At the Conference rally tonight, Nick Clegg will take apart the arguments of the Brexiteers, calling them shameless.
He will say:
I’ve had enough of the continued, blatant attempt by Brexiteers to pull the wool over the public’s eyes. They spread fake news as indiscriminately as Trump’s Twitter rants. It started on the campaign trail with a promise of £350 million for the NHS – rejected by its authors the day after the result. Since then we’ve had patently false claims that Brexit will lead to more not less trade – a logical impossibility if we leave the EU’s single market and customs union – and the Utopian commitment to have all the details of our new relationship with the EU signed and sealed within 24 months.
This is disputed by every credible expert (yes, we still listen to them). It is time someone called them out for what they are – shameless pedlars of fake news and fake hope.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Violent Bonham Carter features on Fake or Fortune?
Have resignations led to a rethink?
High Fell leaflet watch (2)
Two new Makerfield by-election polls gives Burnham 5 and 12 point leads
GWYN WILLIAMS
Alex Macfie
Peter Martin
John Smith
Nick Baird
27 Comments
I am incensed to hear Mr Farage speaking with great confidence about the opinion of the Queen. I am afraid that rather like GCHQ she must now break with protocol and make a declaration of her own. The Brexit camp will stop at nothing it seems. However if true we the people deserve to know. Disgraceful on every level
Peddlers of fake news, more like peddlers of fake hope. Still as they will soon be along to tell us that if we believe everything will be fine. If we don’t believe fairies will die these followers of Tinkerbell will proclaim, facts are so twentieth century when all you need is hope.
I can only presume that the Lib Dems have concluded that slightly improving their appeal to the 48% justifies the 52% being dissuaded from ever voting for them again.
Your assuming the 52% will stay at 52%. People change their minds, people die. I rather doubt it will be 52% in a few short months; events dear boy events.
Frankie,
And you’re supposing that the 48% will go up rather than down after exiting the EU begins. We’ll be out before the next election. By then those currently arguing for staying in will be arguing for re-joining as a full member with a single currency and so on. There will certainly be some votes in this, but nowhere near as many as you would think. Really, most people have already moved on and the Lib Dem’s are not in that much of a better position than in 2015. There’s also a risk getting bogged down in, what could be by then, another constitutional argument with little wider appeal like electoral reform. On top of which is it really wise of a Party which presumably wants to bring people together to consciously alienate over half of the electorate? This is before you factor in the fact that it’s the still vastly unpopular Nick Clegg saying this.
@Glenn
“On top of which is it really wise of a Party which presumably wants to bring people together to consciously alienate over half of the electorate?”
I think you are wrong in your “over half the electorate” comment.
If by electorate you mean “people who normally vote” (and there are all sorts of alternative definitions you could argue for) then I’m quite certain that the majority of “the electorate” voted to remain.
Hard Brexit and loss of single market access will leave many people jobless, and many couples and families will be torn apart. It has to be opposed out of basic human decency, if nothing else.
Also, with the largest two parties supporting Hard Brexit to the hilt, there needs to be a progressive alternative on the ballot paper.
Actually, I don’t remember Nick saying any of this as written. He spoke totally off the cuff – no autocue or notes, fluently and brilliantly. He covered much of the same ground.
The dilemma is, does the Party hammer on as the Remain at all costs Party or does it play a full part in the campaign for the EEA non EU option.
I note that Gordon Browne has intervened in the debate and is proposing this kind of third way. He too is suggesting that this is a great opportunity for the UK to modernise around a Federal Constitution with most of the powers repatriated via Brexit coming to national Parliaments rather than to Westminster.
Where is our own reformist zeal? Submerged under a pile of virtue signalling.
Glen,
There are votes in anger and blame. If or should I say when Brexit goes badly wrong there will be much of both. This will help the likes of Ukip or more likely new Ukip aka the Tories who will blame the EU but it will help those who stood against it. The nation will be badly split, sad but an inevitability of Brexit. The ones who will be badly hurt politically are those that had no strong compass and that will be the likes of Labour.
Bill,
It can do both, however I see no appetite for the EEA from the brave Brexiteers running the show. They just believe if we hope enough everything will be fine and Tinkerbell will live.
