Clegg and Cable reverse their traditional roles over party policy

During the Coalition years, it was far from uncommon to hear Nick Clegg talking about diverting from policy that Liberal Democrat conference had voted for whilst Vince Cable made noises about how the party’s original line was really the best.

This week at the conference in Brighton, however, the roles have been reversed. Nick Clegg has been fully supportive of the line on Europe conference has voted for, whilst it has been Vince Cable taking talking in public of his opposition to conference policy:

Leader Tim Farron has made a second referendum on EU membership his party’s central promise as it seeks to mount a fightback based on attracting to Remain voters, a policy supported by the party’s Brexit spokesperson Nick Clegg

But at the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton, Vince Cable [has been] warning of the risks of holding another vote.

“The second referendum raises a lot of fundamental problems,” Mr Cable said. “What happens if you win? Is that binding? Do you have to do a third? Which side would we be on if there was a soft Brexit, would we support Theresa May or would we be with Nigel Farage voting it down? I don’t think the second referendum is a panacea to anything.”…

But Nick Clegg told a fringe meeting on Europe that a referendum on the terms of Brexit would, in fact, be the first referendum on the matter.

“The key thing to tell people is that if the Brexiteers had bothered to tell people what Brexit meant, there would be no case for any more referendums,” he said. “Because they would have both the mandate to pull us out of the European Union, and they would have the mandate for how to. Over 17 million people voted to Leave. We accept that without question. We are certainly not advocating a second referendum. We are advocating a first referendum on what the actual terms of departure are. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say.”

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