Tag Archives: brexit

Vince on Government’s “absurd” Japan trade plans

By The Voice | Wed 30th August 2017 - 8:55 am

Vince Cable has said that Theresa May’s visit to Japan has descended into farce before it has even begun. This was after the government briefed that a post-Brexit Britain would seek a trade deal with Japan based on the existing EU-Japan deal.

He put a reality check on the government’s spin:

Theresa May’s trip to Japan to gain a trade deal was already of questionable value because there can be no fresh agreements with other countries until we leave the EU.

But this staggering statement by the government just adds a whole new level of absurdity to their negotiating strategy. It is now saying that the best trade deal we can possibly hope for with Japan post-Brexit is the trade deal we already have as a member of the EU.

The likes of Liam Fox were promising a new dawn of improved trade deals but this clearly shows that even the government now recognises that the best possible deal we can get with one of the world’s largest economies is the deal negotiated by the EU.

Posted in News | Also tagged japan and vince cable | 38 Comments

Don’t get too excited about Labour’s Brexit baby step

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 27th August 2017 - 9:11 am

The Observer headlines Keir Starmer’s announcement that Labour might be prepared to back a longer transitional arrangement to keep us in the single market for longer as a “dramatic shift.”

That editor must have lead a really sheltered life if they think that reversing the tank a few metres back from the cliff edge in the middle of a storm is actually going to help that much.

The claim that Labour is now the party of soft Brexit is laughable. Soft Brexit means staying in the single market and the customs union in a Norway style arrangement. Labour’s position is the same as some Tory hard Brexiteers who support a two year transitional period before leaving the single market and customs union altogether.

Labour’s so-called shift is nothing but a baby step and it’s not even in the right direction. Any transitional period will come to an end and we will end up out of the single market and suddenly much poorer.

If you want a party that is willing to be honest about the very dangerous territory we are now in and which is prepared to offer people a way out of the mess, you have to go with the Liberal Democrats. Labour will not help. Some of them may want to go further, but Corbyn is holding them back.

Posted in News | Also tagged tom brake | 113 Comments

Vince: Migration stats show Brexodus of skilled workers we need to stay in the UK

By The Voice | Thu 24th August 2017 - 9:46 pm

So, net migration figures today will leave Brexiteers smug about getting rid of foreigners but what does a huge fall in the number of EU citizens coming here and a huge rise in those leaving mean for our economy. Vince Cable says it’s not good as businesses struggle to get the skilled workers that they need. With UK unemployment as low as it is, we aren’t going to be able to meet that need ourselves.

These figures show a deeply worrying Brexodus of EU citizens who have made the UK their home. This is largely a result of the failure of

…

Posted in News | Also tagged migration | 36 Comments

Reversing Brexit

By John King | Wed 23rd August 2017 - 9:55 am

Once out, the pin can’t be put back in. Or can it?

Yes it can, so long as the strike lever has not been released. And that is the position we are in with Brexit. In theory, article 50 can be revoked if we act fast, but the clock is ticking. And According to both Emmanuel Macron and Alastair Campbell, editor of the New European, we have little time left. At some point, the EU will go into full self-protective mode and focus on performing a clean amputation. In grenade terms, the strike lever will have been released and the explosion will be inevitable.

That is why we have to move swiftly. According to Campbell, the time window after our August holidays will be slim. “When the political season resumes, we had better have got our act together”, he writes, ”or else this thing is happening”.

There are formidable difficulties facing us. Though we see tantalising signs of a national change of heart, a lot of energy has built up behind the Brexit juggernaut which means that simply aborting it is well nigh impossible.

Disarming the grenade

Brexit has been aptly described as an act of national self-harm, and self harm has a considerable cathartic value. It is like a wave which rears up before crashing and dissipating its energy on the beach. Anyone who has ever been distressed enough to think of harming themself will tell you that it is not much use being told “forget it, and just carry on as normal”.

Posted in News | 64 Comments

The Press Pack: A round-up of Lib Dem media comments – 22 August 2017

By NewsHound | Tue 22nd August 2017 - 8:18 pm

Here’s a roundup of media comments made by Lib Dem parliamentarians and spokespeople today.

GP numbers

Norman Lamb slammed the Government for failing to deliver more GPs:

The government’s promise to recruit 5,000 more GPs by 2020 lies in tatters, with fewer GPs now than when this pledge was first made.

“The pitiful increase we have seen in recent months is nowhere near enough to cope with rising patient demand.

“This failure to recruit enough doctors will inevitably have a damaging impact on the ability of patients to access the healthcare they need.

“We are already close to breaking point, with people in many parts of the country struggling to get appointments with their GP.

