Jo swinson

Steve Barclay - Boris Johnson 'believes in Brexit' David Cameron's memoirs are due to be released this Thursday, with some of the more explosive highlights already seeing serialisation. The Sunday Times has published an extract today that argues that Boris Johnson did not believe in Brexit, and only backed the Leave campaign to win over the Conservative rank and file. The Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay joined Sophy Ridge and immediately refuted the former Prime Minister's claims: https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1173139451788320768 SR: Does Boris Johnson really believe in Brexit? SB: He does! He led the campaign... and the Remain side was expected to win, so the more prudent thing, if someone was looking purely at their career, would have been to back Remain. Boris Johnson...

Every Monday, a group of unlikely bedfellows meet in Jeremy Corbyn’s parliamentary office. Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat leader; Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader; Caroline Lucas, the Green party’s sole MP; and Liz Saville Roberts from Plaid Cymru all gather to discuss their common aim — preventing a no-deal Brexit. This rebel alliance is more than just a group therapy session: last week, they succeeded in taking control of parliament and immediately started to give instructions to the Prime Minister. So their Monday club is now a kind of remote-control government, with plenty to discuss. While parliament is suspended, they’ve promised to keep in touch.

Politicians determined to prevent a no-deal Brexit are locked in a Mexican stand-off. If Boris Johnson cannot command a Commons majority, Jo Swinson has made it clear that under no circumstances will Liberal Democrats support a caretaker Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government. John McDonnell has indicated that Labour will not back a temporary national unity government under an as-yet unnamed backbench MP. With Parliament in recess we are in the realm of second-guessing what might happen next. When MPs return to Westminster, Johnson might win a vote of confidence. But even if he loses, the Prime Minister could possibly engineer a general election to subvert the cunning plans of the no-no Dealers.

As the Westminster rumour mill goes into overdrive over the likelihood of an early general election, talk has turned to how the main parties would fare in an Autumn trip to the polls. Crucial to that question is how the Liberal Democrats would do. Just a year ago, the Lib Dems were the subject of pity and widespread mockery. They were scarred by their time in coalition with the Tories. They failed to make much ground during the 2017 snap election, ending up with just 12 MPs, and seemed destined for extinction. In theory, they should have hoovered up Remain voters. Instead, they hoovered up derision and obloquy. Sir Vince Cable announced his resignation as party leader with the future looking bleak.

When the leadership result was announced, Jeremy Corbyn’s keyboard warriors swung into action. Behold, they said: a new party leader whose track record involved overseeing years of austerity, voting for tax cuts for the super-rich and pursuing a neoliberal agenda. As for Boris the man, the Corbynites didn’t seem to mind him so much. It’s Jo Swinson, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, who is enemy number one. The Labour fear — and the Tory hope —is that the current Liberal Democrat resurgence continues and Labour loses seats in the North to the Tories and metropolitan seats to the Lib Dems. Under Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems were a greater threat to the Tories, but Brexit has created new opportunities.

Jo Swinson has been elected as the new leader of the Liberal Democrats. Succeeding Sir Vince Cable in the role, Swinson, the first woman to hold the position, beat her rival Ed Davey – winning 47,997 votes against 28,02 with 63 per cent of the vote. In her victory speech, Swinson said that on joining the party at 17, she had 'never imagined that I would one day have the honour of leading our great party'. So, how will she lead it? Swinson – who served as a business minister in the coalition – used her speech to cast the Liberal Democrats as the party of liberalism. She tried to paint Boris Johnson – in anticipation of him winning the Tory leadership contest – and Jeremy Corbyn as the products of nationalism and populism.

An old joke among political journalists is that you know a writer has run out of topics when they start producing columns either on their children or the Liberal Democrats. With so many other things going on, perhaps this is why Westminster has been oddly indifferent to the leadership contest taking place between Jo Swinson and Ed Davey over the past couple of months. We should have been paying more attention, as the winner may well have an important role to play in the political turmoil over the next few months. Last night, the BBC held its hustings with the two candidates, and I was one of the journalists invited to ask questions.

Although the government managed to win the crunch customs union vote this week, the victory was short-lived thanks to a row over the fact Brandon Lewis voted despite being on a pairing arrangement with Lib Dem Jo Swinson – who missed the vote after recently giving birth. Today the Times reports that despite claims from the Chief Whip that it was all an 'honest mistake', two other Tory MPs were told by Julian Smith that they should vote on Tuesday despite being paired. On Wednesday, Kate Hoey waded into the row. Only the Labour MP – who voted with the government on Tuesday – has questioned the behaviour of not just the Tories but Swinson too.

