This campaign has been a team effort. We have been blessed to have a superb staff and awesome local party. I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved and cannot thank all our wonderful Lib Dem members and volunteers enough for their tremendous efforts. We almost trebled our share of the vote and threaded the liberal, progressive, internationalist values which are at the core of what this constituency is all about through the entire campaign. We set out to climb Everest but, alas, although we were not far from the summit, we did not quite reach it – this was in spite of the remarkable campaign of the Westminster and City of London Lib Dems, not because of it. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

Just over a year ago I decided to leave one of the two main parties – the Labour Party – in our undemocratic First-Past-The-Post system because I felt it no longer represented my social democratic, liberal values. Like so many, I felt the Official Opposition and the Government had failed to perform their constitutional duties competently, too often they were making decisions in their own interests and had gone to the extremes – I could not remain a part of that. I thought it would be a cop out to walk out of politics at that stage and leave the field without trying to fix a broken system with other MPs of a like mind for the sake of the country and our communities. I still maintain that it was better to try and fail to do that, than to stay put and defend the indefensible.

However, we must respect the choice the people have made today, both to re-elect Boris Johnson and the Conservatives into government, and for Labour to continue as the Official Opposition. I wish them the very best – it is in all our interests that they live up to the trust invested in them today. In particular, congratulations to Nickie Aiken, the new Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster.

For the liberal, internationalist, pro-European, progressive, centre-ground of British politics, the Liberal Democrats still have a vital role to play, despite the disappointing results of this general election. We will live to fight another day and learn from what has happened these last few months. I will do what I can, albeit outside of the House of Commons, to contribute to that. I said I had re-joined the party this year for the long term – I meant it.

Finally, it has been the privilege of my life to serve in parliament these last ten years for the constituency I was born into, Streatham. Since I was first elected, I spoke in the House of Commons on behalf of my constituents around 1000 times, I held weekly surgeries, and helped over 18,000 constituents with their issues. It was also a huge privilege to do a number of senior roles as a Shadow Cabinet member of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats. I am hugely grateful for the opportunity to serve and hope that I have been able to improve the lives of as many people as possible – the whole reason I stood for election in the first place ten years ago.

First, there is the obvious weather factor. Usually it is somewhat warmer, with general election polling days falling in May and the campaign kicking off at the beginning of April, not November. When you go out canvassing in the evenings it isn’t normally dark when you finish a session, whereas it is now before you have even started door-knocking. And it’s damn cold too!

Next, whether you like it or not, it is “the Brexit election”. The issue is constantly in the background and it is raised, unprompted, more than any other issue. Yesterday, when asked by Andrew Marr on the BBC whether he wanted to stop Brexit, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to answer in the affirmative for the simple reason that he is a Brexiteer. No wonder the Labour Party has written to Ofcom complaining about Sky News’s description of this election as “the Brexit Election” which Labour claims “represents unnecessary and slanted editorialising” – because every time Corbyn opens his mouth on the issue, he loses Remain voters from Labour. 

The suggestion that Sky News is editorialising here is clearly absurd. In poll after poll over the last few months the public have ranked Brexit as their top issue, then the NHS, crime and the economy or the environment. Sky News is simply reflecting this fact. What is unacceptable is Sky News’s rival ITV, in its head-to-head debate, scheduled between Corbyn and Boris Johnson for Tuesday, airbrushing out the Remain side of the argument by excluding the leader of the other main party in UK politics – Jo Swinson – from the debate. Funnily enough, Labour has made no complaints about Jo being left out.

In order to stop Brexit, via a people’s vote, you need the parliamentary arithmetic in the new parliament to stack up in favour of holding one. In order for this to happen, at the very least, the Tory party needs to lose seats. Anything could happen in the next four weeks and you are a brave person if you try to predict the outcome, but our role will be key because another truth has been emerging in the campaign…

The Lib Dems are in a far better position to take seats from the Tories than Labour. In fact, far from taking seats from Johnson, Labour is trying to defend its own from the Tories, particularly in the West Midlands, North East and Yorkshire. The Lib Dems are the ones challenging the Tories and going on the offensive, in London and the south of England in particular.

In the last week, the UK’s chief polling guru, Sir John Curtice, has said the chances of a Labour majority are “as close to zero as to be effectively zero”. He reiterated this on the BBC’s Today programme on Monday morning. With regard to the Lib Dems, he says that in a substantial number of seats “given [their] current standing in the polls, [they are] now likely to be the stronger challenger to the Conservatives even though [they] came third in 2017. That position arises in 75 seats or so.” We are aiming for as many seats as possible and to form a majority, but at the very least, if we are successful in the seats Curtice refers to, it is highly likely this would deprive Johnson of a majority. 

For the betting folks out there, Ladbrokes does not have Labour as favourites to win in any Tory-held seat – but it does with the Lib Dems. This is borne out by current in-seat polling. Over the weekend, The Observer carried out seat polls in constituencies that usually vote Tory. In Kensington, Finchley and Golders Green and Wimbledon in London it had Labour out of contention, with the Lib Dems in second place in all three seats and still poised to be able to beat the Tories. That is why in seats like these, more and more Labour voters are telling us they will vote Lib Dem as the best hope to keep the Tories out. 

