Cable: Time for me to go
Lib Dem leader, 75, reveals he’ll step down in May to hand over to ‘the next generation’
SIR Vince Cable will step down as leader of the Liberal Democrats after the local elections in May.
The former business secretary revealed that he had decided to leave to pave the way for the ‘next generation’ to lead the party through Brexit.
He admitted he had presided over a ‘gradual’ rather than a ‘spectacular’ recovery of the party, and said he will continue as an MP.
Sir Vince, 75, is making the announcement today to coincide with the Lib Dems’ spring conference in York, the city where he was born.
He said his wife Rachel wanted to spend more time with him, and he wanted to be able to do the things ‘I can’t do now’. The MP had previously announced he would stand down after Brexit was ‘resolved’, but conceded: ‘It now looks as if it will be a protracted process, and may never happen.’
He refused to name his preferred successor, but former coalition minister Jo Swinson, former coalition energy secretary Ed Davey and MP Layla Moran are believed to be keen on the job. Under Sir Vince’s proposed party reforms, non-MP candidates soon also be in the frame, including Gina Miller, the second referendum campaigner.
‘We’ve got several very good internal candidates – you can work out who they are,’ he said. ‘The worst thing I can do is to start promoting them.’
He said he would not become a ‘backseat driver’ and would let the next generation set the party’s course.
Sir Vince said he was announcing his departure so a 12-week leadership contest can begin in May. ‘I wanted to set it out so that there’s an orderly process of succession and the next generation can come through, rather than the chaotic power struggles you’re seeing inside the Tory party and Labour Party.
‘My wife Rachel has been very supportive [ of my time as leader] and doesn’t mind me doing it and has come round the country with me, but she would like to spend more time with me. I think she will see it as a bonus that she sees me more.’
He added: ‘I’ll be continuing as an MP. I want to get back to writing books again in my spare time.’ Sir Vince said he was planning a follow-up to his political thriller Open Arms which was published in 2017, and a non-fiction book about politicians who have changed the way we look at economics, from US founding father Alexander Hamilton to Margaret Thatcher.
The decision to make his announcement now was ‘partly sentimental’, he said. ‘York is where I was born and brought up. I met my [first] wife Olympia there while we were both working in a mental health hospital. I stood [to become an MP] in York in 1983 and 1987. I have all kinds of sentimental and personal attachment, so it seems an obvious place to do this.’
Asked if he was proud of his time in office, he said: ‘Yes, I think we’ve achieved quite a lot. I inherited the legacy of two very difficult general elections. They were very bad.
‘We’ve rebuilt [the party] significantly. There aren’t any electoral events to test it but we’re doing well locally. We think we could do well in May. There’s recovery on that level.
‘We’ve got record levels of membership despite all the difficulties and morale is high.’
Asked if he had any regrets, Sir Vince said: ‘I would obviously like to have presided over a spectacular recovery [of the Lib Dems], rather than a gradual recovery, but events were beyond my control.
‘I think it is a creditable performance, and I’m very happy to let someone else take it on.’
Asked if he would miss being in charge while Brexit took its course, he said: ‘I’m not a power maniac, we operate as a team anyway. I delegate a lot of
‘Chaotic power struggles’
‘Creditable performance’
work to the team in any event.’ He also conceded that the Lib Dems had not gained electorally from their position on Brexit, saying: ‘We appear not to have benefited enormously because it’s seen as a separate issue to party politics.’
On the party’s overtures to the Independent Group of former Tory and Labour MPs, he said he had held meetings with many of them about working together.
He said the Lib Dems and socalled Tiggers were beyond the point of being subsumed by each other and would instead form an alliance.
Sir Vince revealed that Independent Group MP Anna Soubry will attend the Lib Dems’ conference today and hold a joint fringe event with his deputy Miss Swinson.
He said he was most proud of his record in government as business secretary and there was a ‘long list’ of things he had achieved. ‘Obviously there were some uncomfortable experiences in the coalition, and it didn’t do us great favours with the electorate in 2015, [but] I think there were a lot of real accomplishments.’
Sir Vince said the impact of the Lib Dems’ time in coalition was ‘grossly overplayed’ at the time, adding: ‘It did damage us politically, and that damage persisted until 2017. I think it’s fading away.’