Social Liberal Forum


The Social Liberal Forum is a pressure group that seeks to promote social liberalism within Britain. The Social Liberal Forum originated as a group that represented the centre-left within the British Liberal Democrats, but membership is now open also to people who are not members of the Liberal Democrats but who share the SLF's values and principles; since 2018 this has included members of the Green Party of England and Wales.
The SLF regularly organises fringe events at the Liberal Democrat Federal Conference and, increasingly, provides speakers to events elsewhere.

Overview

The SLF was launched in February 2009. The book Reinventing the State: Social Liberalism for the 21st Century has been said to be influential on the thinking of those who created the SLF. The SLF did not take a corporate position on the suitability of the Coalition Government between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives and campaigned for many changes to Coalition policy on issues such as NHS reforms, economic policy and cuts to welfare spending.
The SLF advances social liberal policies, theory and thought leadership within British politics, often in opposition to free market fundamentalism. It takes inspiration from the political ideas of William Beveridge, John Maynard Keynes, Thomas Hill Green, Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse, David Lloyd George, Jo Grimond and Charles Kennedy amongst others. The SLF has supported a wide range of socio-economic policies including the introduction of a universal basic income, opposition to welfare reforms and support for wealth taxation, economic democracy and Keynesian economics.

Conference and Lecture

Every July since 2011, the SLF has held a one-day annual conference; and since 2012, this includes a William Beveridge Memorial Lecture.

William Beveridge Memorial Lectures

Publications

On 9 March 2018, the Social Liberal Forum published a book, edited by Helen Flynn, entitled "Four Go In Search of Big Ideas: Putting Progressive Ideas at the Heart of UK Politics". The book included chapters from a range of social liberal, social democratic and green political thinkers and aimed to build a "progressive alliance of people, ideas and campaigns". The book covered three main policy areas; the economy, welfare and climate change and included contributions from active members of the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party. The Forum regularly publishes pamphlets written by members relevant to social liberal thought and action.

Books

Pre-SLF books by social liberals

Much of the debate and organisation of the Social Liberal Forum emerged from the following book, which was framed as a response and antidote to ':
It was subsequently reprinted by Politico's in 2009, to tie in with the launch of the SLF.

SLF books

General pamphlets

The current Chair of the Social Liberal Forum is Cllr Iain Brodie-Browne and Deputy-Chair Louise Harris Previous Chairs of the SLF have included Helen Flynn, Naomi Smith, Gareth Epps, David Hall-Matthews and Richard Grayson.