The 'pop-up' anti-Brexit parties have little real interest in democratic politics in the UK. Voters should beware.
Recently, we’ve seen an explosion of announcements of new parties being formed. Most are not very serious: vanity projects, spoofs or hopeless lost causes. These new parties offer politics without politicians.
They include Jeremy Cliffe’s very-short-lived Radicals (which has a long wish list of mostly mainstream suggestions); the Veterans and People’s Party (promising a return of the death penalty); Jolyon Maugham’s ‘Spring the Party’ movement (strongly pro-Remain); Something New, an internet based party; and The Democrats, fronted by former David Davis adviser James Chapman.
Others appear to have the backing of wealthy businessmen: Richard Breen’s party Renew (Mr Breen being a successful residential property investor) and a group apparently in formation led by a former Labour donor, Simon Franks.
So far, no politician of any stature, or even without stature, has endorsed or joined them. Money, marketing, a new name and the self-belief of the founders appear to be the common ingredients.
The absence of politicians is revealing. I was asked to consider leading one of these new parties and when I pointed out that I already led a party, with deeper roots and rather better prospects, the answer I got was ‘well, why don’t you change the brand and we will get behind you’.
Others, I believe, have been approached – Tony Blair, Paddy Ashdown, Nick Clegg – and plausible names banded about include David Miliband and George Osborne. None, to my knowledge, has been tempted.
The conversations, I gather, follow a predictable pattern. Flattery: the new Messiah is capable of leading the country out of its present mess if their talents can be harnessed to a new vehicle with a new name and, in some cases, the tycoon’s millions.
Then the politician asks some obvious questions about local organisation, compliance requirements and the handicaps of Britain’s first-past-the-post system and eyes glaze over. Unnecessary detail. If you politicians aren’t interested, we will do it on our own. The two epithets I commonly hear to describe the new party sponsors are naivety and arrogance.
But this phenomenon can’t be ignored. Why is this happening, and happening now? It is partly a reaction to Brexit. Several of the sponsors are angry Remainers who feel let down by the two main parties that allowed Brexit to happen.
They also have a nostalgia for the days of Blair and Cameron whom they backed and, who in turn, gave them a hearing. Now they have a Labour leader who has no need of them, who despises them, and a Tory Prime Minister who is politically weak and has no empathy for, or understanding of, business.
They look at the extreme political volatility of the Western World and the opportunities that have appeared. Trump has opened up the beguiling possibility that anyone who does deals in the property market and has limitless self-confidence and wealth can get to run a country.
There are some successful models of tycoon-led politics. Aaron Banks is one. UKIP may have achieved very little as a conventional party – one maverick MP; a small number of rather ineffectual councillors; and some exotic MEPs.
But, allied to Nigel Farage’s undoubted talent as a communicator, banks’ money and clever use of communications technology turned British politics on its head through a referendum.
Brexit was, however, also built on decades of campaigning by anti-EU zealots. The new tycoon parties, by contrast, are impatient: they want instant results.
Moreover, their political objectives appear to be the opposite of UKIP’s. In which case, they should get behind my party. My conversations with them suggested they have little real interest in democratic politics in the UK: the hard slog of campaigning; the vicissitudes of elections; the formidable barriers to entry for new parties.
Although they use the language of ‘centrist’ politics it is the kind of ideology-free, technocratic, authoritarian centrism that would be more at home in, say, Singapore. I think that is why the main advice they give to me is to drop the world Liberal from Liberal Democrat – or, better, both words. Voters beware.
Vince Cable is Leader of the Liberal Democrats
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15 Responses to “Vince Cable: I was asked to lead a new pro-Remain party. Here’s why I said no”
Ludovic Tolhurst-Cleaver
@John Carlisle: The Lib Dems are currently the only party with a sensible and workable plan to save the NHS by introducing a 1% NHS additional income tax.
We are also calling for a cross-party Royal Commission to come up with new and robust funding models for the future so that we can permanently put the NHS on a sustainable footing.
Labour mortgaged the NHS to stay in power between 1997 and 2010 via the madness of PFI. The current Tory cabinet is so anti-NHS they’ve been upbraided by former Tory PM Sir John Major for it. The Lib Dems are the only party that can fix the NHS.
Mike Turner
I am so very sick of the blatherings of the likes of John Carlisle. The Lib Dems were MINORITY partners on a coalition. They made mistakes – mainly by believing the Tories could actually spell integrity, let alone know what it means – but it was NOT the LibDems that let down the NHS; the students and any other group that believes that miracles could be achieved by a minority. It was the Tories, the majority party, that broke its promises over the NHS and is still doing so. It was Labour that introduced and increased tuition fees when they said they wouldn`t and t6he Tories who pushed it further. And so on & so on.
Nigel Legg
Umm, John, a central policy of the Lib Dems has been and will continue to be the commitment to add a penny to income tax in order to properly fund the NHS. I would say that this is fighting for the NHS, wouldn’t you?
Jack Buxton
@John Carlisle Can you tell me specifically which parts of the Lib Dem 2015 and 2017 manifestoes related to the NHS fell short of fighting for it? I don’t want a general answer I want a specific, policy-based, answer.
Gordon Eve-Tatham
I agree with Vince Cable to form a new party would simply dilute the anti-Brexit cause and not survive in the future. The most important thing now is to stop Brexit then worry about everything else. The Lib Dems. and the Greens are openly anti-Brexit but within both Labour and Tory Parties there are members who do not want Brexit either. Brexit is progressing, it will quite likely self destruct before too long though not before more damage has been done. Groups like Open Britain and the European Movement need to work together with the common aim of winning round the Leavers who have since changed their minds or release how they have been duped. Recently Government behaviour shows contempt for parliament and a refusal to adit that Brexit may be wrong for the country.