“More doctors are urgently needed to guarantee a fully-staffed NHS that provides everyone with the care they need.

Swinson criticises UK support for Trump Afghanistan move

The government didn’t really get round to condemning Donald Trump’s appalling remarks in the wake of Charlottesville, but they were quick off the mark to support him sending more troops to Afghanistan. Jo Swinson said:

For once, sense seems to have prevailed in the White House.

“But to succeed in Afghanistan will require winning the hearts and minds of its people and working closely with neighbouring countries.

“On that front, Donald Trump has already done untold damage through his proposed refugee ban, Islamophobic comments and cack-handed approach to foreign affairs.

“The government’s rapid statement of support for Trump today contrasts with its failure to swiftly condemn his divisive views and actions in the past.

“Simply pouring more troops into Afghanistan will not work without a broader strategy involving careful diplomacy and redoubled efforts to build a stable government.”

Even Brussels must be tired of this waffle

Posted in News | Also tagged business, health and Scotland | 7 Comments

Brexit: We can’t gamble with our futures

By A Liberal in Leeds | Tue 22nd August 2017 - 10:19 am

Week by week the countdown to March 2019 looms closer. The chances of stopping a disastrous hard Brexit are slim, but there is a small window of opportunity if we go about it in the right way.

As Vince Cable and Nick Clegg emphasise, it all rests on building a coalition of moderates with the courage to break out of the extreme Brexit groupthink. This means that we need a Brexit position which is decisive, but also respects those who are resigned to the prospect of Brexit – for now – and reaches out. A clear majority of constituencies voted for Brexit, so for Parliament to block it, or at least soften it, we are going to need to bring people together.

That is why I’m very concerned by the motion being proposed for Autumn Conference, in which it is being suggested that we should play an all-or-nothing game of Russian roulette with people’s livelihoods. The motion suggests that we should retreat into stubborn rejection of the referendum, without securing a clear mandate against Brexit. The tide is slowly turning against a hard Brexit, but time is running out to stop it all together. That should still be our main aim, but it would be an act of gross neglect to take a gamble on suddenly halting Brexit in its tracks and lose.

That’s why we must consider very carefully how we would feel waking up in Hard Brexit Britain in 2019. With investment receding and jobs in freefall, our idealism and anti-Brexit fervour would be in vain. I know I would be thinking about what could have been. We could have had a soft Brexit. We could even have stopped it all. This could all have been less painful.

Even if you endorse this anti-Brexit gamble with our economy, you have to ask how best we can realistically build a coalition to stop Brexit. Surely the answer isn’t to retreat into introverted Europhilia, but to reach out to those sceptical about Brexit and make the case? If the tide of public opinion turns, this is how we stop Brexit – by giving the people the final say in a referendum. This is a realistic and democratic position which can appeal to ‘Releavers’ and soft Leavers alike once the dangers of Brexit become clearer.

Posted in Op-eds | 46 Comments

Brake: Cabinet can’t even agree amongst themselves, let alone win concessions from EU

By The Voice | Sun 20th August 2017 - 12:44 pm

Now that David Davis is re-opening the EU talks timetable again, Lib Dem Brexit spokesperson Tom Brake has this to say on the paucity of the Government’s performance in the EU negotiations:

David Davis promised us ‘the row of the summer’ over the Brexit timetable, only to capitulate weeks later to the EU’s preferred timetable after a disastrous general election for his party which vastly undermined their negotiating position.

To be now, a couple of months down the line, trying to reopen the issue reeks of desperation at an approaching economic storm and a cabinet who don’t have a clue.

Constant reports of cabinet spats show our government cannot even agree a position between themselves, let alone win concessions from EU negotiating teams in our country’s best interests.

Davis certainly seems to be picking fights on simplistic binary issues to hide the enormous complexity of Brexit and the disaster it is likely to bring for our businesses, our economy and, consequently, for our poorest.

Posted in News | Also tagged david davis, ed davey and tom brake | 46 Comments

Patriotism, Brexit and the clamour for reform

By Ian Stotesbury | Thu 17th August 2017 - 10:30 am

It’s been over a year since the EU referendum and months since the snap General Election. The Remain/Leave debate trundles on and the constant repetition of key messages from each side of the debate now largely falls on deaf ears. On most topics each campaign and their primary spokespersons still maintain positions in absolute opposition with minimal evidence of concession. There is little to no debate, simply rhetoric. In my experience it’s often been an impersonal, fear based, economic argument for Remain or an emotional but limited argument for Leave. We deserve better from both. Why should we, as the British people, settle for absolutes on both sides that so greatly lack imagination?

