Farron dismisses Cable’s talk of a new party
New leader says defectors should join Lib Dems, not a breakaway suggested by former business secretary
TIM FARRON’S first party conference as Liberal Democrat leader was marred by a clash over the direction of the party yesterday as grandees disagreed on how to rebuild after the election.
Vince Cable, the former business secretary, said a new “fully formed political party” could emerge to unify the Left of politics in the wake of the Tory majority, but the idea was dismissed by Mr Farron – who questioned why it was needed when the Lib Dems existed – and by Baroness Williams.
The party is in Bournemouth to begin the self-styled “Lib Dem fightback” after a general election in which it lost all but eight of its MPs.
The conference began in upbeat mood on Saturday night as Lord Ashdown, the former leader, and other senior figures picked songs at a disco.
However, there were disagreements at the top of the party on how to deal with the victory of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership race.
Mr Cable wrote in The Sunday Times: “What I hope emerges from this is the creation of a common-sense centre- Left formation made of sensible Labour, the Lib Dems and indeed some Tories who don’t like the direction of their party. It will be a very long process but, ultimately, this movement might well have to become a fully fledged political party.” Asked about the article on BBC One’s
Andrew Marr Show, Mr Farron said: “We have the Liberal Democrats. Why would we create a new party? My sense is that there are liberals in other parties who are not yet Liberal Democrats.
“There are people in the Labour Party, actually there are many people in the Conservatives, who think that David Cameron and George Osborne attacking low-income workers is a terrible thing to do and think risking Brit- ain’s relevance and prosperity by pulling us out of the European Union, or taking that risk, is a terrible thing to do. I want to reach out to those people.”
Mr Cable later said he wanted the Lib Dems to rebuild and lead the fight against the Tories from the Left, but insisted it was important to keep an “ear” out for new “political formations”.
Baroness Williams, a Lib Dem peer and one of the Gang of Four rebels who founded the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981, backed Mr Farron by warning that “trying to form a new party would be a mistake”.
Mr Farron was accused of “mischief ” by talking up the possibility of defections. The Lib Dem leader said “more than two” Labour MPs had been in touch to express frustration at Mr Corbyn’s victory. He also suggested “dozens” of MPs shared his party’s views.
Charles Clarke, former Labour home secretary, said there was “absolutely no chance of defections” and claimed Mr Farron was making “mischief ”.
It came ahead of Nick Clegg’s return to the spotlight today with his first major speech since stepping down as party leader after the general election.
The former deputy prime minister is expected to warn that Scotland could go independent if Britain votes to leave the EU, saying that “not just one but two unions now hang in the balance” at the referendum.
It is a measure of the extraordinary state of politics in Britain these days that a party which was comprehensively humiliated at a general election only four months ago can talk again about the future with some shred of optimism. No doubt the Liberal Democrats were always going to use their autumn conference, currently under way, as an opportunity to regroup after their evisceration at the polls in May left them with only eight MPs. Yet as a result of Jeremy Corbyn’s ascent to the Labour leadership, it is not just die hard Lib Dem loyalists who can now imagine an electoral “fight back”, of the sort the party is now promising.
Labour centrists are undeniably shocked by the rise of the hard-Left movement within their party. Some MPs will be biding their time, hoping that the madness will soon abate, like a dizzy spell, so that both their political beliefs and careers can once again be advanced. But there will be others, less patient, or less hopeful, who may be tempted to throw in their cards. Could they be tempted to defect to the Lib Dems? Or will the moderates repeat history and, as we saw with the founding of the SDP in 1981, break away to form a new faction?
Clearly there is an opportunity here for the new Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron. Seizing it will by no means be straightforward. But given the state of his party when he took charge in the wake of Nick Clegg’s resignation, he must be delighted to have any opportunity at all. The question now has to be asked: is he the man to make the most of it?
Before the election, the Liberal Democrats would have had more than 50 MPs from which to choose a new leader. Afterwards, the pool of talent had evaporated, and they had just seven potential candidates. Having lost their seats, well-known figures such as Danny Alexander, who worked in the Coalition as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, were not among them.
Like Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Farron is popular with activists. But as with Mr Corbyn, it remains to be seen whether he can extend his appeal to all those within own party. Most important for the Lib Dems, though, is whether he can take advantage of Labour’s current disarray among the people who really matter – voters. As Mr Corbyn’s disastrous week has proved, they are watching closely. For a party that so recently seemed doomed to irrelevance, however, that is a start.