Why can the Lib Dems succeed when Labour can’t in these kinds of seats? A lot of Remain voters simply don’t trust Corbyn’s Labour on Brexit, which they believe he’d be rather happy to see happen. Also, voters who previously voted Tory are much more willing to switch to and vote for the Lib Dems than they are to do so for Labour – this is in large part due to Corbyn who is disliked and viewed as extreme by a large number of Labour voters, never mind former Tory ones. 

Generally, we are finding across the country that, in spite of the fact the Tories have been in power for almost a decade, Corbyn is as unpopular as Johnson. I don’t remember Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband, William Hague and David Cameron ever attracting the levels of vitriol as Johnson and Corbyn. We have never seen anything like it.

This is unsurprising given the disgraceful shambles we have seen in the government and in the official opposition these last few years. Many who have voted Labour and Tory are still on a journey – in their heads, they know these parties to be a shambles, but in their hearts, changing a habit of a lifetime and voting differently is very difficult to accept. If they do not act by taking their votes elsewhere at this election, we will not be able to change course as a country and fix our broken political system, which they are at the heart of and have a vested interest in protecting.

To put it simply, Labour and the Tories will simply carry on letting them down. And that’s one of the arguments we will keep on making for the next 24 days before polling day.

It has been a huge privilege to be able to work for the 100,000 residents who live in the area for the last nine and a half years.  I am incredibly grateful to all those who worked for my election in three General Elections and to all those who voted for me in them.  I cannot thank you enough. 

There as so many campaigns on which we have worked together to improve the lives of our community, from securing school rebuilding projects (e.g. Dunraven School), to protecting our cross London transport connections (e.g. Thameslink) when they were at risk, to holding the first full debate on serious youth violence in the House of Commons in recent times.

Without a doubt, the biggest political issue for local residents that has arisen during this time is Brexit, not only because of its negative impact on our economy but, above all, because of the very European identify of our borough.  We scored the highest Remain vote in the country in 2016 and Lambeth is home to more than 40,000 EU citizens.  This is, in part, why I took a leading role in the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign during the referendum, and went on to co-found the People’s Vote campaign – in order to do all I can to Stop Brexit.

I could not do what I have been able to do without the help of a dedicated staff team who have helped me fulfil my duties over the years.  They have worked all hours, often under extreme pressure.  I will forever be in their debt.  Since I was first elected, I have spoken in the House of Commons on behalf of my constituents around 1000 times, I have held weekly surgeries, and we have helped over 18,000 constituents.  In addition, I have visited our schools hundreds of times, done over 100 estate walkabouts and so much more.  It has very much been a team effort.  I am proud of what we have all achieved together. 

In Helen Thompson, Streatham Liberal Democrats have an excellent and incredibly hard-working parliamentary candidate.  She lives in the community and works at an NGO that provides lifesaving aid to people in places such as Yemen and Syria. She led a European Election campaign in the constituency this year which the Liberal Democrats won comfortably, and I have no doubt Helen can win Streatham for the Liberal Democrats and be an excellent local MP. 

In this 2019 General Election I will be standing for the Liberal Democrats in the constituency which, after Streatham, I know best: Cities of London & Westminster.  Like any Londoner, it was a big feature of my growing up and I have worked in the constituency all my adult life, first as a solicitor in the City and then in the West End for almost a decade before becoming one of London’s MPs working in Westminster.  Given that almost all my clients when I was solicitor were businesses in the area, I have a very real understanding of just how damaging any form of Brexit will be for local jobs, trade and people’s livelihoods – my experience working here is part of why I am so passionately committed to the UK remaining in the EU.

I relish the prospect of ensuring the constituency – which is a symbol across the world for open, liberal, internationalist values – is represented by a party and an MP who will be true to and champion those values in Parliament, not least by working to Stop Brexit so we can focus on the real issues facing the community, an amazing community that has been failed by the Conservatives.  For example, under the Tories watch Oxford Street broke its annual air pollution limit with illegal levels of toxic air after 127 days in 2018. According to Imperial College London research, five of the 10 most polluted parks in London are in the City of Westminster.  In the last year there has been a 16% rise in rough sleeping in Westminster.  Westminster has the highest rate of knife crime in the UK and the Met Police’s budget has been cut every year since 2015. 7,000 jobs have moved out of the City since Brexit which will have a particularly adverse impact on the industries centred here.

Over the next 5 weeks the Liberal Democrats will be setting out how we will tackle the problems facing Cities of London & Westminster and build a brighter future for all our citizens, where every single person is valued, empowered and cared for, and where we protect our planet for future generations.  This election is a contest between the Liberal Democrats and the Tories in this area – we will work to win every vote.  If elected on 12 December as the new MP for the Cities of London & Westminster I will continue to work just as hard as I have been doing for the last 10 years for everyone in this community.

