Are Lib Dems quietly rowing back on vow to cancel Brexit?
THE Liberal Democrats appeared to have abandoned their policy of revoking Article 50 yesterday after conceding that they will not win the General Election.
Foreign affairs spokesman Chuka umunna gave a speech yesterday in which he failed to even mention the word ‘revoke’, despite the fact it is the flagship policy in their manifesto.
In the wake of falling poll ratings, the party appears to have changed tack to focus on a second referendum. Yesterday’s ICM survey showing the Lib Dems stuck on 13 per cent.
Earlier this year, leader Jo Swinson told party conference delegates that she was their ‘candidate to be prime minister’, adding that a Lib Dem government would revoke Brexit. In other circumstances, she said the party would support another poll.
Mr umunna yesterday urged voters to ‘change the arithmetic’ in Parliament in favour of a second referendum. Speaking in Watford, he urged voters to elect as many Lib Dems as possible to deprive the Tories of a majority and ‘ensure the arithmetic in a new House of Commons can deliver a People’s Vote, and pave the way to secure not only Britain’s place at the heart of Europe but as a world leader too.’
Mr umunna’s failure to mention revoke came after Miss Swinson was savaged on BBC Question Time by a Remain supporter who lambasted the policy to cancel Brexit without another vote.
Nevertheless,Mr umunna denied the party have abandoned their revoke policy, and insisted a second referendum was the ‘most likely’ route to stopping Brexit.
‘The revoke policy hasn’t been abandoned,’ he told the Mail. ‘If we went from 20 MPs to 327 MPs, which would put us in a position to stop Brexit, I think it would be rather odd if we didn’t immediately revoke Article 50. However, we’ve always been clear that we will continue in all other scenarios to champion the cause of... the People’s Vote. We will keep pressing for that route. And that is the route, which it seems to me, is the most likely route to stop Brexit.’
Mr umunna said he was not surprised by the ‘squeeze’ the Lib Dems had received in the polls, but said voting for them was the only way to stop a Tory majority.
He said: ‘At the very least we must reduce the numbers of Conservative
MPs.’ He added polling showed that in a ‘substantial’ number of seats,the Lib Dems were likely to be the ‘stronger challenger’ to the Tories. On Labour he said: ‘Far from taking seats, Labour is trying to defend its own from the Tories.’
In his speech Mr umunna attacked Mr Johnson, whom he accused of lining up with ‘rightwing, authoritarian nationalists’ on theworld stage. He added: ‘Inevitably, Johnson will become more reliant on Trump in the short term if he is re-elected. Leave the Eu and the uk will become President Trump’s poodle.’
Asked if he thought Mr Johnson was racist, Mr umunna said: ‘The things that he has said and done are racist. Only he in his heart knows whether he is a racist.’
All plastic packaging would have to be recyclable under a Liberal Democrat government. The party said it would give firms three years to implement the change.