NICK Clegg has raised the prospect of a realignment in British politics following a Tory victory on June 8 to create a “proper anti-Conservative force or forces in British politics”.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, who has insisted Theresa May is certain to regain power, has ruled out his party entering into any agreement with Labour.
But his predecessor has pointed to the possibility of some form of progressive alliance or realignment to challenge the “Conservative hegemony” following the election.
Campaigning in Sheffield, where he is standing again, Mr Clegg told the New Statesman that it could “not be business as usual after 8 June” and claimed Labour could not win again under the first-past-the-post electoral system, whoever its leader was.
“If we all just carry on talking to ourselves in our own rabbit hutches, all that will happen is we will carry on with this dreary, soulless, almost perpetual one-party domination by the Conservatives.
“The dam needs to break within the Labour Party and[until] the moment they understand that, they can never win again – that their days as a party of national government have ended – can you start thinking about how to mount a proper challenge to Conservative hegemony.”
The former Deputy Prime Minister went on: “I am self-evidently a pluralist; why else would I go into coalition? I’ll always be happy to play my part in doing what I think is right, which is that we need a proper anti-Conservative force or forces in British politics.”
He added: “The Labour party is still operating under this illusion that it can win an election; it can’t. It’s irrelevant who’s leader. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Jeremy Corbyn or David Miliband.
“There is no way that the Labour Party can beat the Conservatives under this electoral system; it’s impossible.”
At the beginning of the election campaign, Mr Farron made clear that there would be neither a formal coalition nor a confidence and supply agreement with the Tories or Labour; although he left the door ajar to some sort of an arrangement if one of the parties changed its leadership.
“There can be no truck that we could have with those two parties and their leaders as they currently are,” he said, adding: “No supply and confidence, no coalition, no deal. No [we would not prop up a minority government] because what is very clear at this moment is that we have an official opposition, which is not behaving like an alternative government but is not even behaving like an opposition.”
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