to say.

Each event will be opened via live stream on a giant screen by an independent political commentator. Adam Boulton (until recently Editor at large for Sky News) will open the first roadshow on Thursday 17 February in Bury St Edmunds.

As we know the MP for Grantham and Stamford was parachuted in because it is a very safe Conservative seat. He repays that by always voting with the whip and looks to climb up the political ladder by never rocking the boat.

Therefore, no matter how outraged local people might be about all the recent revelations, he sees no reason to say anything. He's not in the same situation as many Conservative MPs that are now worried about losing their seats. We need to change that.

You may remember, last November, taking part in a survey on members' views on Brexit and the party's campaigning on the future of UK-EU relations. Thanks to everyone who participated - 6,500 members, more than any previous survey of this type - and thanks to Greg Foster and Dan Schmeising at party HQ who organised it on behalf of the Federal Policy Committee. This article gives you the results.

After the disappointment and failure of the 2019 general election, an independent post-mortem was carried out into what went wrong. The findings of the Thornhill Review set a broad and challenging reform agenda for the party, which we've made good progress on implementing so far.

On the role of the Federal Board itself, the Thornhill Review found that:

LGBT+ Lib Dems are pleased to announce our new Executive lineup for 2022.

Gareth Shelton remains our Chair, with Charley Hastead as Vice Chair.

Alan Collins Rosell continues as Treasurer, and Tara Copeland is our new Secretary.

Guy Benson is our Membership officer.

The ordinary members of the executive are Luke Allan, Edmund Dean, Andy Hinton, Caron Lindsay, Rachel-lee Mackenzie, Katharine Macy and Jennie Rigg.

FPC members started the year bright and early with our first meeting last week. We cancelled our December meeting so we could all focus on North Shropshire, so this was our first meeting since November.

Big areas of focus for FPC this year will be further work on our messages and key policies to support them, leading up eventually to the Manifesto for the next General Election; and our substantial programme of working groups developing policies in politically useful areas, to bring to autumn conference.

In 2021 we achieved something we've not achieved since 1993: winning two Parliamentary by-elections in the same year off the Conservatives. We start this new year with a larger Parliamentary Party than any of us would have dared dream of a year ago. (A winning run that has continued with the first council by-election of this year too - congratulations to now councillor Andrew Dunkin who won a seat from Labour from third place.)

We hope you all enjoyed a relaxing festive period.

2022 will be an essential year for the Green Liberal Democrats, the party, and the wider environmental movement.

Our Annual General Meeting is scheduled for 4PM on Saturday the 29th January.

Add the event to your Google Calendar here

The AGM provides a platform to elect our officers and executive and agree on a shared direction of travel in this most vital year.