You can find the Liberal Democrat Party Manifesto here. This page breaks down some of the key elements of the Liberal Democrat manifesto 'Our Fair Deal'.
‘Our Fair Deal’
Our fair deal would give everyone the power to make the post of their potential, and real freedom to decide how they live their lives.
A strong United Kingdom and a fair international order
We will stand up to authoritarianism by championing the liberal, rules-based international order. We will reverse the Conservatives’ damaging cuts to the Army and international development. We will work across borders to provide safe and legal routes to sanctuary for refugees and tackle common threats such as human trafficking, cybercrime and terrorism.
Immigration and Asylum
Liberal Democrats are fighting for a fair, effective immigration system that treats everyone with dignity and respect.
The UK has a proud history of welcoming newcomers – whether people seeking to build their lives here, or refugees fleeing war and persecution. People from all over the world have greatly enriched our economy, our culture and our communities.
But our immigration system has been broken by the Conservatives. Their damaging new rules mean British employers can’t recruit the people they need and families are separated by unfair, complex visa requirements. Their dysfunction has made the asylum backlog soar. Public confidence in the system is shattered. The Home Office is not fit for purpose.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives have closed down safe and legal routes to sanctuary, leaving desperate people to make perilous attempts to cross the Channel in small boats – often in the hands of criminal smugglers and traffickers.
Liberal Democrats are fighting for a fair, effective immigration system that treats everyone with dignity and respect.
We will:
- End the Conservatives’ Hostile Environment and invest instead in officers, training and technology to tackle smuggling, trafficking and modern slavery.
- Transfer policy-making over work visas and overseas students out of the Home Office and into other departments.
- Scrap the Conservatives’ Illegal Migration Act and their Rwanda scheme, uphold the Refugee Convention, and provide safe and legal routes to sanctuary for refugees, helping to prevent dangerous Channel crossings.
- Tackle the asylum backlog by establishing a dedicated unit to improve the speed and quality of asylum decision-making, introducing a service standard of three months for all but the most complex asylum claims to be processed, and speeding up returns of those without a right to stay.
- Lift the ban on asylum seekers working if they have been waiting for a decision for more than three months, enabling them to support themselves, integrate in their communities and contribute to the economy.
- Work closely with Europol and the French authorities to stop the smuggling and trafficking gangs behind dangerous Channel crossings.
For more detail:
- Provide safe and legal routes to sanctuary for refugees by:
- Expanding and properly funding the UK Resettlement Scheme.
- Creating new humanitarian travel permits that would allow asylum seekers to travel to the UK safely to proceed with their claims.
- Establishing a new scheme to resettle unaccompanied child refugees from elsewhere in Europe.
- Reuniting unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Europe with family members in the UK.
- Expanding the scope of refugee family reunion, including enabling unaccompanied child refugees in the UK to sponsor close family members to join them.
- Funding community-sponsorship projects for refugees, and rewarding community groups who develop innovative and successful ways of promoting social cohesion.
- Offering asylum to people fleeing the risk of violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identification, ending the culture of disbelief for LGBT+ asylum seekers, and never refusing an LGBT+ applicant on the basis that they could be discreet.
- Cancel the Conservatives’ unworkable Rwanda scheme and invest the savings in clearing the asylum backlog.
- End the detention of children for immigration purposes, and reduce detention for adults to an absolute last resort, with a 28-day time limit.
- Increase the ‘move-on’ period for refugees to 60 days, providing vital time for new refugees to prepare for life in the UK while ensuring that other public bodies are not left to pick up the costs of them becoming destitute.
Rights and Equality
Liberal Democrats exist to build a free society where every person’s rights and liberties are protected. Everyone should be able to live their lives as who they are: free to pursue their dreams and fulfil their potential, safe in the knowledge that their fundamental rights will be protected.
In decades past, the UK has led the world in advancing human rights, civil liberties and equality for women, LGBT+ people and disabled people. But under the Conservatives, progress has stalled. They are failing to stand up to hatred and prejudice, or tackle entrenched inequalities. Instead, they keep threatening to rip up the UK’s Human Rights Act, which protects our fundamental British freedoms.
Liberal Democrats champion the freedom, dignity and wellbeing of every individual. We will combat all forms of prejudice and discrimination, wherever they exist, including where intersectionality means individuals face particular disadvantages.
We believe that the UK’s rich diversity is one of its greatest strengths. We will celebrate that diversity and ensure it is better reflected throughout public life. We will apply the principles of openness, transparency and accountability to tackle institutional biases, promote equality and hold power to account.
We will:
- Champion the Human Rights Act and resist any attempts to weaken or repeal it.
- Develop and implement a comprehensive Race Equality Strategy to address deep inequalities, including in education, health, criminal justice and the economy.