Our different forms of patriotism need to find common ground and I believe it’s possible to do so. Our Government and their opposition have both given up on their belief in the benefits of European Single Market membership so we need centrists to hold them to account. At the same time we must acknowledge that there are issues with accountability and sovereignty in the EU that need to be discussed and addressed in detail. Above all we should loudly refute the idea that there isn’t a common ground for most people across the Brexit debate.

It strikes me that we demand so little of our Government. Perhaps this is because of a lack of faith in politics. Given recent developments it feels that Brexit lacks any real ambition and has become a face-saving exercise for the Government. What’s worse is that Brexit has become a distraction from other important work the Government needs to focus on. The general election highlighted the public’s desire for other substantive reforms – reforms to address the inequality in our nation and demands to ease austerity. Also, crucially, I think it helped highlight a lack of direction. We’re one of the financial centres of the globe, a trade, industrial, and tech giant – but what’s our goal? What are we driving towards? It is this lack of direction and purpose that I feel helped fuel the Leave campaign, opening the door for a damaging nationalist sentiment.

Posted in Op-eds | 44 Comments

No, Vince Cable will not be launching new anti-Brexit party with former Mail Political Editor

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th August 2017 - 5:33 pm

You do have to wonder if the @jameschappers Twitter account is a parody or has been taken over by the Brexiteers who are tweeting from some holiday bar for fun. It’s doing some seriously weird stuff at the moment, including suggesting that Vince Cable is going to be launching Chapman’s new anti Brexit Party on 9th September. Seriously.

BREAKING @vincecable will join me in Parliament Square on 9.9.17 to launch #thedemocrats #nazisout #wemarchon 🇬🇧❤️🇪🇺

— James Chapman (@jameschappers) August 16, 2017

No, he isn’t. It is that simple.

Jim Waterson of Buzzfeed has chapter and verse:

Lib Dems strongly pushing back on idea Vince Cable is backing anything involving James Chapman. It’s possible they might be at same event. pic.twitter.com/8OEPAQWhHM

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) August 16, 2017

He quotes a Liberal Democrat spokesperson as saying:

Posted in News | Also tagged buzzfeed, james chapman, jim waters, the democrats and vince cable | 32 Comments

Vince’s six questions for David Davis on the customs union

By The Voice | Wed 16th August 2017 - 10:29 am

Vince Cable has set out six questions the Government must answer after the “constructive ambiguity” in its document published yesterday told us not a huge amount. The questions seem designed to reveal whether the government’s position is actually based on any evidence about the impact of its options or whether the options are just a fig leaf to cover up the deep divisions in the Cabinet.

Vince said:

The government is offering two ways forward but won’t tell us which it prefers. That’s no doubt because cabinet ministers can’t even agree amongst themselves.

These plans are more concerned with papering over the cracks within the Conservative party than protecting our economy.

All those industries that depend on membership of the customs union, from the car industry to aerospace, still have no clear idea what is coming down the track.

All they know is that instead of jumping off a cliff in 18 months, the government now wants to do so in a few years’ time.

The government must come clean over the real costs of these plans for British businesses and consumers.

And on to the six questions:

Posted in News | Also tagged Alistair Carmichael and vince cable | 8 Comments

Lib Dems must lead the fight against the calamity of Brexit

By Katharine Pindar | Tue 15th August 2017 - 10:00 am

Whatever motion we debate at Conference next month, we already know that the majority of us oppose Brexit. We all need to persuade the people around us of what a developing calamity it is. We also need to take the lead nationally. No new party is required to campaign on this: the Brexit Exiters are us.

But we need to shout about it, not leave it to retired government ministers and would-be leaders from other parties to grab the limelight.

For the country is in dire need of Brexit being called off.

Poverty worsens. Austerity bites harder as living standards sink. Health services decline with too few doctors and nurses. Councils struggle to keep meeting local needs, Young people lack decent rental accommodation at an affordable price. Working people with zero-hours contracts or temporary jobs can’t pay all the bills, fall into debt and resort to food banks.

Yet we have a disunited government which, so far from tackling these ills, is almost entirely occupied with the enormous, wasteful task of trying to accomplish a Brexit which will make conditions worse. Negotiations with the EU on all fronts are stalled – rights of citizens living abroad, the Irish border, the size of the bill to be paid, and future trade relations.

As for the Labour opposition, with a better will to tackle the ills but no power to do so, it is no less divided on the terms of Brexit yet firmly keeps step with the government on the necessity of it.

