Farron: I won’t rule out creating new political party out of post-Brexit chaos

Since the European referendum result, Tim Farron has been notably (and rightly) both warm and non-committal when it comes to political realignment. Which made me rather double-take at The Independent’s tweet, “Tim Farron: Now is the time for a new centre-left party” and front page.

The story itself, however, is rather less dramatic, continuing the strategy of keeping all options open:

With Labour experiencing a “moment of peril” – as one leadership contender described it last week – and bitter in-fighting leading to growing speculation about a split, the Lib Dem [leader] believes there is now a timely chance to create a new opposition to the Conservatives – either through an alliance, a grouping of MPs or the creation of a new party.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Mr Farron, who has committed his party to fighting the next general election on a platform of derailing Brexit, said he’d had “off camera” conversations with other progressive politicians during the EU referendum campaign. Asked whether he was open to creating a new political party in Britain, Mr Farron said: “I think we write nothing off.”

The formation of the Alliance in the early 1980s came in part out of the experience of the first European referendum in the 1970s, which brought people together across traditional party lines to campaign on the same side. Something similar has happened this time round too as Farron went on to point out:

My sense is that one of the many outcomes of the referendum is the fact that progressives have rather enjoyed one another’s company on the campaign trail… there are loads of people out there who you realise in this most calamitous and febrile set of circumstances you share a lot more in common with them than the fact you want to be in the European Union. So realignment is a real, real possibility.

One thing that is different now from then is the law about ballot papers, which opens up an intriguing possibility for a new approach to cross-party realignment.