North Wiltshire Liberal Democrats

After the 2015 election disaster, a comprehensive post-mortem led by James Gurling analysed what had gone wrong and made a huge number of detailed recommendations of what should be done differently next time.

However, the snap election of 2017, coming just two years later and out of left field, meant that we were still recovering from 2015 and had not had much chance to implement many of those changes.

I say no - conscience comes before one's own ambitions and equality, tolerance & justice are far more important that one's own career path. The future of our great United Kingdom and our future generations is far more important than anything else in my view and worth fighting for every step of the way.

Politics surely should be about policies and not personal attacks - what a shame it hasn't remained that way? What I did not realise is that this was just the beginning of a long and rocky ride over the coming months where I saw a real lurch to the right, in the words of the former Tory MP Stephen Phillips QC the party has started to mould itself into 'UKIp-Lite'.

Theresa May once called modern slavery "the great human rights issue of our time", and she was right. The very idea that human beings are held in bondage in the UK today - forced to pick fruit and wash cars, to work on construction sites and in nail bars - is sickening.

In 2015, the Coalition Government passed a Modern Slavery Act to make it easier to identify victims and bring traffickers to justice, and prosecutions have increased as a result. But now, many of Theresa May's own policies are undermining efforts to tackle it.

I first became involved with party politics when I was 18. I was studying an undergraduate degree in Politics and Religious Studies (later refined to straight Politics) at Cardiff University. Like most first years, I had planned to join at least one society and throw myself into student life at the University. I knew I wanted to join a political society, and for me what was then Cardiff Conservative Future seemed like the perfect option.

The new Liberal Democrat Campaign for Race Equality aims to make the Liberal Democrats a truly multiracial party - to become a leading political force for race equality and integration.

The Alderdice review into race equality within the party made for uncomfortable reading. It concluded that the party was not integrated at any level - and that too many of our local parties were overwhelmingly white in multiracial communities.

The dates and locations for Spring and Autumn conference 2019 have been announced.

Spring conference - York Barbican - 16-17th March 2019
Autumn Conference - Bournemouth International Centre - 15-18th September 2019

Conference is where our party makes decisions on our future direction.

You can participate in thought-provoking debates, meet like-minded people, make party policy, hear from experts on a range of topics at our fringe events and learn new skills at our training sessions.

Last year I attended ALDC (the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors and Campaigns) Kickstart weekend as part of their Future Leaders scheme.

15 or so young people in the party are offered individual mentorship to help them get to where they want to be in the party - whether that is an MP, a Councillor, or something else.

It's wise to choose for a private member's bill a discrete topic to address a problem which has been identified and can be relatively easily solved - and which the Government might be prepared to see implemented. But sometimes the concern to take forward a cause overtakes wisdom - thus my Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill which finished making its way through the Lords on 3rd July and has been taken up in the Commons by Tim Farron.

Today the Government reported that patients in need of cannabis-based medicines will be allowed access to them in 'exceptional circumstances'.

This is very welcome and long overdue change, which will be a relief for many patients and their families. It is disgraceful that people have been left to suffer for so long, because the Conservative Government have refused to accept evidence of the benefits of cannabis based medicines.

I want to tell you why I joined the Liberal Democrats and to encourage you to make the same journey.

As first-generation immigrants, my parents could have barely imagined the journey they or their children would make in the mother country. As an immigrant from South Asia, barely able to communicate in English, my mother built up a real estate business in London, in a country which has increasingly diversified in the intervening years.