Posted in Op-eds | 58 Comments

Federal Conference to debate revocation of Article 50

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 14th August 2017 - 7:53 am

Like many others, I was horrified to see that our Federal Conference in Bournemouth was only going to have a consultation session on Brexit and our relationship with the European Union.

That, I felt, was an opportunity missed to make very clear and unambiguous policy. We were a bit too equivocal during the election. Had Tim Farron said on the day the election was announced that if he walked into Downing Street as Prime Minister, the first thing he would do would be to revoke Article 50 because the political earthquake that would had happened would justify it, people would have understood and been convinced that we are an anti-Brexit party. Our referendum on the deal is a good mechanism to stop Brexit but it’s not a good message.

Since the agenda was published, there have been a great number of behind the scenes representations to the party leadership and Federal Conference Committee saying that a consultation simply isn’t good enough.

The good news is that there has been a rethink and Conference will now be given the opportunity if it wishes to have a debate rather than a consultation session. A motion will be published today on the party website. This motion will be amendable.

Because we are a democratic party, we don’t just allow the agenda to be altered by anyone, so Conference has to give its consent. A vote will take place to enable the motion to be discussed in the very first session, at 9:05 am on Saturday 16th September, so those with sore heads from Lib Dem Pint will have to power on through and get in to the hall. If Conference allows the change, then the motion will be debated on Sunday 17th September between 10:45 and 12:30. If Conference votes against the change, the consultation session will take place as planned at the same time.

The motion itself will probably need amending. It calls for:

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged 2017 autumn conference and federal conference committee | 50 Comments

David Miliband backs referendum on the deal and argues for social and political benefits of EU – how we can build on the growing anti Brexit consensus

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 13th August 2017 - 10:13 am

It’s one of the great what -ifs of our time. Would we still be in the same mess if David Miliband had won the Labour leadership in 2010? We’ll never know and there are arguments on both sides. His Blairist approach might have propelled a bigger drift of Labour supporters to populist UKIP but he might also have had a big enough impact on the arguments to shift us away from Brexit or even having a referendum on the EU in the first place. Of course, his leadership might well have stopped Cameron from getting a majority at all in 2015 and we would certainly not have been in this mess.

Today, Miliband makes a new intervention in the Brexit debate with an article in the Observer in which he becomes the latest big name to back calls for a referendum on the deal.

The case against the EU depends on avoiding a discussion of the alternative. It is the equivalent of voting to repeal Obamacare without knowing the replacement. It is a stitch-up. That is one reason it is essential that parliament or the public are given the chance to have a straight vote between EU membership and the negotiated alternative. That is a democratic demand, not just a prudent one.

People say we must respect the referendum. We should. But democracy did not end on 23 June 2016. The referendum will be no excuse if the country is driven off a cliff. MPs are there to exercise judgment. Delegating to Theresa May and David Davis, never mind Boris Johnson and Liam Fox, the settlement of a workable alternative to EU membership is a delusion, not just an abdication.

Brexit is an unparalleled act of economic self-harm. But it was a big mistake to reduce the referendum to this question. The EU represents a vision of society and politics, not just economics. We need to fight on this ground too.

The Europe of Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel stands for pluralism, minority rights, the rule of law, international co-operation – and not just a single market. In fact, the real truth about the single market has been lost in translation.

He goes on to make the very valid point that the EU’s institutions protect our rights as individuals and as workers against exploitation from large commercial organisations and governments. As he puts it, the EU has actually done more to shield us from the effects of globalisation than to harm us:

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged david miliband, social justice and vince cable | 10 Comments

Tom Brake: Lib Dems will fight to keep citizens’ rights to sue the government

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 12th August 2017 - 12:00 pm

One of the things that worried me most about Brexit before the referendum was that it would lead to an erosion of the rights that we have as citizens to hold our Government to account.

In any civilised society, citizens must have the right to sue the Government. Governments make mistakes but are not very good at owning up to them or fixing them. Anyone who has worked as an MP’s caseworker will have seen shocking examples of this. Sometimes the only way to sort things out is through the courts.

It seems that the not-so-great Repeal Bill is repealing that right. …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged repeal bill and tom brake | 5 Comments

Creative campaigning as the mood on Brexit evolves

By John King | Thu 10th August 2017 - 6:14 pm

This image was among those rejected by the Government committee that oversaw the “stronger in” campaign. Saatchi and Saatchi complained that all their best work was vetoed by someone or other.

Well that is history, and we can learn from it. I count myself lucky to be a member of a small group of pro-European campaigners who are free to develop their own creative ideas, untrammelled by the need to answer to any committee.

