Liberal Democrat Motion

Yes. The worst of it is you can't 'vote them out'.

First past the post is terrible until you look at the alternatives.

So many variations on PR don’t work very well, particularly if you allow parties the opportunity to mess around with the underpinnings.

We’ve seen the hazards of ‘preferred’ candidate lists already on our existing system. They completely bypass local constituency offices.

A Party list model of PR would entrench that in our system and we’d be more likely to end up with MPs who feel beholden to ‘head office’ whilst removing the ability of voters to choose an individual to represent them.

Never! They are sugarcoated communists.

Given the utter lunacy of our PR system here in Scotland, I'm not sure that it would go their way, tbh.

I appreciate other PR systems are available, but up here we are stuck with politicians that virtually nobody voted for, holding positions of power in government. (I'm looking at you, Scottish Greens).

So we got given a referendum on something that no one wanted, and it was an easy win for the Tories.

I suspect a PR referendum could have had a different result, and that would have boosted the power of the Lib Dems as well as making it possible for a party like UKIP to make a breakthrough.

Could have radically changed the landscape in ways that the left could be happy about (common coalitions between Labour and the Lib Dems, the possibility for an explicitly socialist party to get MPs), or indeed very unhappy about, (UKIP or even further right parties getting MPs).

Maybe would have changed things a little from the, "Labour gets a turn until we get too sick of them, Conservatives get a turn until we get too sick of them, and around it goes".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum

I wonder what would have happened if the Lib Dems hadn't (as I see it) sold out to the Tory Party when they agreed to a referendum on the voting system but not the PR system that the Lib Dems actually wanted.

If they had waited they maybe could have got a PR referendum next time.

Out of interest, has Vorderman ever expressed any thoughts, one way or the other, on the Dem’s planned erasure of rights for women?

She seems very keen on tactical voting, just to “get rid of the Tories” but I’ve not seen her go any deeper than that about what (ousting the Tories for Labour in such a way that they can’t even form an opposition) that might mean for women.

Has she actually thought this through? Is she just full on TWAW?

Until I read this I thought the daftest thing about the Lindem conference was Ed Davey twatting about in a canoe.

They really are disappearing into irrelevance. Clegg, Ashdown and Kennedy were national figures but few people would even recognize Davey or know anything about what he stood for.

This motion is because they are scared because Liberal Voice for Women has better arguments and they are proving it with a new pamphlet which explains why women exist and are at the heart of liberalism. There is a battle going on inside the Liberals and the TRA side will lose eventually, because they just have bigotry and misogyny to support them.

The fringe event Liberal Voice for Women held tonight at the conference was not listed in the programme, [the ghosts of Lloyd George and Asquith turned up to advise the leadership about silencing women demanding to speak], but the reality is pesky people who believe humans are biological are everywhere even in the Liberals:

This Sunday at 6pm - the fringe event #LDConf Committee don't want you to hear about!*

The pamphlet, which seeks to inform readers about why sex matters for women’s equality and how political transgenderism is impacting on their ability to hold on to their existing rights was written and edited collectively by Liberal Voice for Women members and published in the name of the group. We are thrilled that this project has finally become a reality.
To mark the launch we have organised a very special fringe event which will be chaired by none other than Dame Jenni Murray and introduced by our Honorary President Baroness Sarah Ludford. We also have a superb and fully international line-up of speakers: researcher, writer and campaigner Raquel Rosario Sánchez, social science lecturer Dr Laura Favaro, and independent film-maker and activist Vaishnavi Sundar.
https://liberalvoiceforwomen.telltix.com/events/liberalvoiceforwomen/1012750

Gender Crit Liberals are in the House of Lords, local parties, councils and they are growing. In the House Of Lords Liberals have been key players in getting gender crit voices heard alongside Labour, Conservatives etc.

Obviously voting for Lib Dems is a different question, but don't give up to despair and pretend that battles against sexism can't be won. All UK political parties have long histories of sexism - this is just the latest round.

https://liberalvoiceforwomen.org/

They are putting it forward just so they can root out unbelievers

I never like these bullshit motions that are put forward just labour a point but this really is embarrassing.

