New Year New Role

I know it isn't quite the start of the year but hey it is still the first month.

Yesterday I had to give my apologies for the AGM of Northern Ireland Liberal Democrats, this also meant that I had to send in my report on behalf of LGBT+ Lib Dems Northern Ireland to be read out in my absence. But of course the other order of the day of any AGM is the appointment of the officers.

Therefore it is pleasure to know that the members of my party graciously elected me* the new chair for the coming year.

It is honour to have been elected to this position at the first AGM into the Lib Dem Fightback and even though the Northern Ireland party do not contest elections if not mean that I will be sitting idly by and not being involved in that Fightback. As regular readers will know I was already up for the fight even as I waS travelling back to Northern Ireland after the disappointment of election night.

Being chair here in Northern Ireland is a challenge that I will look to embrace especially as the General population are more liberal than many in the Assembly would care to acknowledge. There are a number of issues that I feel it is important that a Liberal Democrat voice is heard, you can be sure that I will be doing all I can for that voice to be heard loud and clear. Fellow Liberal Democrats will have heard me joke often in the past that I am too liberal for politics here in Northern Ireland, thankfully many people here are catching up to my point of view. You can be sure I want to bring that viewpoint to the fore amongst all the closed, narrow minded and self preservationist views that dominate opinion here, showing people that there is a hope for a better way forward.

* Don't worry this wasn't an abuse of my absence I had previously given consent to being nominated.

In which I join the Alliance Party

Don't panic I'm also still a Liberal Democrat.

That is a little constitutional anomaly with the Liberal Democrats not contesting elections here in this part of the UK. It means that members of our party here can join a local party that is in line with Liberal Democrat thinking.

There are already a number of members of the local Liberal Democrats who are also members of the Alliance Party.

I have never been a member of the Alliance Party, I only joined a political party when I went to University in Kingston, the first time I came back I wasn't aware that the Lib Dems existed locally, but also didn't want to get involved in local party politics at that time (late 90s) then I was working in the Civil Service. When I returned this time at the start for the sake of my job local party neutrality was a key factor while I worked for the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign. Then after that I felt that I could continue with my neutrality to work with whatever party was leading the way on liberal values. And yes that party wasn't always necessarily the Alliance Party.

However, in light of the events of this week. When there have been direct attacks on democracy following a vote in one council chamber which has erupted into violence, arson and other criminality I decided the time has come to stand and be counted. So I have joined the number of dual memberships.

Some blogging elsewhere - all about language and the words we use

I've done a little bit of blogging elsewhere in recent day.

Over on LGBT Lib Dems NI

Dave for equality in marriage we need equality in language

Looking at the language used by several in talking about the government proposals and how the Prime Minister and his party still have a way to go to understand equality.

Anglican Archbishop of Armagh calls for  “reasoned and rational” same-sex discussion

Although the Church of Ireland Archbishop does understand that language needs to be inclusive and discussions on this issue need to be reasoned and rational.

Solas successfully argue against religious marriage altogether

Scottish faith group Solas may have brought a whole other argument to the table over equal marriage when they brought the European normative of civil marriage not religious to the table in their response to the Scottish Parliament's consultation.

While over on Lib Dems NI

Irish language row in Stormont

Looks at a different area of language and when is asking a question not asking a question in the views of the person presiding in the chair.

If your not following LGBT Lib Dems NI or Lib Dems NI please do you may miss out on something I write.

Drinks for Andrew Reeves - Belfast Edition

Cross post on Liberal Democrats in Northern Ireland

 I'm just in from Liberal Drinks in Belfast. Ian Walton from the Welsh Liberal Democrats so it was a reason to meet up, but part of the evening was a memory of Andrew Reeves of which four of the five present had something in common.

Myself you know about from the recent time we both spent in Scotland, Pam Tilson from her time in London, Ian also from his time there and of course in his current role in Cardiff, and Michael as he and Andrew both were part of the stewarding team at Federal Conference. The other person present was of course Michael's Andrew.

We toasted our mutual friend, told stories of times we shared with Andrew and thought of what Andrew would have done, plus got on with catching up with each others news.

Even though we couldn't be at the Joseph Pearce in Edinburgh we were part of the outpouring of lovce for Andrew. At this point we could  all almost hear Andrew saying, "That's enough sitting around, get up, get out and get on with telling people why we're Lib Dems." as he would often be heard to say on any campaign he was involved with. And that is what the five of us intend to do.

Putting the Yes! detracters straight - initial thoughts from Northern Ireland

Well okay only 43.87% did

There is nothing more frustrating while spending 15 hours on your feet than seeing friends throwing complaints about the campaign you have given up the last six months of your life for. Well maybe knowing that before one of the three constituencies that you were the agent on site for had declared that the national result was already a disaster.

Some of it was justified and some it ignored the fact that many of us involved in the campaign were fighting for some of the things and failings they mentioned. The eyes and ears on the ground my fellow regional/organisers were pointing stuff out since our first meeting together in November and on every conference call weekly meeting we had since then. There were even times in our monthly meetings in London that we did speak as one against the way things were done. But too often we were astounded about things that weren't happening or going to be happening or were happening too late.

Personally I'd like to give a big round applause to all the Regional and National Organisers Iestyn in Wales, Neil in Scotland, John, Jamie and Jane in NW and NE England, Yorkshire and Humberside, Richard and Michael in West and East Midlands, the other Stephen in East of England, Deborah, Becky, Jack, Tariq and Jon in London Tim, Ollie and James in the South West, Central and East. Together we knew what we were pressing for to happen, we may have heard the Yes! campaign say no too many times, yet we carried on pushing and sometimes got the answer changed and action taken. I'm sure all of them will carry on leading sucessful campaigns in the future, that group certainly knew what they needed to get done, just was frustrating that many times all those years of experience and knowledge was overlooked.

I'd also like to thank the excellent team that we did have in Northern Ireland, too numerous to mention but especially to Laura and Michael who were with me from the first meeting of the Northern Ireland team and stayed there to the end. Also to the many excellent interns who came through the door at Carnegie Buildings and many of them ended up going unto good jobs in fields they wanted. We may not have turned around years of Ulster saying No, but 43.87% of Northern Ireland did say yes.

To all my new friends in the Alliance, SDLP, Labour Party NI, Greens Party, UKIP, Ulster Unionist Party, Sinn Féin, Socialist Party, Dawn Purvis (sadly no longer and MLA), David McClarty MLA, plus my fellow Lib Dem NI members and many from no party background who said Yes! it has been a pleasure. I look forward to working with many of you on continuing to build a better future for Northern Ireland.

I may take on the specific points raised on a number of blogs over the last few days, but I'm going to calm down from my initial reading of most of them to give them due consideration in a balanced way in the cold light of day.