Last week we were out on the streets in Stratford-upon-Avon, talking to people about Brexit. Any changes in …

Posted in Europe Referendum and Op-eds | Also tagged campaign creativity | 7 Comments

Chris Davies writes…Brexit: .not a roar but a quack

By Chris Davies | Wed 9th August 2017 - 12:30 pm

VInce Cable set the ball rolling a month ago with a simple remark: “I’m beginning to think that Brexit may never happen.” It brought into focus the reality that our deeply divided government is failing to progress the Brexit negotiations and doesn’t even know what it wants to achieve as an outcome. (Nor, for that matter, does the Labour opposition).

Within a fortnight the talk was all of the need for a ‘transitional arrangement’. Even Brexiteers who once told us that Britain’s separation from the EU could be achieved within six months now appear happy to endorse Philip Hammond’s suggestion that it will take till 2022.

It almost seems indelicate to point out that no-one has yet explained what might be the terms of this ‘transitional arrangement’. The government has not yet mentioned it to the EU negotiators, and indeed they cannot because the EU has made clear that it won’t talk about any such matters until sufficient progress has been made in determining the future rights of EU and British citizens, the financial arrangements for the divorce, and the future of the Eire-Northern Ireland oirder.

Maybe even the more extreme Brexiteers have been cowed by the words of former Tory leader William Hague, a man not afraid in the past to play to Europhobic sentiments, who has warned that “there is the clear potential for Brexit to become the occasion of the greatest economic, diplomatic and constitutional muddle in the modern history of the UK, with unknowable consequences for the country, the Government and the Brexit project itself”.

Posted in Op-eds | 35 Comments

To be the anti-Brexit party, being anti-Brexit isn’t enough

By Rory Domm | Wed 9th August 2017 - 10:47 am

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The Liberal Democrats have a unique opportunity to occupy the centre ground in UK politics. At least, this is the assertive and ambitious pitch set out by new party leader Vince Cable MP.

On the face of it, this is a compelling argument, coming just as the Labour and Conservative parties seem to be in thrall to their fringes and flirting with a hard Brexit.

Moreover, it is now evident that many remainers voted Labour to deny the Conservatives a clear majority for a hard Brexit, and are likely to be less than enamoured by Corbyn’s fairly open support for the same goal.

At the same time, we have to be brutally honest. If this is such a great plan, how come we still seem so far away from a Macron-like rejuvenation of the centre? Even if the strategy is the right one, are the Libdems best placed to deliver it? (To be clear, a weak centre party is a blessing for the two main parties.)

For sure, FPTP is a structural issue that seems here to stay. And with the benefit of hindsight, the enablers of the ‘austerity’ coalition government calling for a second referendum during the election campaign is likely to have been perceived as special pleading amongst some parts of the electorate and will have done little to change our image.

Posted in Op-eds | 38 Comments

Science and Brexit – now what?

By Stephen Kelly | Mon 7th August 2017 - 12:41 pm

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Not a lot of positives came from last year’s divisive EU referendum. However, one silver lining seems to be that science is being talked about by all parties, in no small part due to the efforts of fantastic groups like Scientists For EU. As a British PhD student starting to think about post-doctoral opportunities, I have a somewhat vested interest in ensuring that our national science capability is as strong as it possibly can be.

Brexit remains a serious threat to UK science, both directly due to the loss of EU funding (something that the UK had always been a big winner on) and indirectly through anti-immigration attitudes and policies that make attracting the best people more difficult. The best way to prevent this damage is to stay in the EU, but if Brexit does happen, we need to keep freedom of movement and membership of agencies like Euratom as a minimum. As a cautionary note, it’s worth pointing out that Switzerland lost full access to Horizon 2020 until they extended freedom of movement to Croatia. And Switzerland have the Large Hadron Collider.

However, Brexit isn’t the only issue facing British science right now, and it’s these lesser discussed issues that I’d like to focus on. The first is science funding. As a wealthy nation, our current R&D spending is embarrassingly low – 1.7% of GDP. That’s a long way behind the USA, EU, and OECD average, and it needs to be addressed (More in depth analysis here). There is some good news though: all 3 main parties have pledged to increase science funding: the Conservatives want 2.4% within 10 years, Labour want 3% by 2030, and we’ve pledged to double it (so 3.4%) in the ‘long term.’

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged science | 4 Comments

LibLink: Vince – “The old have comprehensively shafted the young”

By Paul Walter | Sun 6th August 2017 - 10:30 am

Vince has high prominence in the media this morning for his Mail on Sunday column about the Brexit age divide. Talking about Brexit “martyrs” who are prepared to risk economic hardship to “take back control”, he writes:

(A) concern is that the self-declared martyrs may be planning to sacrifice other people rather than themselves. It is striking that the martyrs appear predominantly elderly (indeed the YouGov poll confirmed that fact). This is unsurprising since 64 per cent of over-65s voted Brexit in the referendum and 71 per cent of under-25s voted Remain.

