While Theresa May spoke to EU leaders, Vince met fellow Liberal leaders from across Europe in Brussels today .
Here he is with Catherine Bearder afterwards:
My chat with Vince Cable after our meetings with EU leaders. Vince has been very clear that the Lib Dems want a people’s vote, but if that’s not possible, we must revoke Article 50 to protect the country from no deal. pic.twitter.com/8Hm5rAE0au
— Catherine Bearder🇪🇺 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇪🇺🔶 (@catherinemep) March 21, 2019
Over on the party website, Vince wrote about last night’s meeting with Theresa May and other leaders except Jeremy Corbyn, whose fit of pique he described. He then takes us through his conversations in Brussels, including the applause when talk of revoking Article 50 was mentioned.
I emphasised to the danger the Prime Minister is placing both the UK and Europe in, by arguing for a short extension which simply postpones the cliff edge we have been facing. What is needed now is a long extension to Article 50, to permit a real rethink and a final public say on the deal.
It is very important on these occasions that we get the chance to remind liberals in Europe that the Brexit story is far from over domestically: government ministers will always say they are ‘delivering the will of the people’. In truth, the ‘no deal’ exit Theresa May is threatening us with would be a total distortion of that result, abandoning many Leave voters as well as the 16.1 million who voted Remain. Now, around 60% say they would vote for Remain rather than the deal or ‘no deal’, so the will of the people is changing.
Perhaps the biggest surprise for my European counterparts was when I articulated our own position – agreed at conference just last weekend. If there is no extension, and we are approaching the ‘No Deal’ cliff edge, Liberal Democrats are clear: we should revoke Article 50 rather than crash out. There was a ripple of applause in the room when I said as much. Revocation would be a major step, causing huge unrest, but it is preferable to leaving without a deal.
The biggest non-event of the week was my meeting yesterday (Wednesday) with the Prime Minister. No 10 called my office mid-morning, asking to meet in the evening. There was a frisson of excitement around the place: might she have something really significant to say? In the event, the only thing that really happened was that Jeremy Corbyn stalked out before anyone had sat down: a childish display of pique when he discovered Chuka Umunna would also be in the room.
Once the discussion got going, it became embarrassingly clear that the PM just wanted to repeat to us all the things she has already said a hundred times in public. She doesn’t seem to appreciate that finding a way through will involve some change in position on her part, and she is needlessly dismissive of the proposition that attaching a referendum to the deal might be the best (and the only) way to get it through Parliament.
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5 Comments
It is a shame Vince continually gets his own party’s policy wrong. We do not want a People’s Vote – we want an Exit from Brexit. A People’s Vote is just one way to deliver that, and an increasingly unlikely one.
Indeed, as the UK Parliament will not have “passed a resolution approving (relating to) the negotiated Withdrawal Agreement one week ahead of the date on which the UK is due to leave the EU”, and that date is unaffected by tonight’s deliberations in the European Council until it is laid down by a Minister in the Commons, our own party policy agreed last weekend commits us to calling for the Government to revoke Article 50 notification.
As I understand it, the meeting was supposed to be major opposition party leaders. As the Tingies aren’t a party, and if they were, they aren’t major, Chukka was being extremely childish by just turning up anyway. Entitled, much?
The next step must be to vote down Theresa May’s deal for a third time. Much then depends on what support Revocation of Article 50 has in parliament. This is the clearest way out of the mess. A commitment to a further referendum is essential but when is the best time? The main thing is to avoid a no deal Brexit.
What a complete waste of time.
Jenny Barnes: TIG is a major Parliamentary grouping, whether you call it a party or not, having the same number of MPs as us. It would be odd not to include TIG in discussions with Parliamentary opposition groups on what Parliament should do next.