By Geoff Date, Westbourne Organiser, Brighton & Hove Liberal Democrats
Brighton & Hove Lib Dems wish that Brighton & Hove Albion have a successful season.
We certainly approve of Albion's alternative kit, especially the main colour! The new gold and black alternative kit contains a black Nike Swoosh alongside Albion's Seagulls logo.
The full agenda and directory for September's Lib Dem federal conference in Bournemouth are out and you can read them in full below. Included in the agenda for Saturday is the latest round of consultation on the party's strategy.
A new guide to help people understand the motions has also been published along with an addendum to the agenda (also below) which sets out the motion on Europe that will be debated.
Even if the government's plans for new customs arrangements with the EU were agreed to by the EU, these proposals will only delay the economic pain caused by leaving the customs union.
The only way to ensure 'free and frictionless' trade with the EU is to remain a full member of the Customs Union and Single Market.
A Crisis report is forecasting a rise in rough sleeping.
In 2017 no-one should be homeless, living in a bed and breakfast or worrying whether they will have a roof over their head from one month to the next. This is a national scandal which the government are failing to tackle, so it will only get worse.
New Treasury figures have revealed that the UK made a net payment of roughly £156m a week to the European Union in 2016/17, the lowest level for five years.
Treasury figures suggest the UK's net contribution to the EU budget for the 12 months to March 2017 was £8.1bn, or around £156m a week.
The Leave campaign promised £350m extra a week for the NHS.
By Geoff Date, Westbourne Organiser, Brighton & Hove Liberal Democrats
In the Argus of the 27 July is an Article Headed "Councillor pay cut will take six months to implement".
They have got to be joking; as a former County Councillor, I can tell them, all they to do is pass a resolution, and then forward their decision to the independent remuneration panel for their comments, which they can ignore. Or if they wish the councillors concerned can write a cheque each month refunding the required reduction (I know, they have paid tax & NI on it).
By Carrie Hynds, Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Hove
During his time as Lib Dem party leader, Tim Farron declared a "national emergency" in housing. In Brighton & Hove, we have a local housing crisis on top of this, with our cost-to-wage ratio significantly worse than the national average.
Put simply, many people who work here can't afford to live here. The average rent for a one-bed flat is over £950/month, and the average house price is 12 times higher than the average annual wage. Street homelessness has doubled in the past year in our city. Against this backdrop, only 65 affordable homes have been built in the past twelve months, whilst Brighton & Hove City Council has allowed developers to buy their way out of affordable housing requirements.
Scandinavian-style policies could counter Labour's 'cult', the new Liberal Democrat leader believes
Vince Cable has signalled he will examine radical new taxes on wealth to ease inequality in Britain, as he vowed to win over voters from the "cult" of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.
The new Liberal Democrat leader, who secured the job last week after he emerged as the only candidate, said he wanted to look at ideas such as aligning capital gains tax with income tax to ensure the richest pay more.
Vince Cable MP became the new leader of the Liberal Democrats at an event in Westminster on Thursday afternoon.
In his speech he descibed the gaping hole in the centre of British politics which the Liberal Democrat party has an opportunity - and a national duty - to occupy. Both the Tory and Labour parties have been captured by ideological zealots, driven by a hatred of Europe or a hatred of capitalism. They have, he said, effectively abandoned economics.
The country has become polarised and divided as never before. The moderation, the common sense and mutual respect which characterises British politics at its best is currently totally missing. Our party should occupy that space. We can meet that challenge.
Ambitious for our country; ambitious for our party
Vince Cable believes that we are the only party that can represent the millions of liberal-minded people alarmed by the direction this country is taking: people, whether they voted remain or leave, who hate the intolerance, xenophobia and division unleashed by the Brexit vote. He wants the Liberal Democrats to be at the centre of political life: a credible, effective party of national and local government, and a voice of sanity on Europe.
To achieve this, we will have to fight for every vote and every seat. It can be done: we have a record membership and the enormous energy that thousands of new members have brought to the party. Vince believes that we have the ability to give that energy a lead, to hit the headlines and to make our party relevant again.