I see nothing wrong in supporting membership of the EEA but really that is little more than EU-lite and I imagine will be portrayed as such by the Brexiteers. While there may be some tactical benefit in holding out this option to voters should the negotiations go badly wrong, and there is no reason not to say so at this moment in time, the idea that this will bring together the 48% and the 52% is questionable. Moreover while in a FPTP electoral system all parties have to try to have a broad appeal, the key to success is increasing the core vote even if that means that some voters who do not share your core beliefs are strengthened in their opposition.
Glenn: I suspect that Nick Clegg’s ‘vast unpopularity’ is confined to this, and the equivalent Labour site. Most voters are far more pragmatic; if they see a politician who is articulate, intelligent, and saying things that are relevant to their concerns, they are more willing to forgive past mistakes than the political anoraks who will keep these personal vendettas burning for decades.
John,
Nick Clegg was very unpopular, but your right as time goes by and the Tories show their true face his unpopularity fades and that is hard for some to take. Still he will always be a hate figure for the likes of momentum.
Simon Shaw.
The Leave vote was mostly suburban, rural and older. The remain vote notably younger and more urban. Older rural and suburban people are more likely to vote than virtually any other group. I think the evidence points to the exact opposite of your claim. The result was mostly delivered by conservative middle Englanders who can be relied upon to turn out. It was also older whiter Labour voters who were most likely to break ranks, again more reliable voters than their younger more diverse counterparts.
Frankie.
Another Remain seer with the extraordinary ability to read thoughts and foretell the future.
Hi Glenn
When I started contributing here more frequently, it was interesting listening to your arguments. You said how difficult you had found it to make a decision, not knowing which way you would vote until in the voting booth. Your experience was not unlike my own.
I find it interesting to find over the last few months, your comments have seemingly become more and more towards defending Brexit with more certainty?
Given that you are a regular contributor here with a lot of very perceptive comments, I’m genuinely curious as to what has caused you to come down more and more decisively on the leave side if this is the case?
I find this especially interesting since I’m reading the same articles as you, but my view has changed in the same period of time more decisively towards remain.
On 23rd June I was perhaps 55 -45 in favour of staying. Now I’m probably 65-35, as a direct result of the arguments and insight I’ve gathered here on Lib Dem voice.
Just genuinely curious how 2 people who appeared very similar in view 6 months ago, now appear to have diverged in different directions, yet have access to the same information?
Wonder if there are any learns here for the Lib Dem voice team in terms of the articles and messages they are communication on this site and the way in which they are perceived?
Mike S.
It’s mixture of things. A lot of the arguments are fixed on portraying leave voters as this that and the other, so as a Leave voter I find myself defender my corner more than I would like. If you notice I virtually never say all remain voters are this that or the other and try to be balanced. I’m no more certain than I was, really.
The other main reason is that Article 50 going to be triggered and Britain will leave the EU. IMO, the Lib Dems can only make limited short term gains from being The Party of The EU. In the long run the Party will have to adjust or risk getting bogged down in another constitutional argument with limited electoral appeal in a country that has lost interest. The point is that by the next election membership of the EU will be pretty much a dead issue and really it already looks a little like an attempt at rerunning a lost cause, a bit like a bloke in a pub going on about how he could have saved his marriage/relationship if this had happened or so and so had or hadn’t intervened, when the partner concerned has set up a new house and moved on.
Mike S,
Glenn is suffering from Choice-supportive bias (but then so am I and I suspect if you voted remain so are you.).
We all are doing the following
In cognitive science, choice-supportive bias or post-purchase rationalization is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected. It is a cognitive bias. For example, if a person chooses option A instead of option B, they are likely to ignore or downplay the faults of option A while amplifying those of option B. Conversely, they are also likely to notice and amplify the advantages of option A and not notice or de-emphasize those of option B.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias
That is why the Brexit vote will leave the UK split for years. Anything good in Glenn’s mind will be due to Brexit, in my mind anything bad will be to do with Brexit. Leaving the EU won’t end that but I can see why Glenn wants it too. This split will run and run and run.
The facts will sort it out you cry, I’m afraid not such is the violence of this vote that if Brexit was a 100% success I’m unlikely to see it and when it fails too deliver Glenn will likely fail to see that. Notice I said “when” my bias is showing but I’d take a bet I’m right.
Frankie.
Er, thanks’ for the , erm, insight. But I don’t t think everything good will be down to leaving or the opposite and never will. As far as I’m concerned it was more about concentrating on the importance of nationally based politics than economics. Politics is always decided at a national level. European politics interests me about as much as Japanese politics, which is not very much.
