Today kickstarts an important week in Parliament, with votes taking place on key amendments to the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, tabled by Liberal Democrats.

In our fight to hold this Conservative Government to account on its Brexit agenda, we are fighting to protect EU citizens’ rights as well as those of unaccompanied child refugees.

Last week, Liberal Democrat peer Jonny Oates tabled amendments that would automatically guarantee EU citizens’ rights in law.

EU citizens are our families and friends, our colleagues and carers. That is why we are urging Boris Johnson to honour his promise and back our legislation to guarantee their rights.

Boris Johnson previously promised to guarantee these rights, but has failed to do so. Under his policies, tens of thousands of EU citizens will be left without legal rights in less than 18 months. This puts them at risk of eviction, detention and even deportation.

Unless the Government changes course, tens of thousands of EU citizens will be left without legal rights – at risk of eviction, detention and deportation.

We’re fighting for EU citizens. We’re calling on Boris Johnson to honour his promise by backing our amendments next week. pic.twitter.com/746HZa8snJ

— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) January 18, 2020

EU citizens are our families and friends, our colleagues and carers. That is why we are urging Boris Johnson to honour his promise and back our legislation to guarantee their rights.

Tomorrow we will be voting for another amendment, which would protect the rights of unaccompanied child refugees in Europe to be reunited with their families in the UK.

Child refugees who’ve been forced to flee their homes and separated from their families are some of the most vulnerable people in the world, and we must do all we can to protect them.

Sadly, Conservatives voted to drop the UK’s commitment to support child refugees and their rights to family reunion in the House of Commons.

Liberal Democrats know that we should be expanding family reunion rights, not rolling them back. That is why we are continuing to fight for these children.

The Liberal Democrats have today led tributes following the death of Lord Robert Maclennan.
 
Lord Robert Maclennan of Rogart, known as Bob Maclennan, was the last leader of the Social Democrat Party before it merged with the Liberal Party. He then became joint interim leader of the new party. 
 
Bob Maclennan was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001. Upon stepping down as MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, Bob Maclennan was elevated to the House of Lords. 

At a meeting of the Federal Board today, the new board made decisions on three key events, the timeline for our upcoming leadership election, the timeline for upcoming elections to party posts and committees and finally the appointment of a Chair of the Election Review and a timetable for that.

Jump to: Leadership Election | Internal Elections | Election review

Do you think we care well enough for the more vulnerable in our society?

Have we figured out how best to care for people who’ve experienced bereavement, people who get ill in old age, those with mental ill-health or adults with learning disabilities?

My own personal experience tells me we haven’t. Whether in my own life or for many constituents in my advice surgeries over 20 years, all too often the care and support systems either don’t work well enough or aren’t even there at all.

Liberal Democrats must make our voice heard on caring – and lead this debate.

Happy New Year!

Over Christmas and New Year, a team of HQ staff and almost 60 volunteer testers from across the party as well as the team at Prater Raines have been hard at work testing Lighthouse, the party’s new Local Party Management tool.

The feedback from those users has been really encouraging, they’ve found the system really intuitive and easy to use.

It’ll also work for all parts of the party – from branches up to state parties and will solve a number of other long-standing issues as well (though not all on day 1!)

Of course, launch day is fast approaching – and you’ll all soon be able to get your hands on it.

This is how we’re planning to roll out Lighthouse:

The launch version should be a like for like replacement for the current portal. You’ll be able to do everything you can do now.

Friday 10th January

The team will be deploying the final Alpha test version on Friday. This should have all of the features the release version has and we’ll be testing it over the weekend to make sure it’s as top-notch as possible. 

The launch version should (effectively) be a like for like replacement for the current portal. You’ll be able to do everything you can do now.

Monday 13th January

Once that testing has been completed, we’re planning to launch the closed Beta test of the new system on Monday 13th January. Anyone who was involved with the Alpha testing team or anyone who has registered as a Super User by the 9th January will be sent a login.

You’re looking for an email from “Lighthouse” using the email address “membership@libdems.org.uk”. The subject line should begin “You’ve been granted access to”

This will be to the live system with all of your member, supporter and donor data present.

If you’re in this initial group and you spot anything that doesn’t look right with the system, just drop membership@libdems.org.uk an email with “Lighthouse” in the subject line and we’ll take a look.

Friday 17th January

We’re then planning to run that initial closed Beta test until Friday 17th January, when we hope to have updated the system again and from the following Monday 20th January, we’ll start adding on more users and move into an open Beta test.

The open Beta will keep running until we’re satisfied that all of our core milestones are in place and working as intended. We hope this will be completed in plenty of time for the Spring Conference in York.

These dates are obviously potentially subject to some slippage. We’ll update you if that’s the case.

We’re planning to keep adding more features and refining things to make your lives easier and make managing your local party simpler.

Training & support

The team has also been hard at work drafting step by step guides to every feature in the system. 

We should have around a dozen of these task guides ready to go and we’re uploading them to www.libdems.org.uk/lighthouse as they’re finished. You’ll also be able to find them in the knowledgebase on Lighthouse.

We’ve also updated the Membership Geek Sheets to reflect the new system and will be producing more of these soon.

Lastly, we’re hosting some webinars to run people through how to use the system and answer your questions. You can find all of the details here: www.libdems.org.uk/lighthouse – and there’ll be more webinars coming.

We’re also hoping to be able to run training at all of the Regional and State conferences (and if you’re organising one of these, please keep a spot open for me!) this spring and will be running two sessions on how to use Lighthouse at Spring Federal conference.

Longer term

The launch next week won’t be the end of development on Lighthouse. 

We’re planning to keep adding more features and refining things to make your lives easier and make managing your local party simpler.

Future developments that we’re looking at include allowing bulk import of donations from other party systems and making training that your members are doing visible to you.

If there’s anything else you’d like to see in the system, please do let us know and we can build it into our development roadmap.