Joining the Newbury LibDems Options

[Simon Kirby]

I'm thinking about it. I'd like to see the town council reformed and made open and accountable, and I have a centre-left libertarian social conscience which is a reasonable match for LibDem values, so I've been thinking for a while about joining the party for the political platform it could provide.

I'm Apolitical at the moment and I like my Apolitical friends, and I think, as blackdog mentioned in another thread, that local politics would be better without the parties, but once a council is politicised it's a difficult job as an independent. As it happens I don't think the parties are necessarily the problem, I think the problem is that local politicians are not sufficiently independent. Issues at a parish or even district council will not generally touch on national party policy and politicians should be free to vote with their conscience without fear of embarrassing their party by appearing to be disunited. That is a problem of course, because people don't typically like to vote for disunited parties so there is always a desire to subdue differences for the greater good of the party.

Personally I see the party as a vehicle for political ideas and not an end in itself like you might support a football team, and I guess that attitude might create conflict within any party I joined if I wouldn't toe the line. Perhaps there are issues I might be convinced to keep quiet about, but it's a worry that in joining an organised party I'd either need to follow someone else's direction that I didn't agree with, or else create conflict by sticking to my principles. Of course I'd hope that in joining a party which shared my same general bag of values that I wouldn't often be isolated politically, but it could happen.

So anyhoo, Ruwan has invited me, and anyone else for that matter, to become involved, and I'd like to take that forward. I'm pretty sure I'd have Ruwan as a friend, but I'd like to see that the party experience would be relatively social too and not a complete stress-fest, so what I think would be cool is if Ruwan were to assemble a few friendly local LibDems for a meet-and-greet, and I was wondering if I could persuade anyone else to come along in solidarity with a view to joining the LibDems too.

Big ask I know, but if you're as unhappy with Newbury politics as I am then at some point we need to do something about it, and if Ruwan is able to show that we'd be welcome then I'd like to give the LibDems some serious consideration, and I think I'd find that easier in the company of Newts, and if it turns out that the LibDems aren't actually that welcoming then at least we'd have had an enjoyable evening finding that out.

Thoughts?