LIBERALS AND CENTRISTS SHOULD UNITE AGAINST HARD BREXITERS
Les Libéraux et les Centristes devraient s'unir contre les partisans du Brexit dur (hard Brexit sortie de l'UE qui entraînerait également celle du marché unique)
Le 18 avril dernier, Theresa May, Première ministre du Royaume-Uni et chef du Parti conservateur a annoncé la tenue de législatives anticipées le 8 juin prochain. Depuis juillet 2016 et la démission de son prédécesseur, c’est elle qui porte la responsabilité de l’organisation du Brexit. Pour l’ancien Vice-Premier ministre libéral-démocrate Nick Clegg, un nouveau jeu d’alliances entre son parti et les travaillistes est envisageable…
Nick Clegg has called on liberal and one-nation Conservatives, centrist Labour politicians and Liberal Democrats to join together to mount an ideological response to Theresa May’s government. The former Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister said those at the centre of British politics had to urgently shift from “grieving to attack” to challenge Brexit-backing Tories on European and domestic policy areas.
2.“Political parties are not sects,” said Clegg as he promised to work with anyone who sought to challenge the direction of British politics, arguing that Brexit was an “ideological coup” for small-state fanatics. “No one can beat the Conservatives on their own so it’s not that complicated – we’re condemned to work together,” he told the Guardian in an interview. “I would welcome and embrace more thinking and writing and talking and speaking amongst liberal Conservatives, one-nation Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, centreground Labour folk who want to mount a proper ideological response to that.”
THE PEOPLE, UNITED
3. Clegg said people were spending too much time getting angry and needed to unite on issues such as “housing, in-work poverty and the ageing population”. Clegg said it was “completely out of the question” for his party to enter a coalition with the Tory party because of hard Brexit, but suggested that a shift back to more tactical voting could provide a comeback for the left of British politics. “If it becomes obvious next election that the overwhelming task is to destroy the Conservative government – that is umbilically linked to hard Brexit,” he said, then it would be “flamingly obvious” to Labour in the south-west that the Lib Dems had the best chance of victory and to Lib Dems in the north that Labour did. 4.He argued that the politicians who drove the decision to leave the EU had plans for mass deregulation after Brexit was complete. “What lurks behind Brexit is an ideological coup, in many ways a domestic one. Brexit is a means by which a low-state, low-protection, low-welfare, libertarian approach to governance is seeking to take over the commanding heights of British politics,” he said.
5.Clegg, the Lib Dem spokesman on Brexit, said that this was not “conspiracy stuff”. “You can see it – look at the commentariat in large parts of the Brexit press, look at Tea Party thinktanks in America that are the intellectual inspiration for Brexiteers, look at what they said about Brussels being the fount of all problems because of regulation.”
OLD MEN
6. He claimed that Britain was being run by a “curious cabal of old men”, namely the power brokers on Britain’s pro-Brexit newspapers – the Telegraph’s Barclay brothers, the Sun’s Rupert Murdoch and the Daily Mail’s Paul Dacre. Describing them as puppet masters, he said they wanted to turn Britain into an offshore economy, calling them a “bunch of old men – not elected by anybody – [with] Theresa May as their hostage”.
7.Clegg then set Twitter alight after he was pictured talking with Labour’s Keir Starmer on the frontbench. “I just went and asked him a dweeby, legal question. Can’t you do that?” he asked, laughing. However, Clegg was critical of the shadow Brexit secretary’s position on Brexit. “[Starmer] has got a fine legal brain but I think the way that the Labour party is handling the politics of this is nothing short of catastrophic. They could be true to their convictions which is they reject the kind of Brexit we are heading towards,” he said.
8.Clegg argued that Labour was attempting to cater for 100% of voters, a strategy that would disappoint everybody. He said the party had backed article 50 because it had let the vote be defined by the Daily Mail view of the world that it would be “thwarting the will of the people – it was 24-carat crap”. However, Clegg said there was much common ground across British political parties “for those who do not believe in this curious hijacking of the commanding heights of politics by an – in many respects – unaccountable elite of small-state fanatics”.
HARSH WORDS
9. He said the Tories had a “remorseless nose for power” that made them one of the most successful and cynical parties in the developed world: “Because for them why you wield power is secondary to the act of wielding power.” Asked if he would encourage his sons to go into politics, Clegg was unequivocal. “No, God no,” he said, claiming it was an “aggressive, dog-eatdog world”. He also made clear that he would not lead a party again, saying that this was the “final chapter” of his political career.
What lurks behind Brexit is an ideological coup.