Liberal democrats

Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth is proving to be a jolly affair so far. I’m writing this in the garden of the Highcliff hotel, looking out over the Channel that divides the UK from France and, perhaps one day, the European Union. It’s Brexit that’s making the Lib Dems happy as they bustle by. Parties are generally happy when they feel they have a clear line on big issues, and the Lib Dem line on Brexit is now crystal-clear: cancel it. Partly because they expect a big Labour shift towards a clear Remain position, the Lib Dems are now, in headline terms, committed to revoking the Article 50 notification and

This afternoon, Lib Dem MPs gathered outside a freshly vacated parliament in a defiant attempt to bag a photo opportunity of them looking stern. The impromptu press conference came after the Court of Session in Scotland declared Boris’s decision to prorogue parliament ‘unlawful’ earlier this morning. Nevermind the fact that the case, having already been rejected by the High Court in London, is set to be heard at the Supreme Court on Tuesday – Boris’s so-called ‘coup’ must be stopped. The Lib Dem’s approach to democracy is predictably inconsistent. Yesterday, the party announced that they are dropping their fig-leaf commitment to a second referendum and instead will now be pushing

Imagine that you’re a Tory MP who wants to vote against the government today – and you’re going to be deselected if you do. What do you do about the next general election? Do you stand as a Gaukeward squad independent? Do you do a Phillip Lee and move over to the Lib Dems? Or, like Justine Greening, give up on Westminster altogether? The answer, and what Boris Johnson’s deselection threat means to potential rebel MPs, is complex and highly dependent on the political outlook of each MP’s seat. For some MPs, Boris Johnson’s threat is very real, and potential rebels will have chosen to walk back from the brink

On the surface, Jeremy Corbyn’s pitch to become caretaker prime minister of a government of national unity after overthrowing Boris Johnson looks like a messy failure. The Liberal Democrats have said they won’t back him, two of the Tories who he wrote to have backed away too, and the Independent Group for Change (which he didn’t write to) have said this evening that they will ‘not support nor facilitate any government led by Jeremy Corbyn’. Instead, everyone is talking about the possibility of a government led by Ken Clarke. The former Tory chancellor today said he wouldn’t object to taking over if it was ‘the only way’ to stop a

Politicians determined to prevent a no-deal Brexit are locked in a Mexican stand-off. If Boris Johnson cannot command a Commons majority, Jo Swinson has made it clear that under no circumstances will Liberal Democrats support a caretaker Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government. John McDonnell has indicated that Labour will not back a temporary national unity government under an as-yet unnamed backbench MP. With Parliament in recess we are in the realm of second-guessing what might happen next. When MPs return to Westminster, Johnson might win a vote of confidence. But even if he loses, the Prime Minister could possibly engineer a general election to subvert the cunning plans of the no-no

As the Liberal Democrats celebrate their win in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, other parties are licking their wounds. The Tories narrowly missed out and now must deal with the realities of being the governing party with a working majority of one. Labour meanwhile came a distant fourth – only just managing to hold on to their deposit. Corbynistas have struggled to keep their vitriol in check since Jo Swinson was elected as the leader of the Liberal Democrats and today was no exception. Did Labour join in the celebrations (along with the Remain alliance) that the Tories had lost a seat? Think again. Instead the Corbyn outriders were out

As the Westminster rumour mill goes into overdrive over the likelihood of an early general election, talk has turned to how the main parties would fare in an Autumn trip to the polls. Crucial to that question is how the Liberal Democrats would do. Just a year ago, the Lib Dems were the subject of pity and widespread mockery. They were scarred by their time in coalition with the Tories. They failed to make much ground during the 2017 snap election, ending up with just 12 MPs, and seemed destined for extinction. In theory, they should have hoovered up Remain voters. Instead, they hoovered up derision and obloquy. Sir Vince

When I was fresh out of university, I applied for a job as a parliamentary aide to Jo Swinson. The MP for East Dunbartonshire was full of promise and more to my political tastes then than the clunky managerialism of new PM Gordon Brown. She rejected me. If nothing else, this shows Swinson has sound judgement. After all, I would have made a terrible Lib Dem staffer. I was – and remain – in favour of the Iraq War, the war on terror, tuition fees, first past the post, nuclear power and erecting a statue of Tony Blair in every parish in the land. For many years, that was the