Dame Carolyn is widely regarded as a role model for many women in leadership and has said “we need to inspire the next generation of women leaders.” She clearly takes this seriously and, with regard to ITV’s own record on equality and diversity on and off screen, has said ITV is “focused on on-screen [diversity] …but we have more to do.” In ITV’s latest annual report the company declares: “we want to increase social mobility, while also improving and promoting better representation across gender.” It goes on to say “through our programmes, channels, workforce and services, and by working in partnership with the production community, we aim to ensure we are relevant and accessible and reflect modern society.”

It is therefore extraordinary that ITV should announce last Friday that it will be hosting a head to head debate on 19 November between the two men leading the Labour and Conservative parties, to the exclusion of the only woman – Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson – who leads a UK wide political party that has any chance of being in the government of this country. The decision sends a terrible message when it comes to equality.

“Surely you are not arguing Jo Swinson should be included in the debate simply because she is a woman?” is a question I was ironically asked by an ITV news outlet yesterday. Of course not. Under section 6.2 of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code “due weight must be given to the coverage of parties and independent candidates during the election period” and “broadcasters must take into account evidence of past electoral support and/or current support”. Crucially, candidates with “significant views and perspectives” should receive appropriate coverage.

In 2019, for the first time in 100 years, the Lib Dems beat Labour and the Tories in a national election – the May European elections. We got 20 per cent of the vote, whereas their combined vote share was 23.2 per cent. Before that, in the English local elections, the Lib Dems gained 706 councillors and control of 10 councils, while the Tories and Labour lost 1,414 councillors between them and control of 50 councils. 

Most recently we overturned a 8,000 majority in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, taking a seat that voted to Leave the EU from the Tories. Our polling average has been around the same level of our electoral performance since. The last time we enjoyed similar levels of support in the lead in to the 2010 General Election, our then leader, Nick Clegg, was included in a three way debate with the Tory and Labour counterparts. So the electoral and current support is there – the crucial difference now is that our leader is a woman.

If anything, Jo has a greater claim than Nick to being included in the debates between the main party leaders this time round. Brexit was not on the radar in 2010 and it is dominates everything now – it is the key issue. Brexit is the reason we are even having an early election. A sizeable proportion of the public want to abandon Brexit altogether – consistently around a third of voters indicate that is their preference – yet neither the Conservatives nor Labour are committed to stopping Brexit. The Lib Dems are the biggest and strongest Remain party – clearly holding a “significant view” under the OfCom code. 

So what on earth are ITV playing at? The real villains of the piece are Johnson and Corbyn. They both claim to be committed to democracy and equality. In 2016 Corbyn declared “we will never be a successful society…until there is equality for women”; in 2017 Johnson declared “I’m proud of the UK’s commitment to gender equality.” 

These claims may have sounded good at the time but have been thrown in the bin when it comes to their own party-political interests in 2019 because both have agreed to proceed on the basis that sizeable part of the UK is out of the room when they are slugging it out. ITV should not be aiding and abetting our broken politics. That is why, like Sky News, they should include Jo Swinson in their debate. – we will not rest until they do so and will do all we can to ensure those who want to stop Brexit are heard.

France’s Emmanuel Macron had been holding out on offering the extension due to concerns that it would amount to more gridlock and indecision, and was instead pushing for a shorter extension that would have bound parliament’s hands into backing Boris Johnson’s withdrawal agreement or leaving with no deal at all.

Part of the reason for the change of heart, one EU ambassador told reporters, was the action the Liberal Democrats and SNP took at the weekend. Had we not sent a clear signal that we would use that time constructively to follow our democratic processes to break the gridlock in Westminster, it is not at all certain that we would have been offered the extension MPs requested in the Benn Act.

The Liberal Democrats are the strongest Remain party in the UK, and we have been the loudest, clearest voice in Westminster in favour of a People’s Vote on Brexit with Remain on the ballot. We have tabled 17 amendments and motions to provide for a People’s Vote in this parliament. 

However, at every turn, we have been blocked from doing so by a significant minority of Labour MPs, 19 of which even voted for Boris Johnson’s disastrous hard Brexit, and pro-Brexit Conservative MPs. Just last week we tabled an amendment to the Queen’s Speech calling for a People’s Vote, but due to Labour refusing to support it or even bother to table one itself, no such amendment was chosen by the speaker for debate.

So in a House of Commons without the numbers to pass a People’s Vote, the only option left for Remainers is to support a general election before the government’s withdrawal bill can pass. This is the conclusion both the Liberal Democrats and SNP reached when we made our proposals over the weekend. It is important to note that last week Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson met to discuss how to facilitate the passage of Johnson’s bill through parliament – they did not meet to discuss how legislation for a People’s Vote could be carried.

We are clear, though, that we cannot accept an election on the government’s terms for several reasons. The prime minister’s plan, having invoked the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, would mean that he could retrospectively change the election date until after the new Brexit deadline and there would be no way for MPs legally to stop him. It would also be on the condition that the withdrawal bill is brought back, opening the door to Labour and Conservative MPs passing the bill before the election is called. This is not acceptable, which is why we will be voting against his motion for a 12 December election tonight.

It is for these reasons that our leader Jo Swinson, with the backing of the SNP, published our plan for a December election. Despite MPs from both Labour and the Conservatives dismissing the bill as a “gimmick”, it is now being treated seriously on all sides of the House of Commons.