- Make misogyny a hate crime and give police and prosecutors the resources and training they need to prevent and prosecute all hate crimes while supporting survivors.
- Give everyone a new right to flexible working and every disabled person the right to work from home if they want to, unless there are significant business reasons why it is not possible.
- Respect and defend the rights of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including trans and non-binary people.
- Ban all forms of conversion therapies and practices.
- Scrap the Conservatives’ draconian anti-protest laws, restoring pre-existing protections for both peaceful assembly and public safety, and immediately halt the use of live facial recognition surveillance by the police and private companies.
For more detail:
- Defend hard-won British rights and freedoms by:
- Upholding the UK’s commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and resisting any attempts to withdraw from it.
- Establishing a new right to affordable, reasonable legal assistance, and making the Legal Aid system simpler, fairer and more generous.
- Introducing a Digital Bill of Rights to protect everyone’s rights online, including the rights to privacy, free expression, and participation without being subjected to harassment and abuse.
- Ending the bulk collection of communications data and internet connection records.
- Introducing a legally binding regulatory framework for all forms of biometric surveillance.
- Upholding the Equality Act 2010, and making caring and care experience protected characteristics as set out in chapter 7.
- Ensure that survivors of violence against women and girls and domestic abuse get the support they deserve by:
- Fully implementing the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, with protections for all survivors regardless of nationality or immigration status.
- Expanding the number of refuges and rape crisis centres to meet demand.
- Ensuring sustainable funding for services to support survivors of domestic abuse, with a particular focus on community-based and specialist ‘by and for’ services.
- Ensuring that survivors are properly supported within the criminal justice system, as set out in chapter 11
- Stand up to hatred by:
- Exposing and confronting the stereotyping, demagoguery and hate speech in public life and the media that inflames hatred and leads to spikes in hate crimes.
- Providing funding for protective security measures to places of worship, schools and community centres that are vulnerable to hate crime and terror attacks.
- Improve diversity in the workplace and public life by:
- Requiring large employers to monitor and publish data on gender, ethnicity, disability, and LGBT+ employment levels, pay gaps and progression, and publish five-year aspirational diversity targets.
- Extending the use of name-blind recruitment processes in the public sector and encouraging their use in the private sector.
- Improving diversity in public appointments by setting ambitious targets and requiring progress reports to Parliament with explanations when targets are not met.
- Providing additional support and advice to employers on neurodiversity in the workplace, and developing a cross-government strategy to tackle all aspects of discrimination faced by neurodiverse children and adults.
- Implement a comprehensive Race Equality Strategy, including:
- Reducing the disproportionately high maternal mortality rates for black women and eliminating racial disparities in maternal health, with a cross-departmental target and strategy.
- Ending the disproportionate use of Stop and Search and requiring all police forces to adopt ambitious targets for improving the diversity of their workforce, as set out in chapter 11.
- Ending the Conservatives’ Hostile Environment, implementing the Windrush Lessons Learned Review and repealing the Conservatives’ discriminatory ‘Right to Rent’ law, as set out in chapter 18.
- Scrapping the Conservatives’ voter ID scheme and requiring political parties to publish candidate diversity data, as set out in chapter 20.
- Halting the use of facial recognition surveillance, which is most likely to wrongly identify black people and women.
Defence
Keeping our country secure should be the first priority of any government. We must always take defence seriously – and work with allies to protect all our freedoms.
Liberal Democrats will strengthen our Armed Forces and support the people who work in them, and keep the UK free, safe and secure by:
- Reversing the Conservative Government’s cut to the Army, with a longer-term ambition of increasing regular troop numbers back to over 100,000.
- Maintaining the UK’s support for NATO, and accordingly increasing defence spending in every year of the Parliament, with an ambition to spend at least 2.5% of GDP on defence.
- Securing a fair deal for service personnel and veterans.
- Maintaining the UK’s nuclear deterrent with four submarines providing continuous at-sea deterrence, while pursuing multilateral global disarmament.
- Controlling arms exports to countries with poor human rights records.
For more detail
- Legislate to ensure there is a parliamentary vote before engaging in military action, and support intervention only when there is a clear legal or humanitarian case, while preserving the government’s ability to engage in action in emergencies with a retrospective vote or under treaty obligation.
- Introduce a ‘presumption of denial’ for arms exports to governments listed as human rights concerns in the Foreign Office’s annual human rights report.
- Strengthen the Intelligence and Security Committee by giving it the power to decide what it publishes and when, and enabling the Houses of Parliament to elect its members.
- Tackle long-standing problems in defence procurement, including by ensuring that procurement is part of a comprehensive industrial strategy to secure a reliable long-term pipeline of equipment procurements, which will strengthen the Army, Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and Strategic Command.
- Support and promote the development of international treaties on the principles and limits of the use of technology in modern warfare.