Jo Swinson has been elected as the new leader of the Liberal Democrats. Succeeding Sir Vince Cable in the role, Swinson, the first woman to hold the position, beat her rival Ed Davey – winning 47,997 votes against 28,02 with 63 per cent of the vote. In her victory speech, Swinson said that on joining the party at 17, she had ‘never imagined that I would one day have the honour of leading our great party’. So, how will she lead it? Swinson – who served as a business minister in the coalition – used her speech to cast the Liberal Democrats as the party of liberalism. She tried to

An old joke among political journalists is that you know a writer has run out of topics when they start producing columns either on their children or the Liberal Democrats. With so many other things going on, perhaps this is why Westminster has been oddly indifferent to the leadership contest taking place between Jo Swinson and Ed Davey over the past couple of months. We should have been paying more attention, as the winner may well have an important role to play in the political turmoil over the next few months. Last night, the BBC held its hustings with the two candidates, and I was one of the journalists invited

The timing of the Liberal Democrats’ leadership hustings on Friday could not have been better for Jo Swinson and Ed Davey. The two leadership hopefuls took to the lectern on an historic day when YouGov recorded the once floundering party as leading in its latest polling. This, along with the party’s recent success in the EU elections, provided an exciting backdrop for Swinson and Davey to outlay their future vision for the party. While the party’s current surge is attributable to its strong support for a second Brexit referendum, the party’s next leader must be able to craft a coherent vision and identity beyond this issue. When the dust settles,

Last night, there was shock across Westminster as a new poll by YouGov asking people how they would vote in the next general election showed that the Lib Dems were the most popular party in the UK. Of those asked, 24 per cent said they would vote for the Remain party, followed by 22 per cent for Nigel Farage’s Brexit party, and 19 per cent opting for the Conservatives and Labour respectively. In a blog post introducing the poll, YouGov’s political research manager, Chris Curtis, said that it was only the second time in 19 years that either Labour or the Conservatives were not in first place in a YouGov survey.

Protestors on the anti-Brexit marches have sensed an eerie absence. ‘What is it?’ I thought back in March as I stood on a soapbox to address an audience so jammed by the weight of numbers on Park Lane that it could not escape. Then it hit me. ‘What the hell have they done with the left?’ There were no Socialist Workers Party placards or George Galloways. The people who hijacked every demonstration I could remember had vanished. I saw plenty of left-wingers. On the neighbouring soapbox, a succession of socialists spoke well on the need to protect migrants and workers’ rights in a reformed Europe. But they were leftists, not

Small issues – the construction of a hated roundabout or an outbreak of pot holes – can matter a lot at local elections. This year however the mood is different. Traumatised by Brexit, voters have been itching to vent their frustrations at the ballot box one way or another. With the two main parties in the stocks, today’s polls could be a golden opportunity for the most established small party, the Lib Dems. It would certainly be a long time coming. The party once known as the “yellow peril” lost 750 seats in 2011, then a further 400 in 2015. Broken promises over tuition fees, combined with a general distaste among its core voters

In a parallel universe, the MPs who’ve left the Labour and Conservative parties this week would be joining the existing centrist party that shares their views on Brexit. But the Liberal Democrats haven’t had a look in, despite Vince Cable and before him Tim Farron claiming that they’d spoken to would-be defectors. Cable has just issued a statement saying that ‘there is clearly some very radical changes now afoot’ and offering to work with the new Independent Group. He said: ‘We will hold out the hand of friendship to the independent MPs with whom we already have a good working relationship.’ The Lib Dems have accepted that they have failed

Vince Cable’s big moment at the Lib Dem party conference has arrived – but unfortunately for the Lib Dem leader he managed to fluff his lines. Cable was set to use his keynote speech to accuse Brexiteers of pursuing an ‘erotic spasm’ in leaving the EU. But that’s not quite what he actually said: Talk about an anti climax…