Our bill would achieve several things if passed this week. 

First, it would set in stone the date of the next election in law for 9 December. This would mean that Boris Johnson could not change the date to after our scheduled exit day. 

Second, the timings in the bill would mean that there would not be time for the government to bring back the withdrawal bill before parliament dissolved later this week. It would effectively halt the Brexit process until the people can have their say. 

Third, it would lock in our extension date of 31 January, and cease to have effect if for any reason this date changed to ensure we could not crash out of the European Union without a deal during a campaign.

If adopted by either of the main parties – who both claim they want an early general election – our plan would be far more certain to pass the Commons, paving the way for a an election in December where Remainers will get our chance to vote for what we have been campaigning for, to remain in the European Union. 

Some in Labour’s shadow cabinet have criticised our move over the weekend – which is rather ridiculous given the party has a live petition on its website (which you can sign here) that says: “Given that Boris Johnson has no mandate from the people, the Tories should call an immediate general election and let the public have their say.” Rather than focusing their fire on the Lib Dems, they should work out what their position on Brexit actually is – after a huge row at their conference, they refused to back remaining in the EU. What they want beyond that is anyone’s guess.

There is no such ambiguity on our side. If there is a Liberal Democrat majority government after the next election, we will revoke Article 50 and end the chaos immediately so we can focus on the real issues. And of course if there is anything short of that, we will continue to push for a People’s Vote, which a majority could be produced for with a new parliament. Either way, our plan represents the best hope Remainers have for stopping Brexit. Let’s make sure when the election starts, we are ready and waiting to campaign for our future in Europe.

In this home of democracy the government derives its mandate and legitimacy to govern by being able to command a majority in the House of Commons. Together with the House of Lords, the Commons makes the laws and holds the government to account for its actions. The judiciary interprets and upholds the laws passed by parliament and the rule of law. This is how the separation of powers operates in the UK, with the legislature and our judges acting as a check and balance on the abuse of executive power.

And yet Johnson has shown a disregard for free speech and the rule of law and leads a right wing, nationalist Conservative government which, throughout the Brexit process, has attacked the institutions that safeguard our democracy. Sometimes Johnson has joined directly in these actions; on other occasions he lets fellow Brexiters within the nationalist, conservative ecosystem in and around his administration do his dirty work.  

Viewed on its own, each attack by them on our democracy can be dismissed as the actions of a bunch of political fanatics; taken together, they are very dangerous and increasingly authoritarian.

In the 2016 referendum, just 37 per cent of registered electors (albeit 52 per cent of those who voted) supported leaving the European Union. But the issue of “how” we leave was reserved to parliament given it was undefined on the ballot paper. Vote Leave’s victory in that campaign was treated by those who were part of it – i.e. Boris Johnson and many of his current ministers – as a licence to inflict whatever form of Brexit they deemed desirable on the country, no matter how damaging. 

Importantly, they treated that vote – which is already over three years old – as an excuse to disregard the usual checks and balances which apply to stop the abuse of executive power in this country. 

Every day Johnson and the Vote Leave cabal that run his party and his government invoke “the will of the people” not only to impose the most extreme form of Brexit but to justify breaking the law and undermining our democratic institutions. In short, they demand the complete subordination of every democratic institution to their extreme form of Brexit – for which there is no mandate – and are now turning to authoritarian methods in their quest to achieve this.

So, in his short time in office – he has been in post for less than 100 days – Johnson has gone to unprecedented lengths to circumvent the system. Lying is usually the order of the day with the PM (anyone seen that £350m extra per week for the NHS yet?) but he has gone further than any other holder of the office since entering No10, most notably by unlawfully suspending parliament in the weeks leading up to the possible departure of the UK from the EU without a deal, a crucial time in our history.

The Supreme Court performed its constitutional role by stopping him doing this last month and applying the law to the facts before it by reference to relevant statutes and case law. On reading their judgement you can see it is grounded in law and not politics.  By convention, their independence is respected by all governments. Not this one. 

The Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg told ministerial colleagues privately that the judgement of the Supreme Court amounted to a “constitutional coup.”  Kwasi Kwarteng, the Minister of State at the Business Department who also attends Cabinet, went a step further and publicly went on the offensive against our judges.  

He claimed that “many people up and down the country are beginning to question the partiality of the judges” and he said that “the extent to which lawyers and judges are interfering in politics is something that concerns many people.”  

This follows the accusations, before the Brexit negotiations even started, from Johnson’s media cheerleaders (step forward The Daily Mail) that our judiciary are “enemies of the people” simply for doing their jobs. In that case the courts forced the government to get the consent of parliament before triggering Article 50. Not content with questioning their impartiality, those cheerleaders went after the judges personally and pored over their private lives.

Johnson was at it again this weekend, treating the law as something that applies to everyone else but him. The Benn Act required him to send a letter to the EU Council on Saturday evening requesting an extension to the Article 50 process in the event the House of Commons had not approved his Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, to safeguard against a “no deal” Brexit on 31 October.