'Motion' is the posh word for a great pile of steaming turd.

Scary? Jenni Murray?

The linguistic blurring of sex and gender got us in this mess. Clarification of the law and operation of the Equality Act will get us out of it. Roll on the FWS case…

https://news.sky.com/story/lib-dem-womens-group-claims-it-has-been-banned-from-promoting-event-over-trans-views-12968865

My current MP (Tory) is stepping down at the next election as he clearly sees which way the wind’s about to blow.

Had he stayed on, however, I wouldn’t have been able to lend him my vote because he’s full on TWAW and apparently proud of it. Which would have left me in the invidious position of spoiling my ballot - the first time I’d have done that in a GE.

I don’t know what his replacement believes yet (perhaps he or she is also into the magical) but I can’t bring myself to vote Green, Lib or Lab. Perhaps the screaming loomies will field a candidate, if they don’t feel that their USP has been hijacked.

I see this all quite negatively. The Conservatives have lost any semblance of deserving to be in power, zero principles, maximum profligacy. Last days of Rome, without any decent debauchery to even start to compensate. No ability even to conserve (y'know, like in their name), from the countryside to women's rights.

Labour are the "centrist" alternative, the so called sober alternative, the steady ship. But it's not centrist to fall to cults like TRA and to effectively shut down debate. All they have to offer is moderately more sobriety, moderately less scandal and incompetence. Anyone expecting Labour to do anything interesting, don't hold your breath.

There are no dynamic alternatives, certainly noone other than the SDP fighting for women's rights, but they'll be immaterial in the final analysis.

We're now voting for technocratic competence in 2024, Sunak and his pledges versus Starmer's "I'm not Sunak or the last 14 years".

Yeah, reality doesn't bend to linguistic vanities.

Being able to cope with reality is kind of a fundamental qualification for being competent.

For anything. Never mind running a country.

Apparently we get the government we deserve. Wtf did we do?!

Recent article on centrism.

https://archive.ph/mamnA

(In which the author works hard to avoid grasping the main reason 'centrism' has failed - that it has been and remains complacent and comfortable in its position as morally Right and Good, and fails to listen and learn from those on either the right or the left - and continues to maintain the arrogance, ignorance, and apathy that characterises so much of what I see/read from the left.)

He's gone so far as recognising that it's not working, but falls at the last hurdle of asking people why they don't want to vote for centrist parties and goes instead for the favourite method of presuming motive and suggests doubling down on previous failing tactics. Fail more, fail harder, I guess.

Yeah I'm voting for them. My MP is a bit crazy, especially on this issue, but has genuinely tried to represent the views of her constituents even when they don't fit hers. I just want this government out.

As a motion, it's a symptom of the constant internal LD battle about this. The party is split with constant tug of war, activists trying to deselect GC candidates, WhatsApp groups pinging 24/7. I therefore think as a motion it's reasonably mild, however INSANE it might seem to anyone pre-2015 that a political party would have a discussion of this type.

Sarah Dyke (LibDem) is now my MP <sigh>

& when the flunkies came around canvassing, they wouldn’t answer my very simple question ie “should men be in women’s prisons”.

I’m a single issue voter. Answer my question - you might get my vote.
Obfuscate & I’ll ask you very nicely to fuck off my front porch. I’ve heard enough.

When people tell you who they are, believe them.

Alert - Everyone planning to doorstep canvassers in the election plans are developing for the official mass questioning to find out which candidates know women exist. You are not alone.

MPs who believe ‘women have a penis’ will be named and shamed ahead of general election
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4904355-mps-who-believe-women-have-a-penis-will-be-named-and-shamed-ahead-of-general-election

Don't be despairing about the next election. Instead help make it the biggest mass peaking event the world has ever seen. Remember the SNP are going to lose a lot of votes because they hate women. They will try to pretend it isn't because of that so will Labour but we all know the truth.

The parties all of them think women are too weak to organise to expose their sexist crap. Time to prove them wrong.