Young Labour members have made headlines today after calling for a ban on alcohol at CLP meetings to ensure the party can 'become truly inclusive of women and other minorities'. Now it seems the Liberal Democrats could be next in the battle against patriarchy-fuelled booze. Speaking at a Grassroots Women panel this week at the SMF, Jo Swinson raised concerns over her party's regular social gathering 'Lib Dem Pint'.

Why on earth would we want to put up a statue of Margaret Thatcher in Parliament Square? That's the question that a number of politicians are asking after the possibility arose once again at the weekend. 'Steady on,' said Nicola Sturgeon. Labour's Chris Bryant was (unsurprisingly, perhaps) rather more verbose. 'What Mrs Thatcher did to communities like the Rhondda deserves recognition in the annals of callousness; not another statue.' Down with the Tory fool behind the suggestion who just cannot stop reminiscing about the 1980s. Except the suggestion came not from a Conservative but a Liberal Democrat MP. Jo Swinson wrote a piece in the Mail on Sunday in which she describes witnessing the very policies that Bryant is so angry about: 'I grew up in the West of Scotland during the 1980s.

It feels like an age since I was knocking on doors in the pouring rain in the final hour before polls closed, then hearing the shock of the exit poll on the car radio heading home to a hairdryer and somewhat less bedraggled attire for the count. Yet here we are just a few days later, embarking on an election for leader of the Liberal Democrats. I went to see Tim on Wednesday afternoon to tell him I thought he should definitely stay on, and I was excited at the prospect of putting myself forward to be Deputy Leader.  I was stunned when he told me he would be resigning that evening. Listening to Tim’s dignified statement, outlining the personal turmoil he felt during the election, I can’t fault him for deciding to step down, but I feel very sad that it came to this.

Tim Farron has resigned as Liberal Democrat leader. The Liberal Democrats did make a net gain of four seats but this was far lower than what they had been hoping for; early on in the campaign Farron talked about his desire to double the number of Lib Dem MPs. At the same time, their share of the popular vote fell half a percentage point—with them now down to a mere 7.4% share. Given that these were uniquely promising circumstances for the party, they were the only UK-wide party opposed to Brexit, these elections results were particularly disappointing for them. Farron’s leadership style has received much of the blame for their failure to gain much ground at this election.

For someone who might be about to lose her seat, Jo Swinson seems very perky as she walks the streets of Bishopbriggs in her constituency. The Lib Dem, who is standing for re-election in East Dunbartonshire in Scotland, is busy trying to persuade people who have received their postal votes this week to back her. The weather is sunny and warm and the Business and Equalities Minister cheerful, but the outlook isn’t quite so good when you take a glance at the numbers. A poll by Lord Ashcroft last week put the SNP on 40 per cent, with Swinson trailing behind on 29 per cent. That’s a 19.5 per cent swing to the SNP in the seat which Swinson first won in 2005 with a 4,061 majority, which then reduced to 2,184 in 2010.

The Lib Dems have just launched the final leg of their campaign against Scottish independence, which is a poster van with Charles Kennedy's head emblazoned across it and three of the United Kingdom's greatest achievements: the NHS, the pound and the BBC. It's part of their 'sunshine strategy' to talk up the benefits of the Union in the final few days, and the four Lib Dems who launched this van - Danny Alexander, Charles Kennedy, Jo Swinson and Willie Rennie - argued that they had been saying all sorts of lovely sunshiny things about the United Kingdom all along, but they just weren't as well-reported as all the warnings.

The election of the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party is hardly hold the front page stuff. However, whoever wins the contest, triggered this week by Simon Hughes' surprise elevation to ministerial office, will give us a good indication as to where the party currently sees itself. The election is decided by a vote of Lib Dem MPs, as that is who the deputy leader is there to represent, and can only be contested by those who are not ministers. Coaltion has forced the Lib Dems to look at where they stand ideologically, and who the MPs select as their deputy leader will give a strong indication of their 'spiritual' positioning. A left-wing candidate would show a determination of the party to keep themselves within touching distance of Labour.

Apparently our MPs declined the opportunity to stand up and give the heavily pregnant minister Jo Swinson a seat during PMQs. So she stood. She has made no fuss at all. My suspicion is the MPs would have happily stood for her but were worried that they’d later be castigated as sexist for having done so. And quite possibly by Ms Swinson. With the exception of air-headed Lib Dem ministers, it is right to give a pregnant woman a seat on a bus, or a train, isn’t it? Just as you’d give up your seat for a raspberry, or a very old person, no?