We voted against his agreement so he sent the letter unsigned, with a second letter in essence asking the EU Council to disregard the first letter sent under the Benn Act in an attempt to frustrate that law. Not frustrating the Act was something the government had given an undertaking to do in the Court of Session in Scotland. Whether he has frustrated that Act will be determined by that court in the coming days.

Then there is work parliament does holding the executive to account generally. At every step the right wing nationalists controlling the Tory party under May and now Johnson have sought to obstruct the people’s representatives in parliament from doing their job of scrutiny of Ministers. 

For example, they repeatedly refused at the outset to publish economic impact assessments of their Brexit proposals, only relenting when forced to do so by the House of Commons. In spite of the campaigning efforts of my Liberal Democrat colleague, Luciana Berger, in parliament to demand they do this in respect of Johnson’s withdrawal agreement, they refuse to do so. It is worth remembering that the “meaningful votes”, whereby the Commons approves the exit terms, were forced on the government at the start of the Brexit process – initially they had sought to exclude parliament from having much of a say at all. 

It is true that MPs on both sides of the Brexit debate have been subject to abuse and threats for standing up for what they believe is in the best interests of their constituents and the country, But this is totally unacceptable – and the intemperate language used by the PM and other ministers has only fuelled this. 

However, the right-wing nationalists running the government are now taking things to an altogether different level – this is quite frightening, particularly if they were to get a majority at the general election whenever it comes. They are seeking to persecute and harass MPs by falsely accusing them of colluding with EU governments over Brexit. It is an absurd proposition given that the EU27 and the UK government are all working to ensure the withdrawal agreement Johnson has negotiated with the EU is delivered, and he himself wrote to them over the weekend urging them to ignore parliament’s desire for article 50 to be extended.

In order to underline the point, his MPs are seeking to introduce a law to ban MPs – save for government ministers – from speaking to our partners and allies in governments around the world. 

These accusations are made to call into question our loyalty and patriotism. Former Conservative backbenchers and ministers Oliver Letwin and Dominic Grieve, and Brexit Select Committee chair and former Labour minister Hilary Benn are reportedly under investigation. 

This has a strong whiff of the 1930s about it – it is a brazen attempt to suppress dissent and persecute political opponents in parliament by this right wing, nationalist government. 

One foreign office official put it well today when they said “threatening MPs with investigation is something you would expect the government to be stopping abroad, not encouraging at home.” It represents an attempt to fundamentally breach of our constitution and our human rights – it would threaten our democracy.  

Given the gravity of this issue, I have written to the prime minister demanding he clarify whether any such investigation is under way or whether this is over-briefing from Dominic Cummings and friends. I have also demanded he rule out introducing any law seeking to prevent parliamentarians from speaking to other governments – we cannot properly scrutinise government foreign policy if we are prevented from doing so. 

If he fails to give these assurances, we can take it as a given that another term of a Tory government will be altogether more authoritarian than any government we have seen in a generation. Another reason to vote them out when the time comes.

The Act requires the PM to request an extension of Article 50 in the event of no agreement on or by 19 October. Last week, the government submitted documents to the Court of Session in Scotland, in litigation relating to the Benn Act, in which it confirmed the PM will send a letter to the EU Council asking for an extension to Article 50 as required by the Act despite Boris Johnson’s repeated insistence that he will never do so.

In the event the PM does not ask for an extension, as an insurance policy there is talk of a motion of no confidence in the government being tabled, Johnson being removed and replaced with a PM of a caretaker government (or “government of national unity” as some call it) who can be relied on to send that letter before exit day, currently scheduled for 31st October. It is not clear who the Queen would turn to and when to form such an alternative government – it may well be the leader of the opposition, but does he have the numbers?

Various senior Labour figures, from John McDonnell to Diane Abbott, have been peddling the myth that were the Liberal Democrats to support a Jeremy Corbyn premiership in these circumstances, Corbyn could form a government. This is nonsense and they know it. Whatever claim he may have to lead such a government, and notwithstanding whatever we do, the Labour leader does not have the numbers in parliament to form such an administration. Former US president Lyndon B Johnson famously said that the first rule of politics was being able to count – senior Labour folk are struggling to do so here. 

If all Labour MPs, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas were to support a Corbyn caretaker administration, he would still be at least 32 votes short of a majority regardless of what the Lib Dems do. This is because all but one of the 20 anti-no deal Tory rebels have made it absolutely clear they won’t support him under any circumstances – the same is true of a number of independent MPs and others. The detailed figures on the parliamentary arithmetic are here.

So, if not Corbyn, who? All other opposition parties have said we will be pragmatic on who might lead a caretaker administration. Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson, far from insisting she get a chance to form such an administration (and although she leads a party that got 20 per cent of the vote in the last nationwide elections this year to Labour’s 14 per cent and the Tories 7 per cent), has put forward the names of the Mother and Father of the House of Commons, Labour’s Harriet Harman and the Tories’ Ken Clarke, as more neutral figures.

