Devon for Europe is urging MPs to request an extension to the Brexit Transition Period.

They have written a helpful piece which contains links to petitions and a lot of information about this topic.

You can view the piece here.

It also contains a draft letter to send to your MP.

You can contact your MP here.

Many things are of course not running as normal this year but we are delighted that the Lib Dem annual conference will be going ahead in virtual form from the 25th to the 28th of September.

There will be the same sort of sessions as usual with the aim of replicating as much of the conference experience as possible.

We are pleased to welcome Syvila Chaplin on board as our new Membership Development Officer for the South Hams Liberal Democrats. Syvila helped out greatly during the general election last year and has been a valuable presence on our Executive Commitee.

We have no doubt she will be excellent in her new role and if you wish to contact Syvila about anything you can do so at the following email address:

In a meeting on May the 19th the Federal Board agreed an updated timetable for the Liberal Democrat leadership election, how we'll run our autumn conference, respond to the election review and start updating our technology. Learn more about this here.

Following the 2019 General Election, the Federal Board commissioned Dorothy Thornhill and her team of fourteen to conduct an independent review of the Party's performance.

The Liberal Democrats are committed to a fair and open society and reflect that in our internal approach to transparency and accountability. The resulting report is therefore available here in its entirety.

Across the country, people are volunteering to help their communities through the Coronavirus outbreak. The Liberal Democrats are dedicating our resources to supporting that community effort.

The following page has lots of useful links and websites concerning how to help others at this time:

https://www.libdems.org.uk/coronavirus

These are uncertain times for many and the following websites may be of use to businesses and individuals concerned for the future.

Check your rights concerning being laid off or put on short time working here: https://www.gov.uk/lay-offs-short-timeworking

How to get help if you are self employed can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/…/claim-a-grant-through-the-coronavirus-…

Many are keen to support their communities at this time and the following list of some organisations that already do good work locally are worth considering giving some of your time to.

Totnes Food Bank: https://connectionhubs.weebly.com/food-bank.html

Totnes Caring: https://www.totnescaring.org.uk/

Dartmouth Food Bank: http://www.dartmouthanddistrictfoodbank.org.uk/