Having lived in Basildon for my early years David Amess was known to me and a friend to members my family.
It is therefore a personal blow to think that a man who served his community faithfully should be taken in this manner. Along with all fair minded people the Constituency Liberal Democrat party would like to offer sincere condolences to David's family and friends.
Welcome to Bexhill and Battle Liberal Democrats. We update our website regularly and hope it will tell you all you need to know about what the LibDems are doing both locally and nationally.
In Rother we form a significant part of the ruling Rother Alliance, providing three of the nine Cabinet posts including both Environmental briefs, and at County we form the official opposition. If you would like to get involved at any level we would love to hear from you.
Our Councillors are here to serve you, so please don't hesitate to get in touch, and please do check the website regularly.
The Vagrancy Bill is a blunt outdated instrument that makes criminals of rough sleepers. It hurts the people most in need in our society.
Liberal Democrats have been fighting to scrap it for years. And today, the Prime Minister has been dragged kicking and screaming to a point where even he admits it needs to go.
The meeting will be finished by 12.30 p.m. at the latest at which time the Committee will be heading to the Wickham Bistro, Wickham Avenue for lunch. If you would like join us for this lunch, please let me know on bexinfo@bexhillandbattlelibdems.org.uk by 14 October at the latest in order that we can let the Bistro have numbers.
Opposition parties at East Sussex County Council united to angrily condemn a last
minute change of heart by Conservatives on a cross party Notice of Motion on
climate change which councillors were given a 20 minute adjournment to consider.
Liberal Democrat Climate Change Spokesperson Cllr Colin Swansborough explains:
"Cllr Nick Bennett, the Lead Member, agreed with the Notice of Motion that asked
the County Council to support the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill. However,
when this came to full council for debate on 12 October, Cllr Bennett issued a last
minute set of recommendations that were completely different to his initial response.
This kind of political skulduggery has no place in this council and also raises
warnings for COP26. Will the Conservatives change their mind nationally as well as
locally?"
Labour Cllr Chris Collier agreed:
"This was a cynical and hypocritical misuse of the democratic process. It was
extraordinary that a substantial change like this should have been thrown at Council
at the very point at which this item was about to be discussed. We had no notice of
this substantial change and no opportunity to give it proper scrutiny."
Green Cllr Wendy Maples added:
"We were sorely disappointed in our Conservative colleagues who seem to think
point-scoring is more important than the planet."
Green Cllr Georgia Taylor noted:
"This could have been an historic moment of cooperation in the interests of people
and planet".
Independent Cllr Stephen Shing agreed:
"We should stick to the 2030 target. The Bill has cross party support and party
politics should be put aside with an emphasis on the future of the planet."
Opposition parties at the Council demanded an adjournment but realised that more
time was needed to consider Cllr Bennett's recommendations fully. A proposal to
defer discussion to the next County Council was voted down by the Conservatives.
In collaboration with the Liberal Democrat European Group, the Federal Policy Committee are organising regional events giving members a chance to shape our policy on Europe. We want to hear your thoughts on what our priority areas should be, what solutions you might have to problems raised and how we can continue to promote a close relationship with Europe.
The autumn party conferences traditionally mark the start of the new political season. They are a time to reflect on the past year and set out plans to succeed in the coming year.
Both politics and coronavirus have made it a tough time since the last round of conferences. But we can look forward to this new political season with confidence that if we continue to raise our game, we can prosper. We've seen signs of that already, including with Sarah Green's fantastic win in Chesham and Amersham and also with the latest net favourability leadership polling from Savanta ComRes:
The Federal Conference Committee recently met to discuss the Conference format for 2022.
We considered a number of options for next year's conferences and took the difficult decision to hold Spring Conference as an online conference and only returning to an in-person event for Autumn Conference. The dates of Spring Conference will be 11-13 March 2022 and we will announce the dates and venue for Autumn Conference in due course.
On Monday 18th of October the Board will hosting a surgery for all Party members.
This is an open invitation to everyone, whether you have a burning question for us, would just like to get to know the Board a bit better, or have an issue you'd like to raise. We are all ears.
The session will run from 18:00-19:00, please feel free to drop in and out as best fits your day, and you can register here.
As seats begin to elect new Parliamentary election candidates, now's the time to get your stationary stocked up.
After requests from a number of new candidates, we've worked with Election Workshop to put together a fantastic deal to ensure your candidate has a well stocked supply of letterheads for responding to casework.
This Autumn, we say goodbye to Isabelle Parasram, our Vice President responsible for working with ethnic minority communities.
Isabelle has been a tremendous advocate, leader and example in the Party and she will be greatly missed. We wish her all the best in her new role as Chief Executive of Social Value UK, which has led to her making the difficult decision to step back from the demands of the Vice Presidential role.
The Federal Communications and Elections Committee met this week to discuss some key challenges and opportunities ahead for the Pary.
Campaign innovation
The Campaign Innovation Fund team, supported by ALDC and others, presented to us on the results of a set of experiments conducted to test what does, and doesn't, help us win campaigns.
