Shropshire Star

As Brexit rumbles on - is it time for a new centre party?

Former MP Lembit Opik today said he would consider supporting a new middle-ground political party in the UK.

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Lembit Opik

The former Liberal Democrat MP for Montgomeryshire spoke amid speculation that disenchanted Labour and Tory MPs may join forces to create a new centre party post-Brexit.

Mr Opik warned Lib Dem members they would have to embrace any move if they wanted to survive as a force in politics.

He said for a new party to have any chance of success, it would need to attract ‘several dozen’ MPs.

He added: “Britain benefits from a strong third force. The Liberal Dems used to occupy that role, but at the moment they haven’t got much traction. I also think our system isn’t designed for multi-party politics. Three is about as much as you can expect.”

It seems fanciful now, but there really was a brief time in the early 1980s when it looked like Roy Jenkins was about to become Britain’s next prime minister.

The original ‘Gang of Four’ – Bill Rodgers, Dr David Owen, Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams

The former Labour minister joined Dr David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams in creating a new centrist movement.

The Gang of Four, as they became known, quit Labour because they were unhappy with its stance on Europe, considered its new leader too left wing, and believed its grass-roots membership had been infiltrated by hard-line Trotskyite extremists.

For several months in 1981 and 1982, in alliance with David Steel’s Liberal Party, the SDP actually topped opinion polls in the UK, pushing the Conservatives into third place. Mr Steel infamously told his party members to return to their constituencies and “prepare for government”.

The Tories won the 1983 General Election by a landside, although the SDP/Liberal Alliance came close to pipping Labour into second place.

Thirty-seven years on from the so-called Limehouse Declaration – named after Owen’s house on the banks of the River Thames – are the conditions ripe for a new ‘Third Force’ in British politics?

While the Gang of Four attracted all the media attention, one of the lesser known defectors was a young councillor in Glasgow by the name of Vince Cable.

Now Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Vince caused a furore last month when he missed a crucial vote on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. And the reason for his absence? Well, according to many commentators – a claim which he has not denied – he was meeting backers who wanted to set up a new centrist, pro-EU party.

Speculation has been rife in recent months that as Labour and the Conservatives become increasingly polarised, that there might be a gap in the middle for a new political force which would bring together the centrist, pro-EU members of the Labour and Conservative parties.

The French revolution – Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche movement propelled him to the presidency last year

Emboldened by the success of Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party in France, there is a belief in some circles that Labour MPs disaffected by the shift to the Left under Jeremy Corbyn, and pro-EU Tories unhappy with some of the Eurosceptic rhetoric coming from the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg could come together to form a similar movement.

One such commentator is Lembit Opik, the high-profile former Liberal Democrat MP for Montgomeryshire.

Mr Opik, who held various front-bench roles in the party before losing his seat to Conservative Glynne Davies in 2010, believes there is a very real chance of such a shake-up. And he warns that if the Liberal Democrats do not embrace it, just as the old Liberal Party did with the SDP in the 1980s, then they could well find themselves obliterated.

Lembit Opik says he has no interest in a new political party

“The big challenge is for the Liberal Democrats, I think if they don’t get involved with that they will be obliterated, I don’t think there is space for four parties in England,” he said.

Mr Opik says that both the Conservative and Labour Parties are split down the middle over Brexit, and believes there is a good chance that the pro-European parties on both sides could come together to form a new centrist group.

“I think it would have to be a pretty big group to succeed, it would have to have a few dozen MPs.”

But he says the problem for the Liberal Democrats was that many of them would be sceptical of aligning themselves with another group following their collapse in support after the 2010-2015 Coalition.

“They misunderstand what happened, it wasn’t the Coalition that did for them, it was the weakness of leadership,” he says.

Mr Opik says for a new party to have any chance of success, it would need to attract “several dozen” MPs. And that, in itself, could create more problems for the Liberal Democrats.

“They might see themselves, with eight MPs, being overwhelmed by the 40, 50 or 60 MPs from the other party,” he says.

Wolverhampton North East MP Emma Reynolds

Mr Opik says he has no interest in becoming involved with such a political party, he might be prepared to vote for one.

“I helped build the Lib Dems from 1989 to 2010, getting them ready for power, and for five short years they were in government. I wouldn’t rule out voting for a new third party if it helped bring about the change our country needs.

“If they can’t be better than what we’ve got at the moment, then I would be more inclined to vote on the individual rather than the party.”

Former Telford councillor Bill McClements, a Labour Party member for 46 years, was one of Shropshire’s leading campaigners to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum. But while he has reservations on the way Jeremy Corbyn has handled the EU question, he says he would have no interest in joining a new party.

Mr McClements says that while the idea of a centrist, pro-European party along the lines of President Macron’s En Marche might sound attractive, the reality is such movements rarely gain much support.

“I think it probably wouldn’t work, it is very hard for any new party to establish itself,” he says. “The last General Election showed that people went back to Labour and the Conservatives, and that was despite established commentators writing off Jeremy Corbyn.”

Mr McClements says he clearly remembers how David Owen tried to break the mould of British politics with the SDP, and how it ultimately failed. The party merged with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats in 1988, prompting Dr Owen to quit as leader and form his own continuity SDP, which quickly vanished into obscurity.

“I was alive when David Owen started the SDP, that had quite an impact for a time, but it didn’t last, and that was probably better equipped than a new third party would be today,” says Mr McClements.

He says one of the reasons why a new third party would not succeed was that it would be unlikely to attract enough MPs.

“I can’t see many people crossing the party lines permanently, it’s a big step,” he says. “I’ve been quite disappointed with the Labour Party’s Referendum campaign, partly because I believe in remaining in the EU, and I don’t think the Labour Party has been as clear or strong enough on the way forward as it might have.

“But having been a member of the Labour Party for 46 years, I would not leave. I will stay in the Labour Party and argue for my views.”

Wolverhampton North East MP Emma Reynolds, who resigned from the shadow cabinet when Mr Corbyn became leader, also believes that such a move could be counter-productive, also citing the failure of the SDP.

“I’m not a big fan of the idea,” she says.

“I think the Labour Party is a very strong brand, whoever the leader is, and I believe in the party’s values.”

Miss Reynolds says such a party would also suffer under Britain’s first-past-the-post system, which made if very difficult for new parties to start up.

“My worry would be if a new party came along, it would split the centre-left vote, and could end up rewarding the Tories, just as it did in some seats that the SDP contested in the 1980s.”