Sir Vince Cable has ruled out ever leading his party into a formal coalition with a Jeremy Corbyn-led government, a move he says would be just as “appalling” as working as junior partners in an administration run by Boris Johnson.
The Liberal Democrat leader – who would have preferred to have joined forces with Labour under Gordon Brown rather than David Cameron’s Tories in 2010, had the parliamentary arithmetic allowed – used an interview with the Observer to suggest that Lib Dems could instead work together with disgruntled Labour MPs. He says the latter are planning to leave the party in droves if Corbyn becomes prime minister.
Speaking on the eve of his party’s annual conference, which opens on Sunday in Brighton, Cable suggests he has already held discussions with disaffected Labour members about joining what he has called a new “movement for moderates” on the political centre ground. “If you talk to a lot of Labour backbenchers they just can’t, they’re not willing under any circumstances, to countenance a Corbyn government. It is quite extraordinary, that. Few of them say it publicly but most of them say it privately,” he says.
Many of this group, he adds, are actively thinking about what career paths to take next. “That’s what a lot of them are doing. I talk to people in the charity world who tell me they’re being buried in CVs from Labour MPs.
“They’re just getting out while the going is good. But if they formed a coherent group, I’ve said that whatever happens with our internal reforms, I want to work with them. There’s no point slitting each other’s throats.”
With just 12 MPs, and poll ratings struggling to move upwards (the Lib Dems are on 7% in Sunday’s Opinium/Observer poll), Cable is seeking a new mission for his party and his leadership as it draws to a close. Recently he announced that he would step down when Brexit was “resolved or stopped”, and outlined plans to allow non-MPs to enter the race to succeed him. Cable, 75, also said the party would allow people to join as supporters without paying fees, in an attempt to reinvigorate it and place it at the heart of the centre-ground movement he seeks to build.
