Brentwood Liberal Democrats

This week is Transgender Awareness week, and if you haven't had a chance to read my blog on the importance of supporting and standing alongside our transgender friends and colleagues, you can read it here: libdems.org.uk/trans-rights-are-human-rights.

Transgender and intersex communities are too often marginalised, and many forget that in the fight for equality, trans rights are human rights. We must, and we are, endeavouring to ensure that a vulnerable group of people are able to live as they are entitled to under our laws.

Across the Atlantic, Trump and his cronies are doing their very best to rewrite the definition of transgender out of existence. An agenda of social cleansing that feeds into his administration's insular and antagonistic narrative. We may like to think that Trump's views are in isolation, that his fear of difference does not seep to our shores, but it does.

Jeremy Corbyn was asked "If you could stop Brexit, would you?"
His response?
"We can't stop it. The referendum took place. Article 50 has been triggered."

But Brexit can be stopped through a People's Vote

Vince Cable

This demonstrates, if proof were needed, that Jeremy Corbyn is working hand in glove with the Conservatives to deliver their ideological Brexit.

Today, Jo Johnson quit as a Conservative government minister over the Brexit deal Theresa May is putting together - a deal which gives people the worst of both worlds.

The choice being presented to the British people is no choice at all.

Jo Johnson MP

In his resignation statement, Johnson said that the deal being concocted will inflict "serious economic and political harm on the country". He said what is happening is not what anyone wants and the 2016 referendum did not provide any mandate for it.

20 years ago today the Human Rights Act became law, incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.

The Liberal Democrats had been campaigning for the Human Rights Act ever since we were founded, but our fight to protect people's rights and freedoms didn't end when it passed...

Conservative and Labour MPs consistently vote for illiberal new laws that curtail civil liberties.

It has been reported that more than 400 high-rise residential buildings still have the same type of external cladding blamed for the Grenfell Tower fire.

When it is about people's homes, safety must come first.

Grenfell should never have happened. The fact that thousands of families are still living in unsafe high-rise buildings is a disgrace.

A group including representatives of major pharmaceutical companies have written to the Health Secretary to state that if urgent action is not taken the UK will not have a medicine supply that will suffice in a no deal Brexit.

The Government simply cannot guarantee that there won't be shortages of medicines

A Liberal Democrat amendment by Tavish Scott MSP has committed Holyrood to "providing unequivocal support for a public vote on the final terms of the Brexit deal".

It won cross-party support, and passed overwhelmingly in the Scottish Parliament, with 106 votes for and 8 against - and one MSP who said he voted against by mistake!

This festival of lights signifies the triumph of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance and joy over despair. It is a time of hope and rejuvenation.

Seeing Diwali celebrated by so many here in Britain is also a reminder of the rich diversity of our country and the communities who have contributed so greatly to our nation's success.

In common with both other parties we have seen a dip in our income in the year after an election, made all the more acute after two elections (and a referendum) in two years. Donation fatigue and lower revenues are understandable at this point.