First of all, can I congratulate everybody who was elected to the exec last week. The campaigns were fantastic, and the commitment demonstrated was encouraging for us all.
With just over a year to go until the 2014 European Parliament elections, Lib Dem branches up and down the country have been going through the process of selecting candidates for the next term.
We all know that the party is going through a difficult period in the polls at present, so it’s more important than ever that we run a strong and effective campaign in order to hold onto as many seats as we can. For that reason, we need to start laying down the foundations as quickly as possible. It appears that much of the public anger is directed personally at Nick Clegg and his colleagues in Westminster, not in Brussels – so a good place to start would be to help our MEP’s distinguish themselves from our members in the Commons.
The Nottingham branch is planning on starting work on this over the coming months. We intend to make and distribute, around the city, fliers detailing the achievements of the party in Brussels – without actually asking for votes (for now) – to show that there’s a good deal more we have to offer than just what’s going on in the Coalition. We’ve also been in touch with East Midlands MEP Bill Newton-Dunn, who’s going to provide us with some quotes on what he’s done for the region, and what he believes can be done in future.
We’d be interested to hear everybody else’s thoughts on this – are we right to be starting so early? And if so, is this the right way to go about it?
Tom Polak is the General Secretary of Nottingham Liberal Youth, the University of Nottingham’s LY branch. NLY recently won the ‘most improved branch’ award at Liberal Youth Conference in Manchester. Tom is a student of Politics and American Studies and you can follow his twitter @Tomsmaxim and his newly launched blog Just a Suggestion.
This article is solely the views of the author and is not representative of the views of Liberal Youth, the Liberal Democrats, nor the editorship of the Libertine.
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