To build a better Britain we need to give people powers over the decisions which affect their lives, including Brexit. We need to build an economy which is successful and gives everyone a stake and everyone a chance. We need properly funded and effective public services, we need to hold out the prospect of a better future for young people and we need to fix Britain's broken politics, to give everyone an equal say. That is Vince Cable's agenda for the future.
Vince Cable's record
Vince has been active in the party for over 35 years. He has fought ten general elections and been the MP for Twickenham from 1997 to 2015 and then from 2017 to the present day. This June he was re-elected with the largest majority of any Liberal Democrat MP.
As Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, he reformed the banks and created the world's first Green Investment Bank and the British Business Bank. As a cabinet minister he relaunched the apprenticeship model of training, created the Catapult network of innovation centres, boosted the science budget, introduced shared parental leave and stronger protection against monopoly, launched a successful campaign to get more women on company boards, protected adult community learning.
On Brexit
Vince thinks Brexit may never happen. He maintains when people see the economic costs they will turn against it and a cross-party coalition of opponents to Brexit may develop. Cable said, "the whole question of continued membership will once again arise" if people's living standards worsened and unemployment rose. A Survation poll recently pointed to 53% of people backing a referendum on accepting or rejecting the final Brexit terms.
Brighton & Hove Liberal Democrats have today called on Lloyd Russell Moyle MP to stand down as city councillor for East Brighton ward.
They issued the following statement: "We call on Lloyd Russell Moyle, MP, to resign as city councillor for East Brighton ward to make way for a councillor who can fully represent the residents of East Brighton at City Hall."
By Carrie Hynds, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Hove
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire finally admitted last week - after the fifth missed deadline - that there's a state of deadlock and paralysis in the talks to restore a Northern Irish executive at Stormont.
A summer of stagnation is terrible news for Northern Ireland, particularly against the backdrop of continued uncertainty over the UK/EU border and with the onset of marching season. The additional £1bn of funding for Northern Ireland secured by the Tory-DUP arrangement is utterly meaningless without Stormont setting a budget. Northern Ireland is currently being run on a 75% budget by its civil service, with health and social care services barely functioning.
But the more I ask, the more the media pick up on it - the harder it will become for the Government to ignore. And then the sooner they get down to serious negotiations to resolve this dispute, so people in Eastbourne and beyond who are so badly affected, can get their lives back.
"Theresa May was worried that she would go down in history as the lunch snatcher. Dropping these plans is just another humiliating climb down, in what seems to becoming a long list for the Prime Minister.
"This government has made so many u-turns on so many issues we are all dizzy. It's hard to know what they believe any more.
By Nick Clegg, former Leader of the Liberal Democrats in The Financial Times - https://www.ft.com/content/18e5dc98-5f2b-11e7-8814-0ac7eb84e5f1
EU governments could accept an emergency brake on immigration
At the heart of Westminster, there lurks a secret. Both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn want to thwart the moderates in their party who are opposed to a "hard" Brexit. And both have alighted on the same alibi: they claim that since we cannot change the rules governing freedom of movement and stay in the single market, then we have no choice but to leave the single market altogether. It sounds neat - and democratic. After all, few would disagree that immigration in general, and EU free movement in particular, played a significant role in the EU referendum last year. EU leaders regularly emphasise the importance of the "four freedoms". And so the logic flows effortlessly: the will of the British public must be obeyed; EU freedom of movement must go; single market membership must be rescinded. This argument is self-serving nonsense.
Since declaring my intention to stand for the Liberal Democrat leadership I have been overwhelmed by messages of support. In the strong liberal tradition I have also received a great many questions about my vision for the country and the party. The first and most immediate issue on all our minds is the UK's future relationship with the European Union, and I therefore welcome the very direct questions from party members on this subject.
"Far from being 'fair and serious', this proposal offers very little and shows the government is continuing in its callousness. Theresa May should be utterly ashamed this is the best they can come up with, a year on.
It offers little in the way of reassurance to EU citizens who have made Britain their home and continues to use them as bargaining chips.
The Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment to the Queen's Speech calling for Britain to stay the single market and customs union.
