No one should live in fear of harassment or physical violence.

Trans Awareness Week is a time dedicated to celebrating trans and gender non-conforming people. 

It is also an important opportunity. We must bring attention to the continued injustices and inequalities faced by trans people today

The week will culminate in the Trans Day of Remembrance. This is a day to honour those who have either been killed or have taken their own lives as a result of transphobia. As we pause to we remember the lives lost, we are reminded that transphobia is never funny or trivial. It can be fatal.

No one should live in fear of harassment or physical violence. However, this remains an everyday reality for many trans individuals. 

This must change.

We see you, we support you and we stand with you as proud allies.

The Conservative government’s consultation on the Gender Recognition Act last year should have been a move towards greater equality. 

However, it resulted in a toxic debate. The media exacerbated this through widespread misreporting and fearmongering. 

It’s been appalling to see the identities and existence of trans people debated and questioned. 

I can only imagine how utterly depressing it must be to see your very existence questioned and disputed online and in the media every single day.

To our friends in the trans community, we see you, we support you and we stand with you as proud allies. Thank you for your strength and resilience. 

We will keep fighting until you are treated with the dignity and respect you deserve.

We don’t know about you but we had a wild Saturday night!

Our leader Jo Swinson kicked off her election tour of the UK with a supporter’s rally in Battersea. We’re taking the fight across the country – starting last week with our plan for a brighter future.

The UK is in a knife crime epidemic, but successive Governments have taken the wrong approach to dealing with it.

For 25 years, Conservative and Labour Governments have been competing to seem tough on crime, without doing enough to actually prevent it.

“Liberal Democrats will build a brighter future for young people by investing £500 million a year in youth services and taking a public health approach to youth violence.”

The Liberal Democrats have set out ambitious plans to tackle soaring levels of knife crime, and we will do this by investing £500 million in youth services and adopting a public health approach to youth violence.

A Liberal Democrat government would create a £500 million ring-fenced fund for Local Authorities in England to spend on youth services. This would provide young people with positive, safe and healthy opportunities to prevent them being drawn into youth violence and gang-related crime. We would also make local youth services a statutory service, protecting them from future cuts.

The Tory approach to youth violence has been conducive to a broken relationship between police & communities.

By investing £500m a year in youth services, the Lib Dems will provide young people with the support they deserve, communities will be stronger & people will feel safer. pic.twitter.com/dpf1e5HxIk

— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) November 13, 2019

We would take a public health approach to tackling youth violence, modelled on the successful approach taken by Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit. This would involve identifying risk factors and treating them early on, with youth workers, police, teachers, health professionals and social services all working closely together to prevent young people falling into gangs and violence.

With a Liberal Democrat government, young people will have the support and opportunities they deserve, our communities will be stronger and people will feel safer.

Lib Dem and Remainer social media is aflutter today with discussions of the Canterbury situation.

Some people argue with great passion that we should be standing aside for Labour’s candidate Rosie Duffield. I know Rosie and she is a good person. I think she would be a much better fit in the Liberal Democrats, but she has chosen to stay in Labour. I understand people’s instinctive desire to give her a clear run at her seat in the name of Remain.

Jo Swinson would make a better Prime Minister than either Johnson or Corbyn.

Yesterday, the Liberal Democrats filed legal proceedings against ITV. 

They have refused to include Jo Swinson in their Leaders Debate numerous times. This is despite Jo being the leader of the biggest and strongest Remain party in the country. 

In its current format, the debate will be between just two men. One is Boris Johnson, who has repeatedly lied to the country about Brexit and has just made an election pact with Nigel Farage. The other is Jeremy Corbyn, a Eurosceptic since the 1970s.

Remainers will not have a voice in the debate, despite opinion polls show that more people now back Remain than Leave. 

This is completely unacceptable.

Of course, the underlying reasons behind this format are clear for all to see. 

Jo Swinson would make a better Prime Minister than either Johnson or Corbyn. Why on earth would either of these men accept a debate against someone they knew they would lose to?

However frustrating this situation may seem, all is not lost. We are taking the fight to court in the interests of fairness and equality. 

This is not over.

Jo will be appearing in a televised debate with other leaders on the BBC. We are in discussions with Sky for a three-way head-to-head debate. 

And, perhaps most tellingly of all, over 47,000 people have signed our online #DebateHer petition calling for ITV and BBC to include Jo in their debates.

Click here to sign the petition

This is not over. Not by a long shot.

As the biggest party of Remain, the Liberal Democrats will continue to represent the voice of Remain.We will fight for as long as it takes.

If we win our case in the coming weeks, Jo will be able to show the country that there is a choice for a brighter future. If we lose, then the country will know that the two other leaders are terrified of us.

Because we are the only party that will move us forward, rather than backwards. Together, we can show Corbyn and Johnson that we are the only party with a real Plan for the Future.