It’s that time of year again; this weekend the Liberal Democrats head to York for Spring Conference. As Brexit continues to dominate the headlines, Conference presents an opportunity for the party to re-assert itself as the only credible UK-wide party in favour of a People’s Vote. As ever, Liberal Reform Read more…
To celebrate International Women’s Day 2019, Liberal Reform sat down with two of our board members, Aria Babu and Ruby Chow, to discuss liberalism, the Liberal Democrats, and gender equality… Liberal Reform: What does liberalism mean to you? Aria Babu: Liberalism is difficult to pinpoint. It fades in and out Read more…
By Callum Robertson, @Callum4Clacton This article features as a contribution to Liberal Reform’s review of the 2010-2015 Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government. When reviewing the Liberal Democrat record in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) during the Coalition, it is easy to castigate our party over the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment Read more…
by Aria Recently, British regulators and lawmakers have started to acknowledge the health benefits of certain, previously banned, substances. Cannabidiol (one of the chemical constituents of cannabis but with virtually all of the stuff that gets you high – THC – removed) has been legal since 2017. As of the Read more…
by Robert Johnston, @robertj55 With the selection of the party’s London Mayoral candidate imminent, the team at Liberal Reform want to ensure party members are able to make an informed choice. So, we invited each of the candidates to discuss their experience, campaigning priorities, and policies. Liberal Reform is not backing Read more…
This article originally appeared on Co-Chair Andy Briggs’ Medium blog, you can view the blog post here. According to recent research done by BMG, there are 10 distinct ‘clans’ of British voters based on the values that they hold. It was no surprise to me that I belong to the Read more…
You can download our briefing by clicking here or you can navigate to the next side by hovering over the bottom of the PDF below. You can download our Sharing Economy publication by clicking here. If you’d like to receive our daily briefing please click here to fill in our Read more…
by Robert Johnston, @robertj55 In the rather dry text of the Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on copyright in the Digital Single Market there lurks, behind the good intentions, an information restricting and illiberal set of proposals. The infamous Article 13. The objections of the Read more…
by Harry Samuels, @CuriousCabbage The goals of Liberal Reform are some of the most simple and refreshingly put. We advocate four-cornered liberalism. But the corner that is most frequently misunderstood by so many in the party is that of economic liberalism. It is seen by many to be in opposition Read more…
The increase in the income tax personal allowance has been one of the coalition’s biggest successes, delivering tax cuts to the lowest paid who are most in need of help. It is increasingly clear to the public that this sort of help for the lowest paid would not have happened Read more…
You may have seen in the media that it has been confirmed that the party will debate a motion on economic policy at conference in Glasgow. Unfortunately the motion selected for debate is not the one submitted by members of Liberal Reform. However, the motion, backed by Nick Clegg and Read more…
Commenting on today’s spending review, Alan Muhammed, co-chair of Liberal Reform, a Liberal Democrat internal party pressure group, said: “The Liberal Democrats cannot achieve their aim of creating a stronger economy and a fairer society without putting the public finances back on a sustainable footing. Reducing the deficit is not Read more…
Dear Nick, As you know, the report of the Joint Committee which considered the Draft Communications Data Bill is enough to chill the blood of any liberal. It is a significant credit to you personally and our party’s role in government that that committee existed in the first place, and Read more…
The Chancellor’s reaffirmation of the government’s commitment to bringing down Britain’s unsustainable deficit is welcome. However, nobody could accuse the coalition of not being flexible when it comes to balancing the books: as a result of harsher economic winds, primarily from the eurozone, the government is borrowing tens of billions Read more…
Liberal Reform has aimed to be a membership-based organisation since it was launched in February last year, and we’re glad that we’re on our way to achieving that. Interim elections will choose four new board members at Lib Dem Spring Conference. Once the board is elected, it will choose two Read more…
Liberal Reform has welcomed the news that Nick Clegg has agreed to meet with campaigners against the Justice and Security Bill. The news comes at the end of a week in which two Liberal Democrat MPs on the committee considering the Bill voted against the principle of introducing secret hearings Read more…
Following positive feedback at the last conference, Liberal Reform will be providing a free daily conference briefing which you can sign up to by emailing: mail@liberalreform.org.uk Liberal Reform, will be holding two events at conference both on Saturday 9th of March 2013 “Inside the Coalition” at 1pm and the “Liberal Read more…
Liberal Reform welcomes many of the individual measures outlined in the Autumn Statement. The faster-than-expected increase in the income tax personal allowance and the freeze in fuel duty are particularly welcome, and reflect the Liberal Democrat priority of reducing the tax burden on those on low and middle incomes. We Read more…
Liberal Reform is proud to carry this letter from Jo Shaw who led the debate against secret courts at Lib Dem Autumn Conference 2012, and support the campaign for an open, liberal, justice season led by her and Martin Tod. We are cross posting this letter with simultaneously with colleagues Read more…
As you will have seen from our daily conference briefings, Liberal Reform had a very busy time at this year’s conference: holding fringe meetings, successfully amending motions and spreading our positive message to Liberal Democrats. You can see videos of some of our fringe events, including David Laws on tax Read more…