The party is now calling on both Labour and Conservative MPs to support the amendment and inflict a historic defeat on the government, forcing Theresa May to soften her extreme approach to Brexit.
Liberal Democrats have announced a new Shadow Cabinet. The party which gained seats in the election now have 12 MPs in the House of Commons.
Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron said: "I am delighted to announce our new shadow cabinet team, which brings together a wealth of experience. The party has people with a range of skills from within government, business and the charity sector.
This afternoon Tim Farron resigned as Liberal Democrat leader.
At party HQ in London he gave the following speech to party staff:
"This last two years have seen the Liberal Democrats recover since the devastation of the 2015 election.
That recovery was never inevitable but we have seen the doubling of our party membership, growth in council elections, our first parliamentary by-election win for more than a decade, and most recently our growth at the 2017 general election.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has set in train a deputy leadership election for the parliamentary party in the House of Commons.
Tim Farron said: "In the last parliament we didn't have any women in our parliamentary party and we didn't feel it was right to elect a deputy in those circumstances. But I wanted to revive the role as it gives the party another powerful voice and has helped give prominence to many of our notable MPs, including Ming Campbell, Simon Hughes and Vince Cable.
Carrie Hynds, our Parliamentary Candidate for Hove, who grew up in Northern Ireland, gives her views on the DUP, who may be propping up the minority Tory goverment soon.
There's suddenly a lot of national interest in the DUP and Northern Irish politics. Rightly so.
On an emotional level, I associate the DUP with feelings of claustrophobia and oppression. They shamelessly conflate politics and religion (Rev Ian Paisley was simultaneously the political First Minister and leader of the Free Presbyterian church - which is like the Archbishop of Canterbury being Prime Minister and seeing no conflict of interest). They reinforce victim-shaming, emotional abuse and are interested in no-one's voice but their own.
On a political level, this is a pretty thorough summary of how the DUP operate: https://www.georgiagrainger.co.uk/politics/shame-game-dup/ and I agree it is time to shine a strong flashlight into their murky financial dealings and beyond.
What is interesting is that I've been trying to flag this for years but have been told by the media and mainstream political parties that Northern Irish politics is its own separate, special issue; nothing to do with how the rest of the UK operates. Niche. Not anyone's concern. And, of course, those of us feeling claustrophobic and oppressed moved away from it all as soon as we were physically able.
But now the DUP are Theresa May's kingmakers, a position that will reinforce their already-inflated sense of importance. They don't yet realise how much of what they do is irregular and will be considered by everyone else (including many Conservatives) as deeply unsound politics. What will happen when a party that has run unfettered for so long in the name of Queen and country and the United Kingdom is suddenly told that said kingdom is actually rather ashamed of them? Let's find out.
Introducing the new Liberal Democrat team of 12 MPs, representing constituencies from Orkney to Eastbourne.
Thank you for each and every vote for the Liberal Democrats nationally, and to everyone who has helped the Liberal Democrat campaign in any way in these seats and across the country.
Tim Farron came out on top of tonight's debate showing that he is the voice for those people who want a brighter future than Theresa May's cold, mean-spirited vision for Britain.
He will stand up for the people of Britain on Brexit, the NHS and schools.
Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat Campaign Spokesperson, said: "Tim Farron is a leader with principles and passion."
Plans by Theresa May to axe free school lunches would waste the £517,577 invested in the City to upgrade school kitchens, according to the Liberal Democrats. It comes after figures revealed 5,459 children in the City are set to lose out under the Conservative proposals.
When in government, the Liberal Democrats invested £160m nationally upgrading school kitchen facilities to enable them to prepare hot lunches.
Conservative manifesto plans will mean the average household in Brighton, Hove and Portslade could be forced to pay 71% of the value of their homes for social care.
The manifesto plans, which would mean that people would be forced to hand over assets worth over £100,000 to pay for social care at home, would have a particularly damaging impact on sufferers of dementia, who have complicated long-term health needs. The Tories have stripped out any element of mutual insurance from the scheme. Those unlucky enough to suffer expensive and debilitating illnesses in their old age will effectively mortgage their homes to the council to pay for their care and the interest will accrue until their house is sold after their death.
