Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats

Continuing to focus on race and ethnicity is fanning the flames of far right recruitment and hatred while the real underlying issues are about class, weakness, vulnerability and a desperate void in community leadership.

Media reporting of the Rochdale "sex grooming trial" and the brutal exploitation of vulnerable young teenage girls raises many troubling questions, and has so far concentrated largely on the fact that the men were of Pakistani background while all 47 victims, were from white and working class backgrounds.

Please read this cracking article written by Karen Leigh and published today in Deutsche Welle http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15899519_page_0,00.html.

It highlights the increasingly desperate efforts by the regime to project international legitimacy through staging the F1 Grand Prix - despite massive local opposition by democracy protestors who are facing human rights abuses and torture. All well documented by international human rights monitoring groups.

It was an amazing coincidence that Lady Warsi's interview on BBC2's Newsnight spoke so lamentably about the state of the coalition the evening before YouGov put the Tories 11 points behind Labour. The Conservative Party chairwoman without hesitation accused us of being immature and failing to accept collective responsibility within the coalition.

An article in the Guardian today (Saturday 14 April 2012) highlights the growing menace of the far right across Europe and the USA.

It provides the link between the phenomenon of home-grown EDL street fascism and the recent tragic murders in Norway.

It also brings home the dangers inherent in turning a blind eye and allowing racist and discriminatory scourges such as islamaphobia to take root in democratic societies, whilst politicians, press and the media as a whole fail to sincerely challenge prejudice, stereotyping and false public perceptions.

I welcome the way in which the Guardian has played a really positive role in exposing growing concerns following the spiralling cases of racism in the police service. It has strengthened the argument for a free press to keep democracy under control.

We have just had a strong reminder as to why we need a truly free and wholly independent press to keep in check abuses carried out by the criminal justice system and its agents against members of the public. This week, the Met, the CPS and the IPCC have all failed to live up to the high standards we all expect from those bestowed with the responsibility to provide us with protection, security and justice.

Speaking at the recent Munich Security Conference, US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton said "Americans and Europeans must send a clear and common message to despots that they must respect the rights of their people….America and Europe stand shoulder to shoulder."

However, the UK role in encouraging emerging democracies must be determined through a process of working closer with the EU and by identifying limited areas in which tangible gains can be made through shared resources. That is to say that we do what we can with our European partners to achieve the best results within our areas of influence. Continually taking our lead from a gung ho US secretary of state, who wants to keep 'all options' on the table when settling international disputes, is certainly not the way that we should be encouraging democracy.

Lib Dems in Bradford West have selected Councillor Jeanette Sunderland to be their candidate in the byelections to be held on 29 March following the resignation of the Labour MP.

Issan Ghazni and the campaign team, including Lord Qurban Hussain lead an EMLD By-election Action Day on 24 March in support of Sunderland.

Issan said:

Over 20 million working people will be better off next year after Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government delivered the biggest ever increase in the income tax personal allowance in the Budget.

The massive £3.5bn tax cut for working people delivers:

• The biggest ever single uplift in the tax threshold
• A personal allowance of £9,205 in April 2013
• 21 million working people getting an extra £220 tax cut
• Brings the total tax cut for basic rate tax payers to £550
• Brings the total number of people lifted out of tax to 2 million.

The selection by Hackney Liberal Democrats of Pauline Pearce to be their candidate in the forthcoming by-election in Hackney Central is symbolic of the way London Liberal Democrats have transformed themselves in recent years to be an inclusive party that can not only represent the UK's multicultural capital but also reflects its diverse population.

Pauline - dubbed the 'Heroine of Hackney' by one local newspaper after she stood up to young rioters last summer and berated them - would be a brilliant addition to the Liberal Democrat group on Hackney Council (which currently includes Orthodox Jews and a Muslim), and would justifiably shame the local Labour Party which just assumes that people will vote for a Labour replacement after their sitting councillor moved to Scotland.

This speech is the result of work carried out by Marisha Ray who is a London Assembly Candidate and former executive member for community safety in Islington as well as a former chair of an enquiry into CCTV surveillance. Marisha is unable to be here at conference today and so as chair of EMLD, I am also speaking on her behalf.