We asked the Chair of the Racial Diversity Campaign, Ade Adeyemo, for an update on their work to increase the racial diversity of the party's candidates and elected representatives. To get involved with the RDC or get support from them, please click on this link to go to their website.

Chair Ade Adeyemo's update:

The LDCRE has today launched a 10-point plan to improve racial equality both inside and outside the party. We call on both Layla Moran and Ed Davey and their campaigns to pledge their support for all 10 of these policies. We believe all these pledges are deliverable and will work with the successful candidate to introduce them.

Over 50 years ago, trans people of colour fought hard for our rights in the Stonewall riots, yet to this day, places such as Manchester still do not truly represent those who fought so hard.

A city so diverse, modern and progressive by the looks but in reality this city has never seen an openly transgender politician. I say that we can do so much better. Let's get Manchester's first openly trans person of colour elected.

There are two main policy areas of work particularly relevant to BAME individuals that I've been working on at FPC and elsewhere.

The first is as part of the exciting new online policy discussion project the Lib Dems are using - PolicyLab. This is part of a widescale policy review looking at how our policies will be changing for a World After Coronavirus. Please do go online and get involved in the discussions around this. I'm one of the co-leads for the health chapter, but also feed into the discussion by the co-leads on the other sections.

On the third time I went canvassing, at the age of just 13, I was sent to a complex of flats. These flats were mostly owned by people of Indian descent and I, as someone born in the UK but whose family originally came from Bangladesh, was confused as to why I was being sent there. At a meeting later that day, the senior figure who made me canvass that area proudly declared how we had gone to an Indian complex of flats and I had performed very well in the role of connecting with this particular community. It was very clear from this speech that this was planned to use my race to win votes. I was embarrassed but more so confused at why he thought I was meant to be the one to do this, and why everyone else (who was white), including an approved PPC, all smiled and murmured a chorus of approval.