The Tory rebels – whose support would be needed – are not insisting a Tory MP leads a caretaker government and recognises the need to compromise too. SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has said she is “open minded” on who it should be. In fact, every other opposition party has said publicly that it is prepared to consider supporting an MP of another party to lead such a project. The only party insisting its “my way or the highway” and which has refused to compromise in any way at all on this issue is the Labour Party. McDonnell let the cat out of the bag over the weekend in an interview with Italian newspaper, La Repubblica. He told them “we’ll never accept an interim government without Jeremy Corbyn as PM.” McDonnell told the newspaper this was the case even if a caretaker government under a different PM was the only way to stop a no-deal Brexit. 

Privately, Labour’s leadership concedes that there are no circumstances where Corbyn could command a majority in this parliament, even for a temporary period, and yet they persist on insisting that only he should lead such a government. The effect of Labour’s intransigence and partisanship is to kibosh any chance a caretaker government could act as an insurance mechanism to stop no deal. The final question is therefore for Corbyn: why, when everyone else has, won’t you compromise if it could stop no deal? 

Actions speak louder than words. The Liberal Democrats have always opposed Brexit and were arguing to stop it when it was deeply unfashionable to do so immediately after the 2016 result. So keen was the Labour Leader for the UK to head for the exit door that he was insisting Article 50 be invoked the day after the 2016 referendum result. This is because neither Corbyn nor McDonnell cares much for EU membership, beyond the needs of political management inside and outside the Labour Party. That is what has driven their contorted position on Brexit since Corbyn became leader in 2015 not any desire to Remain. 

They both spent decades campaigning for us to leave the EU. Indeed, the Labour leadership’s campaigning for Remain in 2016 was lukewarm because Corbyn didn’t believe in the cause – he never has. They have carried on in this fashion since the Brexit vote. On the one hand, when I put down an amendment to the 2017 Queen’s Speech to keep the UK in the single market and customs union – an amendment which also specifically called on ministers to “rule out withdrawal from the EU without a deal” – Corbyn whipped his MPs to vote against it and sacked three Labour front benchers for supporting it. On the other hand, when 25 Labour MPs including eight shadow ministers failed to support legal measures in the Commons to stop a no-deal Brexit in January of this year, not one frontbencher lost their job. In short, remaining in the EU is not a cause for which Corbyn is prepared to put the national interest before his party political interests. That’s what’s really going on here – the rest is noise.

One good way to illustrate the difference is to look at the usual business of the House of Commons at this time of year. From 2010 (when I arrived) until 2017, the commons went into recess for the party conferences from mid-September until the beginning of October. There never would have been any question of this recess not happening under a majority government with the votes to pass a motion allowing it to take place. That is not the case now.

The Tories are now 43 seats short of a majority, so when they sought a three-day recess for their conference this week, there were more than enough MPs to defeat them. Having sought to unlawfully shut down parliament altogether with their attempt at prorogation, now ruled null and void by the Supreme Court, opposition MPs were in no mood to cede to this request.

Consider that for a minute. The idea of prime ministers Blair, Brown, Cameron or even May not being able to dictate the sitting dates of parliament would have been unthinkable. But this week, the prime minister will give his main speech to the Conservative Party faithful whilst the commons is in session. Under Boris Johnson, the extraordinary has become ordinary.

That said, business is now far from usual even when the commons sits. We used to have three-line-whipped business from Mondays to Thursdays, when substantial pieces of legislation would be debated and voted on; MPs would be strictly required to attend and vote. Private member’s bills would be dealt with on Fridays.

Take the week of 19 October 2015. On the Monday was the second reading of the Psychoactive Substances Bill; on the Tuesday there was an opposition day debate on tax credits; on the Wednesday were both Prime Minister’s Questions and the committee stage of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill; on the Thursday was a motion on English Votes for English Laws, and on the Friday consideration of private member’s bills. This was a fairly typical schedule during normal times.

Fast-forward to September 2019. At present, hardly any legislation is being put forward by the government at all for fear that it may be amended in a way which would stop the government pursuing its Brexit policy – an extreme agenda for which it cannot command a majority, and for which it has no mandate from the electorate.

But in another extraordinary development, that doesn’t mean the executive is in full control. Whereas the government used to exclusively control the Order Paper – that is, the business of the house – a coalition of opposition parties and independents (including those who have left or been ejected from the Tory party) can take over the Order Paper and provide for whatever business we wish when we want.

This is what happened with the Benn Act. Opposition parties and ex-Tories took over the Order Paper, provided time for consideration of the bill and passed into law. That law now requires the prime minister to send a letter to the EU Council requesting an extension of the Article 50 process if we are heading into a “no deal” Brexit on 31 October. It is unheard of for the government not to be in control of the business of the house, or for any law to pass without its consent in this way. This. Is. Not. Normal.

There have been no opposition day debates since Johnson took office, in part because these debates can be used by opposition parties to pass motions forcing ministers to do things they would rather not do. Again, the opposition is usually in a minority, but with the support of others, it can now command a majority against the government.

In November 2018, the official opposition (then as now Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party) used an opposition debate to pass a motion forcing the government to publish secret legal advice around its Brexit plans. Opposition parties did something similar earlier this month when we passed a motion forcing the government to publish documents from its no-deal planning operation, Project Yellowhammer, outlining the disastrous impact a no-deal Brexit would have on the country. It is worth noting that Johnson has yet to win a single vote in the commons; he was defeated three times on 4 September alone.

