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”
Robin Ashby
Real NHS spending rose by about 8% during the Coalition years. In last year of Labour Govt it didn’t rise at all
Alex Macfie
@euperspectives: Macron probably wouldn’t succeed in the UK. The very different political system in France compared to the UK is key to how someone like Macron can form a new political party and get to a high position of power in less than a year. France has a presidential system, with Parliamentary elections held soon after the presidential election. This means that Macron could focus on the Presidential contest, with its simple rule that the candidate with the most votes wins (no electoral college as in the US), and then worry about assembling a Parliamentary majority after winning the Presidency. Political parties are therefore often principally vehicles for big-name politicians. In the
Alex Macfie
@euperspectives: Macron probably wouldn’t succeed in the UK. The very different political system in France compared to the UK is key to how someone like Macron can form a new political party and get to a high position of power in less than a year. France has a presidential system, with Parliamentary elections held soon after the presidential election. This means that Macron could focus on the Presidential contest, with its simple rule that the candidate with the most votes wins (no electoral college as in the US), and then worry about assembling a Parliamentary majority after winning the Presidency. Political parties are therefore often principally vehicles for big-name politicians, and rarely outlast them very long. The UK with its entrenched party system and need to fight elections seat by seat does not easily allow for new parties. UKIP took over 20 years to become established.
Martyn Wood-Bevan
Please just accept that Macron is deeply unpopular in France and will be lucky to survive full term. Vince Cable could have chosen better figure-head to aspire to.
Chris Read
Some interesting comments above; some of the later ones answer earlier ones with what I would have said (especially in regards to the Lib Dem policy on the NHS). Its interesting the Vince has been accused above both of ignoring ‘The Macron effect’ and aspiring to be Macron – The first comment is the more accurate at least where this article is concerned; He doesn’t mention the French President.
Emmanuel Macron was elected under a system whereby voters can vote again a week or so later, if their preferred candidate didn’t get enough support. Concentrate that into one ballot paper, and that’s the AV system that was rejected for the UK in an earlier referendum. Given that I was one of the 32% on that occasion a fair few ‘Remainers’ must have voted against.
I do really wish that those Remainers who somehow ‘can’t forgive’ the Lib Dems for the coalition would take a long hard look at their reasons, because this seems to have become an article of faith in much the same way Brexit is for many Leave voters. May I just guide them with a few facts.
1. Had there been no coalition then most likely there would have been another election in late 2010 or 2011, and then the chances are the Conservatives would have won an outright majority. Labour’s new leader would have been in post for a few months, and the Conservatives could have spun that the Lib Dems didn’t want power or responsibility.
2. The truth about Student Fees is the Lib Dems had no mandate to insist on these being scrapped, and no numbers in parliament to make it happen. If we add together all parties who were in favour (Greens, SNP, PC) the total vote would have been < 30%. The young people unhappy with the Lib Dems for not implementing the policy would have better directed their anger at non Lib Dem voters. The policy that was implemented was publicised in the media as a 'tripling of fees' but the truth is more than half of students would have paid less.
3. As a Lib Dem there were policies of the coalition I was unhappy with, not least letting Hunt meddle with the NHS – But no other party in history has been judged as harshly for not implementing all their policies – Including all those who had clear parliamentary majorities. This was in part because my party – Vince Cable's party – were a bit rubbish, and very naïve, in self publicity. But they were also hampered in that nearly all the media were either clearly against them or in the case of the BBC, bought into the national narrative this situation created. The media that brought us Brexit were also responsible for crushing the Lib Dems….. Whose side are you on?
I don't mean with that final question that you should support the Lib Dems or be some kind of Murdoch/Dacre lackey. There are other valid positions – and I support Nick Clegg's comments in his recent book that out and out Labour supporters should join/stay and fight against Brexit in the party of their choice (ditto the Conservatives too)…. But just stop saying again and again that the Lib Dems are dead because of some mantra you still have in your head. They may yet be Remain's only hope