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged featured and vince cable | 206 Comments

An independent commission is the only cure for the NHS funding crisis

By Azi Ahmed | Thu 3rd August 2017 - 11:20 am

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When I stood as a Conservative parliamentary candidate in 2015, I remember preparing notes on every conceivable subject for my first hustings. But when it came to the NHS, I couldn’t bring myself to follow the party political line and just bash my opponents; no one has fixed it and no single party is to blame.

What I said, instead, was that we should have an independent commission to decide the future of the NHS and put it above party politics. It was a line that went down very well with the audience; when politicians throw numbers at each other we all get lost and a mature debate proves impossible.

So I strongly support the position Norman Lamb has developed as the party’s health spokesman, calling for an NHS and Health Convention to instigate a national conversation involving charities, professional groups and patients’ groups as well as politicians. In January, he was backed by 75 organizations and it’s a shame this policy attracted so little interest from journalists despite getting such widespread support from those closest to the health service.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged NHS | 29 Comments

Vince shines in exchange of barbs with Boris Johnson

By Paul Walter | Tue 1st August 2017 - 9:53 am

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For me, the little exchange of barbs between Vince and Boris Johnson, over the weekend, is an early sign of what a great leader Vince will be for our party.

It was a bit like tennis.

Vince served brilliantly with:

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged boris johnson, featured and vince cable | 13 Comments

Vince Cable, the next PM?

By Bill Fowler | Tue 25th July 2017 - 10:15 am

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As a fan of Mrs Thatcher it might seem odd that I have just joined the Liberal Democrats. However times change, hard right policies are more likely to drive the large number of people depending on in-work benefits or working in the government into the hands of Mr Corbyn. Labour, who shout loudly about democratic mandates, are likely to have another go at bankrupting the country as well as bring democracy into disrepute by promising endless giveaways.

The worst possible case for the UK is to have a Labour government and be outside the EU. Labour want out of EU because they can then rape and pillage the slightly rich – anyone who cannot bite back. Given the pasting that the EU gets from our press it is actually surprising that, as far as citizens’ rights go, it actually does work – and seems to be improving in many areas. It would be ironical if Brexit forces them to reform further in the interests of its citizens rather than its bureaucrats.

I would probably have not joined up had not Vince Cable become leader; he at least talks some reasonable sense – most of the time. Now he has the amusing task of saving the country from itself. The current fickleness of the British voting public means just about anything is possible but it will mean swallowing some liberal pride to get there. Looking from the outside, there is one little trick that might placate half the Brexiteers and that is a very strict residence test before there is any access to benefits, social housing, in-work benefits and possibly the personal tax allowance. By strict I mean at least five years…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged angela merkel, jeremy corbyn, theresa may and vince cable | 101 Comments

Reintroducing Liberal Leave

By Torrin Wilkins | Mon 24th July 2017 - 11:38 am

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Liberal Leave was formed as a part of Vote Leave during the EU referendum. It had the slogan “Liberal. Democratic. Internationalist.” and it mainly operated through social media. The most high-profile figure in the Group was an ex-MP called Paul Keetch who wrote an article in the Independent called “Think that if you are liberal you should vote to stay in the EU? Think again”. I was part of that group during the EU referendum and I now chair it.

I have tried to change the group so it is about a compromise between Remain and Leave, one that can be found in the ‘Icelandic option’ which differs from the ‘Norway option’ due to its use of safeguard measures. Compromise is what I feel Brexit should now be about, because otherwise hard-line groups on either side will shape it for us in the years to come.

We are against a second referendum. The argument used by Tim Farron during the recent election campaign was that we didn’t vote for a destination, just to leave the EU and that’s right. Therefore, we should have a referendum on just that, the destination. Do we want to remain members of the single market and do we want to remain members of the customs union? We should ask that rather than replaying the EU referendum.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged efta, eu and liberal leave | 171 Comments

LibLink: Christine Jardine: The country cannot afford a Summer of Brexit discontent

By NewsHound | Fri 21st July 2017 - 1:30 pm

Edinburgh West MP Christine Jardine has set out some thoughts on our strategy as we respond to the total mess that the Tories are making of the Brexit negotiations.

In an article for the Times Red Box (£), she sets the scene:

The internal squabbling of our chancellor, foreign secretary, and Brexit secretary — to name just a few of the clowns at play — is making the chances of a poor deal for the UK, or a catastrophic failure to get a deal at all, all the more likely.

