Farron: ‘May must go and Brexit should be delayed’
Lib Dem leader insists there will be no deal to prop up or support Tories
Brexit negotiations must be put on hold and Theresa May must quit, Tim Farron has said.
The Liberal Democrat leader said talks about leaving the European Union, which are due to start in 11 days, should be delayed while the new government reviews its priorities and sets them out to the public.
Mr Farron insisted there would be no deal to prop up a Conservative government, using Mrs May’s own words against her by insisting “no deal is better than a bad deal”.
“There will be no deals, no coalitions and no confidence and supply arrangements,” he insisted.
“Like David Cameron before her, our Conservative Prime Minister rolled the dice with the future of our country out of sheer arrogance and vanity,” he added.
He said the government had been weakened irreversibly. “She has brought weakness and uncertainty. If she has an ounce of self-respect she will resign,” he said.
Mr Farron said EU exit talks were “about to get very real” and warned the “consequenc- es will be felt by every single person in this country”.
The dire result for the Conservatives showed Mrs May’s “extreme version” of Brexit had been rejected by the British people, he said.
“It is simply inconceivable that the Prime Minister can begin the Brexit negotiations in just two weeks’ time. She should consider her future – and then, for once, she should consider the future of our country,” he said.
“The negotiations should be put on hold until the Government has reassessed its priorities and set them out to the British public.
“The British people have a right to expect that our Prime Minister will explain to them what it is that she seeks to achieve.”
The Lib Dem case for a referendum on the final Brexit deal “will only get stronger” as the talks continue, he claimed.
“The referendum showed us to be a dangerously divided country,” he said.
“This election has highlighted those divisions in Technicolor: young against old, rich against poor, north against south, urban against rural.
“If we are to have any chance at healing, at coming together, we must ask ourselves some tough questions.”
Mr Farron was speaking after Lib Dem warhorse Sir Vince Cable was swept back into his former Twickenham seat with 34,969 votes.
The 74-year-old ousted the Conservatives’ Dr Tania Mathias, who snatched the seat in 2015 with a majority of just 2,017. Ophthalmologist Dr Mathias, 52, polled 25,207.
Sir Vince won back his seat after losing it in the political bloodbath suffered by the Liberal Democrats in 2015.
He had held the seat from 1997 up to the last general election, and was made business secretary in one of the cabinet appointments given to the junior partners in the coalition in 2010.
Cambridge-educated and with a doctorate from Glasgow University, Sir Vince has had a long career in finance and government, working variously as a treasury finance officer for the Kenyan government, first secretary in the diplomatic service and deputy director of the Overseas Development Institute as special adviser on economic affairs for the Commonwealth Secretary General.