My prediction is that the UK will trundle along doing OK but nothing spectacular. People will get used to it and that will be the new norm.
P.S
You should never imagine that you can speak for other people, because you can end up attributing ideas to them they do not have.
Glenn,
So your a nationalist; explains a lot. You don’t want to know what anyone outside these shores does, explains even more. You are a little Englander thanks for clearing that up.
Problem you have is we live in a world and what happens in the world affects you. As to speak for others, that what you and the rest of the Tinkerbells did when you voted to remove rights from me. So yes I’m angry that little Englanders like you showed how foolish you could be.
Only one thing puzzles me about you why are you haunting a website that isn’t little England in any way.
Frankie,
Yes I’m basically a liberal minded soft nationalist and am perfectly comfortable with it. I’ve said so plenty of times. It’s not a shocking revelation. I’ve also said before that I’m also a Lib Dem, I’m just not so taken with the internationalist stuff. I’ve been on here years. I haven’t just cropped up in a fit of pique.
Here’s your problem, you live in a world where politics is all organised on the basis of the nation state and is basically fought on local issues. The Tinkerbell belief is that the that nation states are a thing of the past because you wish they were. Have you ever seen the film Network? Ned Beatty delivers an absolutely mesmerising speech about how nations are businesses and that corporations are the new nations. Well. the interesting thing is that virtually all the businesses he mentions no longer exist and nation states still decide politics.
I’m not totally disinterested in Japanese or European politics, but they’re just not terribly important to me. As for anger? I never found it persuasive or impressive. Not in myself nor in anyone else.
@Glenn
“.. Japanese or European politics, but they’re not terribly important to me”
But we all live on the same planet, and the major long term political questions – climate change, loss of biodiversity, finding a sustainable and peaceful social and economic future given that we’re trashing the climate, biodiversity etc they depend on – cannot be solved in splendid isolation. That’s why being disinterested in other countries – as opposed to uninterested – is not an option.
And it’s why I’m passionately in favour of building democratic international alliances to tackle them; and for all its flaws the EU is a wonderful experiment in international democracy. And the amount of real sovereignty we actually have to “give up” – I would say share – in order to belong to it is pretty small.
Denis.
deliberately missing out the context to distort what I said
Quote “not totally disinterested”.
Sure, we all live on the same planet, mostly in stable nation states who find it sensible to co-operate. You don’t have to be closely linked to co-operate. It depends how you view the world I suppose.
Glenn
Sorry if you thought I was distorting what you meant to say, but I don’t think I have essentially. The EU has been a force for good in environmental laws, making us deal with sewage-laden rivers and city pollution, and raise our game in biodiversity protection, in a way that sensible cooperation with neighbouring nation states would not I think have achieved. And all those regulations the popular press get outraged at have made trade easier and consumers safer.
There’s a traditional divide between globalists and localists that the Liberal Democrat – and EU – principle of subsidiarity tries to transcend. That is, we should cooperate – share sovereignty if you like – at the most local appropriate level, depending on the issue: parking regulations can be very local, human rights global. If you look at it that way, nationalism isn’t so much an `us and them’ thing as an attempt to say there’s one level, the nation, that is much more important than the other levels. While I can see that is emotionally satisfying to many (and emotional satisfaction in itself is good), historically it has proved a very dangerous idea.
Glenn,
He isn’t distorting anything at all. You said “European politics interests me about as much as Japanese politics, which is not very much.” I think we can all safely assume that not very much means
2. adverb
If something does not happen much, it does not happen very often.
He said that his father never talked much about the war.
Gwen had not seen her Daddy all that much, because mostly he worked on the ships.
Do you get back East much?
So you don’t think about politics outside the UK very often. Pretty much the dictionary definition of a little Englander.
Frankie,
. I said I was not totally disinterested,
I think about foreign politics about as much as most of the rest of world usually thinks or should think about British politics. I don’t think Britain is the bestest, most importantest nation in whole wide world. It just happens to be my home country, the place where I live and where I vote. I’d say the same sort of thing if I lived in Holland.
Also I don’t believe internationalism is always benign..
Libdem should debunk the myth that the EU caused the troubles for UK steel industry. The fact is that it was the Tories who opposed EU anti-dumping tariff on Chinese steel.