This ‘movement for moderates’ may end up splitting the Left

Vince Cable has had a rough 37 years. When I was still at school, he was part of the great exodus of moderates who abandoned Labour for the Social Democratic Party. Three decades later he supported the Liberal Democrats’ coalition with David Cameron. Both ventures failed to revitalise the British centre ground, and the latter poisoned it, cutting the Lib Dems’ MPS from 57 to a mere dozen. Now Vince Cable has a Plan B.

Not deterred by the Labour Party’s traumatic experience after opening up its membership to anyone who could recite verbatim the words of John Lennon’s Imagine (and believe them!), he wants anyone in the country to be able to support the Lib Dems, vote for its leaders, and possibly even run for its leadership for free.

Snark aside, these proposals are worth taking seriously. Sir Vince’s language was notable: he wants to transform his party into “a movement for moderates”.

Could this have been any more blatantly aimed at those Labour MPS who have made little secret of their plans to leave Labour? Even more intriguingly, could all the media chatter about Gina Miller, the antibrexit campaigner, succeeding Cable be nothing more than a diversion from his real aim – to persuade a serving Labour MP to pick up the gauntlet and lead a new, revitalised, perhaps even renamed version of the Lib Dems?

As someone who is sceptical of conspiracy theories, I am reluctant to draw any connection between the timing of Tony Blair’s latest contribution to the debate about Labour’s future (summary: it hasn’t got one under Jeremy Corbyn) and Vince’s long-planned speech today.

Still, if the Lib Dem leader hopes to persuade Labour MPS to join some new, turbo-charged centrist movement in the style of Justin Trudeau’s or Emmanuel Macron’s, Blair’s comments couldn’t have come at a more fortuitous time.

On Thursday, two more Labour MPS found themselves on the wrong side of a vote of confidence from their Corbyn-supporting local parties. Many will urge Joan Ryan and Gavin Shuker – and the many more who will follow them in the months ahead – to stay in the party and, er, campaign to elect Mr Corbyn (that’ll show him). But other moderates will be paying close attention to the Lib Dems.

And who knows? In its new incarnation, one of them could, one day, be first in line for Lib Dem leader.