Prime Minister’s Questions and the specific commons statements the PM gives after EU summits, Nato and G7 gatherings usually see a full chamber and rigorous debate between the two main party leaders. But the exchanges between Johnson and Corbyn have been a terrible advert for our democracy. In contrast with their predecessors, neither is on top of the detail or up to the job, The level of debate is rarely worth watching or listening to, so much so that many MPs simply don’t bother to attend these “battles” between two utterly sub-standard leaders. These jousts have become a circus.

Amidst this storm, it is vital that the commons does all it can to ensure that not just the letter but the spirit of the Benn Act is complied with, safeguarding our country against a catastrophic no-deal Brexit. This is very much the priority for the Liberal Democrats. Yet once an extension to Article 50 has been secured and a no-deal Brexit has been averted in the short term, it’s hard to see how parliament carrying on in this fashion is sustainable.

Something will have to give. But given how volatile our politics is right now you’d be a brave person to put money on any particular outcome. People keep asking all of us what will happen next – and the worrying fact is that no one really knows. That’s how bad it has got. Change cannot come soon enough.

When I joined the old Labour Party 22 years ago during Blair’s time, the party was about to start its first term in office. This would see the introduction of the National Minimum Wage, the establishment of devolved government in Scotland, Wales and London, the conclusion of the Good Friday Agreement, huge increases in spending on health and education, big reductions in pensioner and child poverty, and so much more.

All of this was in spite of the hard left which, at best, had a lukewarm attitude to the party’s social democratic agenda at that time – indeed they spent much of their energy campaigning against Labour during this period, often as members of other parties. Some agitated against the party from within, like Andrew Fisher, whom I remember turning up to meetings of Streatham Labour Party arguing for the party to take a more leftist direction (he was rarely seen out canvassing – more on Fisher below).

Our monthly constituency party meetings in Streatham featured a spectrum of opinions, but they were good-natured. When people disagreed, they did so in an agreeable fashion, and we usually would head to the pub for a pint after. This was the local Labour Party of around 600 members who selected me as their parliamentary candidate in March 2008. But the local party I left back in February 2019 was barely recognisable.

There were around two and half thousand members, fewer than 500 of whom had been members before the summer of 2015. At the time I left Labour, most of those who selected me seven years beforehand had resigned from the local party or had stopped attending meetings, which had become unpleasant and often shouty encounters where you were defined by whether or not you were sympathetic to Momentum and a disciple of “Jeremy”.

I witnessed the outright bullying of non-Corbynista members, and came to dread giving my parliamentary report at the meetings. Heckling and pointless points of order were the order of the day. Most of the dedicated group of moderate members who stayed came to dread these meetings too – you could endure them, but rarely enjoyed any more. In the end, the hard left took over. 

The picture I paint of my local experience was far more rosy than many a tale I’ve heard in the parliamentary Labour Party. A large number of former colleagues have experienced far worse. They’re now fighting to survive the trigger ballot process currently taking place, the rules for which have been changed to smooth the deselection of MPs who are not sufficiently on board with the Corbyn project.

To see exactly what’s happened to Labour, we need only look to new findings from Mainstream, a new campaign to encourage a return to respectable and responsible politics, and to banish extremism from British politics. It commissioned YouGov to conduct research into Labour members’ views, and the findings are stark.

Just 15 per cent of today’s Labour members are proud of Britain’s history, most blame Britain and not the IRA for terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland, 69 per cent now blame Western governments instead of groups like al-Qaeda and Isis for Islamist terrorist attacks on the streets of Britain or think they are equally to blame as the groups that plan and execute them.

Less than one in four thinks Labour has a serious problem with antisemitism despite the avalanche of evidence under Corbyn’s leadership; the majority think the accusations are down to the media or Corbyn’s opponents. And in one particularly disturbing figure, 51 per cent think a Labour government should take greater control of broadcast media.

This paints a pretty disturbing picture of illiberal, authoritarian attitudes – and that’s putting it generously. It also explains why, in order to quash any dissent from St Jeremy’s views, the hard left attempted to abolish the deputy leader, Tom Watson.

The day before the failed move against Watson, Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary – in her not-so-subtle campaign to succeed Corbyn – attacked my party, the Liberal Democrats, for wanting to stop brexit. She compared us to the Taliban for saying that if we win a general election, we will revoke Article 50 and end this Brexit chaos once and for all.

In so doing, she ignored the 6 million people who signed a parliamentary petition earlier this year calling for just that – including 23,000 of her constituents and 27,000 of Corbyn’s. As my Lib Dem colleague, Tim Farron, tweeted: “if we really were like a Middle East terrorist group, don’t you think Jeremy would’ve invited us to a conference fringe meeting before now?”

It’s one thing to attack your political opponents for wanting to stop Brexit; it’s quite another to abolish your own deputy leader for wanting to do the same. The party leadership attempted to oust Watson for committing the crime of arguing that Labour should be unequivocally making the case for the UK to remain in the EU. Corbyn, a longtime Brexiteer, disagrees, and so Watson must go. All quite extraordinary.

