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Farron calls for progressive left groups to unite on key issues | Farron calls for progressive left groups to unite on key issues |
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Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, began his first day in office by calling for progressive groups on the left to come together to forge a joint agenda on key constitutional issues such as electoral and Lords reform. He also revealed that defence of civil liberties, more social housing, climate change and continued UK membership of the European Union will be the primary issues on which he first intends to define his leadership. | |
On constitutional reform, he said it was very important that the Lib Dems work with the other parties, especially Labour, but also the Greens and maybe others, over the next few years , as happened in Scotland in the 1990s. “It is important so that if we all have something very similar, if not identical, in our manifestos, when it comes to electoral reform by 2020 then that is a mandate,” he added. | |
On constitutional reform, Farron declined to state whether he was closer to or further from another party, but he said: “I very much hope that the person Labour elects is someone who is insufficiently tribal and sufficiently self-aware [that] they know it is in their interests to pursue electoral reform and other discussions.” | |
In an interview that showed both continuity with his predecessor Nick Clegg’s liberalism, but also a willingness to emphasise the party’s commitment to social justice in the spirit of Charles Kennedy, he said it was right to suggest that the re-election of another Tory government would be the result he favoured least. | In an interview that showed both continuity with his predecessor Nick Clegg’s liberalism, but also a willingness to emphasise the party’s commitment to social justice in the spirit of Charles Kennedy, he said it was right to suggest that the re-election of another Tory government would be the result he favoured least. |
He said: “The reality is that in so much in so much of suburban England, the West Country, North Yorkshire, or my own neck of the woods in the north-west, the Labour party have got no chance of taking out Tories, and we have. They have got to understand that talking to Liberal Democrats is essential to establishing a return to progressive politics in this country. I think a lot in the Labour party realise this.” | |
He added that he will be critical of Labour where they are part of the problem, but also that: “We do need to be talking to each other. We cannot just cancel each other out. “Whoever wins the Labour leadership does have to lead the Labour party with absolute loyalty, but I do hope they have a loyalty to their country, and they cannot be terribly loyal to the country if they fight in a way that makes another Tory government more likely.” | |
He said Britain needs a government that is “economically competent, values British civil liberties, and recognises that nothing robs more of your freedom than poverty and poor housing, and I cannot see a current Tory party that meets those criteria. It is a terrible reflection that the people who are lining up to follow Cameron might be even worse.” | |
Promising to take risks and warning his party that its revival is not inevitable, he said his short-term goals were to put the party rapidly back into double figures in the polls and to win several hundred extra council seats over the parliament. There are already signs of a party revival, not just in membership recruits but in byelections showing a return to anti-Tory tactical voting and a fall off in Ukip support, he said. | |
He laughed off warnings from the former Liberal Democrat Treasury secretary Danny Alexander that he was set to create a soggy Syriza in sandals. The party, he said, can guard its economic credibility while being ambitious. He argued that continued low interest rates meant this parliament is a time for serious capital investment rather than for seeking to shrink the state. He said he wanted huge investment in broadband and tidal lagoons. | |
He also showed a deep reluctance to support direct British military involvement in the Middle East. He said: “If we have got troops operating in Syria and we are part of air raids, then there is no mandate for that. Indeed, there was a vote in parliament two years ago that denied that mandate. I am sure Isis are aided by the involvement, certainly on the ground, of what are perceived to be western military personnel. Their whole message is that it is them against the west. If you want to make them martyrs and play into their hands, you do this. | |
“If you want to defeat them, you encircle them by other means and use regional actors. It is really important that British Muslims are reminded that Isis is about murdering other Muslims, and the minute we give Isis the ability to paint through their propaganda a picture of this being the evil west against this Islamic state, then we have absolutely let them have a coup.” | |
On civil liberties, he said he was not suggesting that the government through its insidious planned data retention laws was “creating an Orwellian state, but it is absolutely in the process of of creating a ready-made toolkit for a totalitarian outfit – and you do that at your peril”. | |
He was scathing about the Scottish Nationalists, saying: “The place where we should be most worried about civil liberties about this is Scotland. What is going on up there with the nationalists is quite terrifying: they have got a national database, a national police force run by the justice secretary directly, they have got armed police as a matter of course on the islands, and they have got facial recognition software attached to CCTV in Edinburgh. | |
“That is terrifying. You create these kinds of capabilities for the state, and then suddenly a bunch of populist nationalists get elected who are Teflon and can do anything, and so far get away with it. And your civil liberties go down the toilet.” | “That is terrifying. You create these kinds of capabilities for the state, and then suddenly a bunch of populist nationalists get elected who are Teflon and can do anything, and so far get away with it. And your civil liberties go down the toilet.” |
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