James Forsyth James Forsyth

Who wins when everyone is in crisis?

Britain’s three main political parties are in crisis. That isn’t meant to happen. If only by a process of elimination, one of the three UK-wide political parties should be doing well at any given moment. These simultaneous crises are one of the things that is making politics so volatile.

Let’s start with the Liberal Democrats. The political circumstances seem almost perfect for them but their failure to even break into the teens in the polls when the two main parties are both in crisis does makes one question whether they can ever return to the levels of popularity they enjoyed before the ill-fated coalition with the Conservatives.

What compounds their failure to break through is that both Labour and the Tories are being accused by their own MPs of abandoning the liberal centre. This alone should create the ideal conditions for a Lib Dem revival. Add to that Brexit. The Liberal Democrats are the only one of three major parties in favour of a second referendum — a position that a plurality of voters now support. But the Liberal Democrats are getting little benefit. They haven’t become the Ukip of the 48 per cent.

In these circumstances, questions are being asked of the party leader, Vince Cable. He didn’t help himself recently by missing a key Brexit vote in parliament. (Ironically, it is reported that he missed the vote because he was discussing whether a new anti-Brexit party should be formed.)

Cable is not a Brexit fanatic. When he was out of parliament, he was opposed to the idea of a second referendum, so he isn’t an ideal tribune of Remain ultras. But it is hard to imagine any of the other 11 Liberal Democrat MPs doing a better job than him as leader.

The willingness of senior Liberal Democrats to indulge talk of a new centrist party, into which — presumably — the Liberal Democrats would fold themselves, is a recognition of the party’s failure.

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