To top it all off, Fisher, who since I was an activist with him in Streatham Labour had risen up the far left ranks to become Corbyn’s head of policy, resigned after the Watson debacle. In a memo leaked to The Sunday Times, he blamed the “lack of professionalism, competence and human decency” at the top of the party. If even a true believer such as Fisher has reached this conclusion, it speaks volumes.

The truth is it that it doesn’t have to be this way. That’s why so many people are flocking to the Liberal Democrats, the home for social democrats with liberal values, and others besides. The most visible illustration of this was last week at our conference. I bumped into numerous activists whom I’d previously seen at Labour’s gatherings who are now happy members of the Lib Dems. My friend and fellow traveller Luciana Berger needed police protection when she attended the Labour Party’s annual conference last year; there was absolutely no need for this at the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth last week. Luciana was walking around with a big smile on her face, and all of us new joiners could not have asked for a warmer welcome.

I have huge respect and affection for those good social democratic people in the Labour Party who have chosen to stay and fight. But my judgement, of course, is that the old Labour Party is gone, and that another route for social democracy and liberalism is required. Fortunately, the Lib Dems offer just that.

What on earth is going on? Is it simply that both parties have been hijacked by two characters with a particular right wing nationalist and hard-left following? Or is something deeper going on?

Different factors now drive how Brits respond to globalisation and consequently how we vote. Up until recently, politics in our country primarily played out along left/right and traditional class lines. But the general election of 2017 began to illustrate how class ties to parties were weakening and are no longer the strong driver of voting intention that they once were, with a swing towards Labour among better off Britons and shift towards the Conservatives among some lower-income groups. 

Since then, these changes have undoubtedly stepped up a gear and a new dichotomy is coming into view with voting behaviour driven more and more by whether one’s values are socially liberal and internationalist, or socially conservative and nationalist. This is proving to be the primary driver of voting intention.

So whether you are a Remainer is about a lot more than being pro-European – it is a signal that you fall into the social liberal, internationalist camp; if you are Leaver, it is quite likely to indicate that you are more socially conservative and nationalist. There are exceptions, but there is a whole body of research out there to underline that this is the case. As the The Economist stated in June, “the referendum has stamped identities on two opposing groups long in the making. Whatever the outcome of the talks, British society has a new divide.”

With this politics of identity reshaping the political field, the snap election – whenever it comes – will be an election driven by values like never before.

This has presented a huge challenge for the Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn’s unfitness for office is a big problem but the new voting dichotomy presents an even bigger challenge. Labour has fought to make a 20th century voting coalition – born of class and left/right politics – work for it in the 21st – where increasingly, the liberal/conservative and internationalist/nationalist fulcrum divides its support base.

It has struggled because, whereas its voting coalition previously fell primarily on one side of the fence, it has voters who fall on both sides of the new values divide – with two thirds of Labour-held constituencies voting to Leave but two-thirds of Labour voters opting to Remain in 2016. It has not only refused to adopt a clear position on Brexit because its leader is a Brexiteer while many of its members are Remainers, but if it picks a side in this values debate, it risks losing a large chunk of its voting base.

The Tories, on the other hand, have looked at the new political terrain and ruthlessly made their choice. Boris Johnson and the Vote Leave cabal who run his government have chosen to jettison those of its voters who do not fall into the conservative nationalist space. If you have previously supported the party but have liberal internationalist values, they are not interested in you. This is what lay behind the withdrawal of the whip from 21 Conservative MPs last week and those MPs being barred from standing at the snap general election for rebelling and supporting moves to block a no-deal Brexit. This was not just punishment for insubordination, it was a public expulsion of politicians who embody the One Nation, liberal, internationalist tradition in the Tory party and all that they represent.

The brutality of what happened stunned MPs across the House of Commons. I spoke to a number of the 21 MPs immediately after and they told me how they were immediately cut off, taken off party WhatsApp groups, no longer receiving the automated texts from their whips’ office and so on. When I joined the Commons in 2010, Ken Clarke was the lord chancellor, Dominic Grieve was the attorney general, Philip Hammond was the transport secretary, Justine Greening was the economic secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke the exchequer secretary, Greg Clark was the minister of state in the Department for Communities and Local Government, Ed Vaizey was culture minister and Sir Oliver Letwin was at the Cabinet Office. These were all mainstream, centre-right Tory stalwarts. It would be unthinkable then to think of any of these individuals rebelling at all, nevermind being chucked out of their party for doing so in order to stand in the way of extremism in their party. But that is precisely what has happened.

Perhaps the most shocking ejection was that of Winston Churchill’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames, after 37 years as a Tory MP. Sir Nicholas to many is the epitome of post-war Conservatism. He said over the weekend that “give or take the odd spasm, we have always been seen as pragmatic, sensible, good at our job, sane, reasonable and having the interests of the whole country and now it is beginning to look like a Brexit sect”. I’m afraid it is far worse than that. Johnson has reconfigured the party so that it is firmly on the populist, nationalist right in the new politics. The centre right no longer has a place in it. This is why more and more centre right Remainers – like Dr Phillip Lee who defected last week – are flocking to the flagbearer for liberal, internationalist values in this country: the Liberal Democrats.