VINCE Cable has called on Labour members to ditch Jeremy Corbyn if their leader fails to fight Brexit and back a People’s Vote as he insisted leaving the EU was “not inevitable”.
Addressing his party’s annual conference almost certainly for the last time as Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Vince also called on “mainstream” Labour and Conservative Brexit rebels to have the courage of their convictions and jump ship – to the Lib Dems.
After a week by the Sussex coast when the issues of Brexit and leadership dominated conference chatter, the party leader insisted Brexit had left millions of people feeling frustrated, powerless and unrepresented and that, as the price of EU withdrawal was getting clearer, support for a People’s Vote was gaining momentum.
“The Brexit date may be March 29 but it is only maybe. Brexit is not inevitable. It can and must be stopped,” declared Sir Vince.
The Twickenham MP launched a blistering attack on Mr Corbyn, claiming he had sought to keep his hands clean as Labour leader and had “hired hard Left boot-boys and girls to do his dirty work; they do the bullying and the intimidation of colleagues and he claims not to know”.
He said the nastiness of Labour’s anti-Semitism should not hide Mr Corbyn’s “abstention” on the key issue of the day: Brexit.
Seeking to pile pressure on the Labour leader as a pro-People’s Vote rally is due to be held this weekend to coincide with the start of the Labour conference in Liverpool, Sir Vince told conference to applause and cheers: “If Jeremy Corbyn will not say: ‘I will support a People’s Vote and I will fight Brexit,’ Labour members should wave him goodbye.
“He is currently letting down the many people in Labour’s heartland, who now see Brexit for what it is: a Tory project pursued for Tory ends, of which working people will be the main victims.”
The Lib Dem leader also poured scorn on the Conservatives, placing them in three categories: the true believers; the chancers and the conscripts.
He claimed for the true believers, the “fundamentalists,” the costs of Brexit had always been irrelevant.
Yet Sir Vince appeared to fluff his line when he mentioned the most trailed quote from his speech and instead of saying: “Years of economic pain justified by the erotic spasm of leaving the EU,” he referred to an “exotic sprezzum”.
The Tory chancers, he went on to explain, were led by Boris Johnson, “the chancer-in-chief,” who was a “real danger to Britain”.
The former Foreign Secretary did not just resemble Donald Trump – “large, loud and blonde” – but he behaved more like the US President by the day.
“Their cynical disregard for the truth, their treatment of women and their inflammatory divisive language make Boris and Donald the terrible twins of the rabid Right.”
The conscripts, he argued, included Theresa May, who was “dutifully delivering a policy she doesn’t really believe in…Deep down, the Prime Minister knows Brexit is a bad idea…whose time has gone”.
He suggested the Prime Minister could still “shock us all by displaying true leadership,” saying: “Instead of kowtowing to her enemies in the Conservative Party, she could lead her party and the country by opening up her mind to a People’s Vote on the final deal.”
Sir Vince made clear much now depended on the “courage” of mainstream Labour and Tory MPs, who were losing control in their own parties. “If they can’t stop the rot, they should leave,” he declared.
And he said the Lib Dems should be bold too by opening up its doors to become an “open movement with an open leadership”.
“There may be a temptation to be what our colleagues in Scotland might call the ‘wee frees’ of British politics, sniffing suspiciously at newcomers and outsiders, who lack doctrinal purity. We cannot afford to do that. We have to become a bigger, more diverse movement…Let them in,” he added.
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