When you or I have naughty thoughts, we tend not to share them with 30,000 people. Paddy Ashdown on the other hand….
Naughty thought Witney by-election: One non-Tory candidate with one cause: the people must have a say on the Brexit deal.Re-tweet = u favour
— Paddy Ashdown (@paddyashdown) September 14, 2016
The flaw with this, of course is that Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t favour a second referendum, so there is no chance of Labour standing down, even if we thought it was a good idea.
The Liberal Democrats certainly seem to be gearing up to fight Witney seriously. There’s lots of activity on social media so you can bet your life there will be much more going on offline.
The first thing we need to do is build a fighting fund, so if you want to see a second referendum on the deal and ensure that Theresa May doesn’t use some sort of medieval prerogative to invoke Article 50 by herself without the say of Parliament, please give generously.
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20 Comments
The idea is a bit ridiculous because MPs don’t just have one cause in parliament.
One thing that is happening in politics at the moment is centrists are vacating the centre-ground because many seem to be only interested in pro EU centrists.
I expect the centre-left to be pro EU, but why do so many centrists start ignoring vast swathes of the electorate I don’t know. Regards
Thought Theresa May very poor at PMQ’s today, vague, waffley and some very weak prepared “jokes”. For once, J. Corbyn got by far the better of it.
Good to know that at 75 Paddy still has naughty thoughts…… though whether he should use that adjective ?
Witney could be well worth a go….. the electorate doesn’t like unnecessary by-elections and tends to punish the party responsible. The Lords Newby and Rennard could do a job there.
I disagree fundamentally with this. We need to stand a candidate and fight to win. You never know, in the absence of Cameron and the Tories increasingly divided over Brexit, and Labour increasingly divided over Corbyn’s leadership, we may even have a chance of winning it, just like in Eastbourne in October 1990.
The liberal voice needs to be heard over what is two very reactionary parties. Don’t concede before you have even left the starting blocks!!!
While this probably comes too soon for us to win, we must stand & at least double our vote share & regain 2nd place.
Too early in the process for this wheeze. If we had the outline of exit terms which were particularly poor then case for a Tatton style independent challenge would be strong. However we’re no where near that yet. Given Labour have ruled out a second referendum it appears a non starter at the moment. For those parts and who think it objectionable in any circumstances remember the Lib Dems didn’t field a candidate against David Davis in his By-election !
http://www.voteforeurope.org.uk/ Hopefully the initiative will be used for the By-election. As far as I understand the Green and Labour positions the Lib Dems would be well placed to win this endorsement.
http://www.moreunited.uk/ And of course there is this similar group. There may be a ‘ third way ‘ between a Tatton style independent and pro European candidates fighting it out.
I interpret Paddy’s comment as a cheeky way to get people talking about the issue, and to remind people that there are more than two parties out there. Even if people talk about it, then rule it out, they have at least talked about it.
The Tories and Labour are divided over their views on the EU, so it will be interesting to see whether their candidates would back a vote on the deal. I suspect they’ll want someone who was moderately, and not very vocally pro-EU, but now wants to ‘respect the outcome’, and not face tricky questions on how it’s going to work. Our job is to ensure they do get asked the tricky questions, and they are not allowed to gloss over it.
A period of silence from Ashdown would be welcome
Apart from the fact that Labour’s leader doesn’t share Paddy’s view on the EU, and that the majority of even remain voters don’t actually care that much about Brexit (something LibDems in general would do well to consider) provided ‘project fear’ doesn’t all suddenly come true, it is a brilliant plan.
For the Brexiteers this is the calm before the storm. Their popularity will plummet once the excreta hit the ventilation device, but that hasn’t happened yet. What they’d really like is an over-the-top challenge from militant Remainers, to be dismissed with a mediocre vote.
So – More United, keep your powder dry. Lib Dems, by all means fight, but be ready to claim that an increase over the 7% we got in 2015 is a success. Sadly, one day we shall harvest a multitude of votes thanks to the Brexit disaster, but that day has not yet come.
Didn’t Ashdown back “More United”? The problem with that was that it seemed to assume you wanted to back “constitutional reform”, which I think is code for PR. More United just seemed like an attempt to turn Remainers into LibDems.
If however he is now serious about the idea of some cross-party initiative *solely* on the Brexit issue, that’s another matter. Like others, I’m not sure this is the right time—and you certainly should not even attempt any deal with Corbyn, who’d do his own thing whatever he agreed. But the idea of a true, one-issue alliance is more likely to win friends in other parties than anything aimed at promoting the LibDems specifically.
Brexit will have an important role to play in this by-election, but it mustn’t be the only issue. Tory local government cuts in Oxfordshire, deplored by Mrs Cameron Senior, should be another.
I’m with the “too soon” croud. Not that raising it is a bad idea but better to do this at a later by election.
Doesn’t hurt to be associated with this and then appear regretful when they won’t play. But really and truly, we stand a better chance on our own in this by-election than we do hitched to Jezza’s Labour and other also-rans. A ‘naughty thought’ indeed, Paddy, if you’ve got any sense at all.
Lib Dems need to be equi distant from Labour and Conservative – and at some considerable distance.
We are not a Labour lite party or a Conservative lite party and we desperately need to avoid being labelled as such.
Liberal Democrats need to ensure we are very distinctive as a party and perceived as being very distinctive from the other parties.
If Paddy Ashdown wants to defect to the Labour party that is up to him.
Somebody should tell Lord Ashdown that we start off in Witney in fourth place, so who would stand down?
This is not “naughty” it’s just plain wrong.
He is the past and continues to peddle the working together alliance type views. They are not for the present or the immediate future. Witney is there to be won by the Liberal Democrats in competition with others. Let us all pull together to make that happen.
Where we are now with Brexit is like the story of the man who fell from the 100th floor. As he passed floor 80, he thought, “Not too bad really, a bit of wind noise but I can ignore that.” Leave voters haven’t see the ground rushing up towards us yet.
Have a nice retirement, Paddy. Please