Following the close of nominations, we are now in a position to announce the Liberal Reform board for the 2021-22 term.
New to the board this time are Daniel Duggan, Emily Tester, Oliver Jones-Lyons and Julia Wright.
Julia is a long time supporter of LR and will be known to many of our members, but to introduce you to the rest:
- Daniel has been a member of the Liberal Democrats since 2010. He studied at the London School of Economics, Durham University, and Northumbria University. He has previously worked in the legal sector and has been a Tutor at Durham University where he taught the history of political thought. He is Vice-Chair of Gateshead Liberal Democrats and has been a Councillor in Gateshead since 2016.
- Emily is a communications and community engagement consultant, supporting developers and local authorities bringing forward major developments across London and the South East. Emily joined the Liberal Democrats in 2013, and has served as a Parliamentary Candidate in Brighton Kemptown, and a town councillor. In 2015, she also worked for former Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Williams as a campaigns organiser in Bristol West. Emily’s main areas of interest are housing, transport and planning, with a constant frustration at the sometimes “NIMBY” attitude of Liberal Democrats locally.
- Oliver joined the Liberal Democrats in March of 2019 after cancelling his Tory party membership; realising that his economic and social liberalism was not at home in the Conservative party. As a working class young person living in the North East of England he has seen how people want to be supported to get on in life, rather than having a nanny state forcing them down a selected path. He became involved in Liberal Reform through his work as youth officer of the Green Liberal Democrats trying to reach out to establish inter-organisational links to ensure Liberal Reform seeks to build consensus across the party. His policy interests lie in building an economically liberal vision of how to solve the climate emergency, localism, spending money frugally to ensure we save money later and tax reform.
You can see the remainder of the board here.
Our thanks go out to Dan Carr for his work as returning officer, as well as for all the effort that he has put in to Liberal Reform over the past two terms – many of the changes that have happened in the recent past with how we operate would not have happened without him. Our thanks also go to Robert Johnston, who, like Dan, is stepping down at the end of the current term. Robert has played a key part in overhauling our website and implementing the paid membership scheme, and his knowledge of policy and philosophy has been invaluable over the past two years.
The newly elected board will now meet in the coming weeks to decide on new co-chairs as well as other roles, before formally taking responsibility in January.