Instead of knuckling down and approaching negotiations with a seriousness befitting the task, Davis has so far shown up to a photo-op without even pretending to have the necessary papers and briefings, then taking the first Eurostar home. No doubt heading straight back to the journalists to criticise his leader. It rather undermines the negotiation of critical issues like EU citizens’ rights, a solution for Northern Ireland and the UK’s debt to the EU when your so-called chief negotiator would rather be at home leaking cabinet papers.

But this is all part of a hard hearted strategy. She thinks that they are trying to create such a bad atmosphere that in a year’s time, they walk way blaming the EU for the failure.

Posted in News | Also tagged christine jardine | 21 Comments

The sixties

By Michael Taylor | Fri 21st July 2017 - 11:55 am

I just visited an amazing exhibition in Montreal at La Musee de Beaux Arts, entitled ‘Revolution’, all about the sixties, when I was a teenager. The revolution in question was the change in art, ideas, politics, power, dress, music etc etc that occurred in the late 1960s, which culminated in the 1968 student riots, Expo ’67 in Montreal and Woodstock.

Many people today, especially young people it seems, criticise the sixties as a time of fantasy, forgetting what life had been like before the so-called swinging sixties. Before the sixties, (male) homosexuality was illegal, women were second class citizens, treated as appendages of their husbands especially in regard to finance, people were hanged for murder, computers and the internet were non-existent, books, plays and films were rigorously censored and non-white people were subject to overt harassment and discrimination. Who can forget the prosecution of the publishers of Lady Chatterly’s Lover – the book the prosecutor said you would not want your wives or servants to read! Or the shocking Tory campaign in Smethick in 1964, when the Labour MP Patrick Gordon-Walker lost his seat to a campaign of ‘If you want a ******* for a neighbour, vote Labour’.

During the sixties, homosexual acts between consenting adults in private were made legal, the Race Relations Act outlawed much discrimination based on colour or race, hanging was abolished, abortion was legalised up to 28 weeks and the voting age was reduced to 18.

The sixties saw an unprecedented revolution in fashion in which the UK through designers like Mary Quant and the Carnaby Street shops changed clothing forever from the somewhat staid post war styles to the modern ever changing fashions of today. The Women’s Liberation Movement started demanding equal rights for women and the end of patriarchy, which, in Britain, eventually led to the Sexual Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act in 1975.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged social change | 23 Comments

How do we measure the evolving will of the people?

By Edward Goater | Fri 21st July 2017 - 10:25 am

The 2017 Liberal Democrat manifesto boldly sets out in section 1.1 the intention to hold a second referendum on EU membership (or indeed, a first vote on the Brexit deal). As a LibDem supporter and remainer in an area which voted 70% to leave, I was simultaneously pleased and worried at the announcement.

When asked by Nick Robinson on the BBC Question Time Leaders Special about the second referendum, Tim Farron made it clear that the result of the referendum is respected, though the people ‘didn’t vote for destination’. Whether true or not, I believe that the type of Brexit that the majority of people voted for needs ratifying in some way, which one could argue a second referendum could allow.

But much more importantly, the question of overturning Brexit, in my opinion is entirely reliant on a second referendum. Polly Toynbee wrote an insightful and interesting piece for the Guardian a few days ago. She argues that a second referendum is naturally divisive, and that an ‘indefinite limbo’ could be ‘the least worst option’. Whilst I entirely agree that referenda are by their very nature divisive, particularly close ones, I disagree with the idea of a second referendum being wrong. I believe that Brexit can only be overturned by the will of the people to avoid the potential backlash over the perception that the ‘political elite’ have ignored people who feel long-forgotten by the system. The only means to avoid the backlash is to allow the will of the people to overturn the will of the people.

However, whether there is a taste for it is unclear, and what it would take for the minority Conservative government to call one is undetermined. Opinion Polls are famously unreliable at the present. One can pick and choose an opinion poll based on their opinion on a second referendum. For example, YouGov suggest that the support for a second referendum sits at 31%, whilst against sits at 58%. Conversely, Opinium suggests that the support for a second referendum is growing, now sitting at 41% compared to against at 48%.

Posted in News | 47 Comments

LibLink: Miriam Gonzalez Durantez: How to beat the ticking Brexit clock: let British business leaders do the talking

By NewsHound | Wed 19th July 2017 - 4:29 pm

There are few people in this country who have as much experience in negotiating international trade deals as Miriam Gonzalez Durantez. In her Made in Spain book published last year, she drops casually into a recipe that she came across guacamole when she helped to negotiate the EU-Mexico trade agreement.

