As the Cabinet gathers rather awkwardly at Chequers to discuss the implementation of Brexit, Tim Farron makes a keynote speech to the Institute of Public Policy Research in Manchester this morning.
It will be interesting to see if and how he tackles the question of the Open Britain organisation, much discussed on here in the last couple of days.
The advance extracts of his speech concentrate on the need to do something about the increase in hatred and open racism since the referendum and he again emphasises that the Liberal Democrats will stand up for those EU citizens already living here.
He also addresses the real concerns and disadvantages faced by many of those who voted to leave the EU.
Here’s what he is going to say on these topics:
Divided
We, the political classes, have left a country bitterly divided as a result.
Between parents and children, families, neighbours.
Between the nations of our own union, who have worked and fought together for centuries.
Between us and our continental neighbours.
And now the biggest danger of them all.
That because of those divisions, we are in danger of letting malevolent forces hijack the result.
Plenty of my mates voted leave and I can tell you that the majority of those who did vote leave are utterly appalled that Farage, Le Pen and their ilk now seek to claim the result as a victory for their hateful brand of intolerance, racism and insularity. Britain is better than that.
But I’m not so blinded by those emotions that I don’t see the new divisions that are opening up between us.
New political boundaries which chop the old certainties of Tory and Labour into little pieces.
Because there’s a new battle emerging.
Between the forces of tolerant liberalism and intolerant, closed-minded nationalism.
And, of course, you know that, as leader of the Liberal Democrats, which side I’m on.
To EU citizens