DESPITE the array of subjects debated and policies made from banning single-use plastics to scrapping business rates and replacing them with a land levy, stopping Brexit and the question of who’s going to replace Sir Vince Cable dominated the Lib Dem chatter by the Sussex coast.
The party leader used his farewell keynote speech to insist leaving the EU was “not inevitable” and that it could be reversed if the momentum for a People’s Vote continued to gather pace.
As is always the case with a leader’s speech the most colourful language was reserved for an attack on the party’s main opponents, the Tories and Labour; the SNP did not merit a mention. They, claimed the Lib Dem chief, had turned from “broad churches into intolerant cults”.
Which, of course, has left the fourth force in Westminster politics with a golden opportunity.
Yet despite the fact that loyal lieutenants were stressing how the party had doubled its appeal, from 7.4 per cent at the last election to 11 per cent-plus now - actually, a recent poll put the Lib Dems on just six per cent - the yellow peril is not picking up support anywhere near where it should be.
Sir Nick Clegg branded Jeremy Corbyn and Labour “pants,” while he dismissed Theresa May and the Tories as “rubbish”. Yet, if this is true, then the Lib Dem surge should be happening. But it isn’t.
This is undoubtedly why Vince wants change but saying you want to create a “movement of the moderates” hardly gets the political pulse racing. Many Lib Dems insisted they were not moderates but radicals. And then there is the plan to open up a future leadership contest to non-MPs.
A ripple of expectation rose among the yellow T-shirts when the campaigning businesswoman Gina Miller gave a conference speech but swiftly burst the bubble of expectation about her own ambitions when she told delegates that she was not their leader-in-waiting.
In his keynote address, Sir Vince urged Labour and Tory rebels to have the courage to leave and, by implication, join the Lib Dems. No names were mentioned but that of Labour’s Chukka Umunna has been on the lips of some delegates in a positive and a negative way.
And he sought to pile pressure on Jeremy Corbyn over the People’s Vote issue by telling the Labour comrades that if their leader does not back the second poll, then they should dump him.
But if the Lib Dems are to capitalise on the anti-Brexit sentiment, then they need an energetic, charismatic leader, who doesn’t fluff his lines, to lead the charge to keep Britain in the EU as soon as possible. The longer Vince lingers, the harder it will be.
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