She’s written in the Guardian about the many dangerous mistakes that the Government is making in its approach to the EU negotiations.

She has some scary observations about who is influencing these proceedings:

British business leaders were asked to share the table with the Legatum Institute, a thinktank with unparalleled access to Davis and Theresa May and that seems to have been at the origin of some of the preposterous positions on Brexit taken by the government so far. Its inexplicable presence at that table was the clearest signal that the government has not changed its views on Brexit after the general election even one tiny little bit.

The institute has established a special commission on trade that consists of more than 20 people with different “trade” backgrounds. It is run by a British American director. The Legatum member who has just been nominated the UK’s new chief trade negotiation adviser is a New Zealander. The funding of the institute comes from a foundation that is part of a Dubai-based private investment group. So much for the UK “taking back control”.

The Government invited 33 business leaders to a discussion with this organisation recently. She goes on to show how this institute may have influenced the Government’s comments on things like “frictionless” access to the single market.

Miriam goes on to describe exactly why such an approach is completely unrealistic:

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged miriam gonzalez durantez, the guardian and trade | 21 Comments

What should our policy on one of the defining issues of the age be?

By Tony Lloyd | Mon 17th July 2017 - 7:11 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Do not think about whether we should call for another referendum. A referendum is a mechanism, not a policy. Instead, what should we ask our fellow countrymen and countrywomen to support?

Seventy years ago some of our forebears put forward the policy, in the ashes of our continent, to exchange the conflicts of nations for the cooperation of peoples.

It has been a spectacular success.

What, in those dark times, must have looked like a utopian fantasy has largely come to pass. In seventy years no member state, once admitted to the fold, has engaged in armed conflict with any other member state. Newly democratised Fascist dictatorships have been kept as stable liberal democracies. Newly liberated Communist tyrannies have had their economies and societies utterly transformed. In the continent that gave rise to both Communism and Fascism, and where destructive, terrible, wars were commonplace; that is a magnificent achievement.

Posted in Op-eds | 36 Comments

Dick Taverne writes…Three reasons the Brexit vote is reversible

By Dick Taverne | Fri 14th July 2017 - 11:55 am

Vince Cable has boldly challenged the received Westminster wisdom that the referendum vote is irreversible. Here are three good reasons why he is right.

Leavers did not vote for Brexit to make us poorer..

A very thorough YouGov inquiry carried out on the eve of the referendum into what motivated Leavers found that very few “expect, or would tolerate, a hit to their living standards …. They were almost unanimous in believing Brexit was a cost-free option.” There was no evidence of any willingness to make economic sacrifices to achieve such aims as reducing immigration or regaining sovereignty.

Brexit is making us poorer.

The evidence for this is growing stronger every day. Living standards are declining because of rising inflation while wages stagnate. More and more companies plan to emigrate, with thousands of probable job losses. Our economic growth is now the slowest in the G7 – and depends on unsustainable levels of household debt. There is a growing shortage of key EU workers in vital public industries and services, such as the building trade, the tourist industry and fruit farming; and most ominous of all, thdere is a decline of over 90 per cent in EU nurses and carers applying to work in Britain.

And worse is still to come. A recent report commissioned by Mayor Sadiq Khan predicts Brexit could cost 70.000 jobs in the City of London alone, which would have a devastating effect on our national economy. Indeed the overwhelming majority of economists predict a bleak future after Brexit.

Posted in News | 29 Comments

Catherine Bearder MEP writes…EURATOM: The wedge dividing the Tories’ ideological Brexit

By Catherine Bearder | Thu 13th July 2017 - 1:55 pm

The Tories’ division on Europe is widening. Nothing demonstrates this more than on one simple issue: EURATOM.

In Theresa May’s letter invoking Article 50 she confirmed that Brexit would mean more than Brexit as the UK would also withdraw from the European Atomic Community, a separate legal entity from the EU.

The UK, a country dependant on nuclear energy, relies heavily on EURATOM; our electricity generation, healthcare provision, scientific development, and nuclear safety are all closely intertwined with EURATOM’s regulatory regime.

Withdrawal could restrict the movement of nuclear materials, damaging scientific research and innovation (particularly in the development of future fusion power plants), and threatening the UK’s nuclear power supply.

What many won’t realise is that this could also restrict supply of key materials for radioactive cancer treatment. Dr Nicola Strickland, president of the Royal College of Radiologists, has already warned of the damage this could do to over 10,000 cancer patients being directly treated by imported radioactive isotopes and the increased cost burden this would place on an NHS already stretched for resources.

Posted in News | Also tagged euratom | 22 Comments

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