The last ten days have seen major stories of racism in both of Britain's major parties.

What is happening in the Labour party - and Boris Johnson's comments this week - are frightening to many Jewish and Muslim people living in Britain.

This is a reflection of the way the politics of identity dominates politics today and attracts comments, sometimes critical or offensive, about particular groups.

Lib Dem Leader Sir Vince Cable is set to claim it is possible to legislate for a fresh referendum within weeks and for it to be held before the Article 50 process expires.

In a speech during a rally on Saturday - organised by the People's Vote campaign for a fresh referendum - Sir Vince is expected to dismiss concerns from Brexiteer "fanatics" that there is no time to get legislation through parliament for a second public vote.

After the 2015 election disaster, a comprehensive post-mortem led by James Gurling analysed what had gone wrong and made a huge number of detailed recommendations of what should be done differently next time.

However, the snap election of 2017, coming just two years later and out of left field, meant that we were still recovering from 2015 and had not had much chance to implement many of those changes.

I say no - conscience comes before one's own ambitions and equality, tolerance & justice are far more important that one's own career path. The future of our great United Kingdom and our future generations is far more important than anything else in my view and worth fighting for every step of the way.

Politics surely should be about policies and not personal attacks - what a shame it hasn't remained that way? What I did not realise is that this was just the beginning of a long and rocky ride over the coming months where I saw a real lurch to the right, in the words of the former Tory MP Stephen Phillips QC the party has started to mould itself into 'UKIp-Lite'.

Theresa May once called modern slavery "the great human rights issue of our time", and she was right. The very idea that human beings are held in bondage in the UK today - forced to pick fruit and wash cars, to work on construction sites and in nail bars - is sickening.

In 2015, the Coalition Government passed a Modern Slavery Act to make it easier to identify victims and bring traffickers to justice, and prosecutions have increased as a result. But now, many of Theresa May's own policies are undermining efforts to tackle it.

I first became involved with party politics when I was 18. I was studying an undergraduate degree in Politics and Religious Studies (later refined to straight Politics) at Cardiff University. Like most first years, I had planned to join at least one society and throw myself into student life at the University. I knew I wanted to join a political society, and for me what was then Cardiff Conservative Future seemed like the perfect option.

The boundaries for Borough Council seats in Basingstoke and Deane are set to change.

The Local Government Boundary Commission has today suggested that the number of councillors in Basingstoke and Deane should be cut from 60 to 54. This means that the seat boundaries are likely to be redrawn and elections will be held for all Borough Councillors in May 2019.

The new Liberal Democrat Campaign for Race Equality aims to make the Liberal Democrats a truly multiracial party - to become a leading political force for race equality and integration.

The Alderdice review into race equality within the party made for uncomfortable reading. It concluded that the party was not integrated at any level - and that too many of our local parties were overwhelmingly white in multiracial communities.

The odds on a second Brexit referendum before 2020 have shortened to 2.48 after polls showed that, for the first time, a majority of Britons want to vote again on their country's future relationship with the European Union. It is becoming clear that the Government's Chequers 'deal' is not going to work and increasingly the choice is a "hard Brexit" or stay in the EU.

The dates and locations for Spring and Autumn conference 2019 have been announced.

Spring conference - York Barbican - 16-17th March 2019
Autumn Conference - Bournemouth International Centre - 15-18th September 2019

Conference is where our party makes decisions on our future direction.

You can participate in thought-provoking debates, meet like-minded people, make party policy, hear from experts on a range of topics at our fringe events and learn new skills at our training sessions.