- Secure a fair deal for the armed forces community, and improve recruitment, retention and resettlement, by:
- Strengthening the Armed Forces Covenant by placing a legal duty on the Defence Secretary and government departments to give it due regard.
- Improving the standard of Ministry of Defence housing, including by reviewing maintenance contracts.
- Waiving application fees for indefinite leave for members of the armed forces on discharge, and their families.
- Accepting the recommendations of the Atherton Report on women in the armed forces.
- Ensuring that military compensation for illness or injury does not count towards means-testing for benefits.
- Establishing a ‘Fair Deal for Service Personnel, Veterans and Families Commission’.
- Work collaboratively with our democratic European partners and promote security, including through deterrence, by:
- Strengthening cooperation with our Nordic and Baltic allies via the Joint Expeditionary Force.
- Building on existing UK-French cooperation arrangements, including the Lancaster House Treaties.
- Developing closer cooperation with EU agencies and member states over defence, intelligence and cyber-security.
- Prioritising interoperability with NATO allies and other strategic partners.
- Working more closely in the joint development of innovative defence technologies and procurement.
- Seeking a defence and security agreement with the EU and its member states.
- Continuing to work closely with our Five Eyes partners.
International
Britain needs to stand up on the world stage for those vital liberal values which are the cornerstone of our society: democracy, liberty, human rights and the rule of law. We will resist those states that threaten us and robustly challenge our allies when necessary.
The UK must support democracies around the world, especially those threatened by aggression such as Ukraine and Taiwan. We must stand up to states like China and Russia, resisting their attempts to undermine our democratic values and preventing them from filling the vacuum that the UK has left in Africa and the rest of the Global South, following the Government’s short-sighted cut to the aid budget.
Following years of Conservative Government, our influence on the world stage is sadly but undeniably diminished. Liberal Democrats will reverse this decline. We will rebuild our relations with our allies – not trash them. We will uphold international law – not undermine it. We will restore Britain’s role as an international development superpower.
With war raging on our continent, now more than ever Britain must lead within Europe. Liberal Democrats are the only party that will fix the UK’s broken relationship with Europe, by following our four-stage roadmap. Not only will this leave us and our allies more secure, but it will help restore the British economy and the prosperity and opportunities of its citizens.
We will:
- Work to counter the global rise in authoritarianism by championing the liberal, rules-based international order and supporting international institutions such as the United Nations, the Commonwealth, NATO and the International Criminal Court.
- Fix the UK’s broken relationship with Europe, forge a new partnership built on cooperation, not confrontation, and move to conclude a new comprehensive agreement which removes as many barriers to trade as possible.
- Stand with the people of Ukraine and provide them with the support that they need in the face of Putin’s illegal invasion.
- Restore the UK’s reputation as an international development superpower, by returning spending to 0.7% of national income and re-establishing an independent international development department.
- Advocate for an immediate bilateral ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict to resolve the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, get the hostages out, and provide the space to reach a two-state solution based on 1967 borders with security and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians.
For more detail:
- Protect, defend and promote human rights for all around the world by:
- Working to abolish the death penalty and end the use of torture.
- Using the UK’s Magnitsky sanctions to stand up against human rights abuses.
- Banning imports from areas with egregious abuses such as Xinjiang.
- Enshrining in law a right for British nationals, including dual nationals, who have been politically detained or face other human rights violations abroad to access UK consular services.
- Developing a comprehensive strategy for promoting the decriminalisation of homosexuality and advancing LGBT+ rights.
- Appointing an ambassador-level Champion for Freedom of Belief.
- Work with our allies to help bring security and stability to the Middle East, which has become a tinderbox amidst the Israel-Gaza conflict, including by:
- Advocating for an immediate bilateral ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict, recognising that there is no military solution to remove Hamas from Gaza.
- Leading a diplomatic push towards a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine based on 1967 borders, to deliver the security and dignity that Israelis and Palestinians deserve.
- Officially recognising the independent state of Palestine with immediate effect.
- Recognising the existential threat of Iran not just in the Middle East but to Western democracies, by proscribing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
- Upholding and respecting international courts and international law.
- Work with the international community and neighbouring countries on the provision of safe, legal passages for those who wish to leave Afghanistan, and support Afghan refugees in the UK.
- Increase UK humanitarian assistance to Sudan and play a stronger role in seeking a ceasefire and long-term peace where civilians form a democratic government and war crimes are prosecuted.
- Provide safe and legal routes to sanctuary for refugees, as set out in chapter 18.
- Pursue a foreign policy agenda with gender equality at its heart, focusing on:
- The transformation of the position of women through economic inclusion.
- Education and training, ensuring the lives of women and girls are not ignored in favour of trade or regional alliances.
- Working to extend reproductive rights and end female genital mutilation.
- The eradication of sexual violence in conflict, including by increasing international development funding for such initiatives.