When it was announced that a new political party was being setup that would support a People's Vote on the UK's membership of the EU, this was welcomed by SLF.

A new disruptive force could in addition add to the campaign to change the voting system and bring in new people into party politics to campaign for progressive change.

As events unfolded however the new party failed to impress. The notorious memo leaked to the Daily Mail demonstrated that they had calculated that the Liberal Democrats are a spent force and that their job was to actually replace the Liberal Democrats by recruiting their members and taking away their donors. Having offended the Liberal Democrats in a very public way they could have disowned the document, but instead chose not to comment on it at all.

Their failure to stand in the local elections followed by their insistence not to do a deal with the pro Remain parties in the EU elections may well have dealt it a fatal blow. Having secured less than 5% of the vote it is hard to see where they go from here.

To their credit, in addition to their 11 MPs, Change UK has succeeded in bringing many people into politics who are new to party politics. It would be a shame if they were to all give up on politics now. Given the rise of the Brexit party and the likely lurch to the right in the Tory party they are very much needed.

However the election results have left them in a position of weakness. They will need time to decide between themselves what to do next. Their leader Heidi Allen has shown she is happy to work with other parties. We hope she can persuade the rest of her party to do the same.

We welcome the disruptive impact that the new independent group is having on our failed, dysfunctional and clapped out political system. We welcome that they, like us, demand a Peoples Vote and would campaign to Remain in the EU.

But it is not only over Europe that our outdated political system has failed. Our antique electoral system, designed for people who could not read and write, has squeezed out radical voices with important things to say like the Greens and ourselves. We invite TiG and all like-minded people to join us in campaigning for a fair voting system that will enable diverse and progressive voices to be heard and have influence.

As social liberals we support the widest possible distribution of wealth and income. We do not believe that the market alone can achieve this objective. We are committed to eradicating the gross inequalities of power, health and wealth. The freedom, dignity and wellbeing of individuals is our chief concern and we will work collaboratively with those who share our objectives.

Why Labour party members should consider becoming Lib Dems in 2019

In recent times a number of debates within the council of the Social Liberal forum, of which I am a member, have turned as much on where the Labour party as well as our parent party the Liberal Democrats is heading.  Extrapolating from these as a Liberal Democrat I am bound to ask whether, given the current crisis of leadership within and support for Brexit by the latter (with which 88% of Labour’s members appear not to agree), there is scope for some and possibly even a great number of Labour activists either to join the Liberal Democrats or to set up a new centre party which they in their turn may then want to invite others to participate in.

Inevitably a short essay like this will be accused of opportunism or, worse, being no more than cheap party-political propaganda.  It isn’t intended to be either. Whilst I am – since 1981 – a near-lifelong Liberal or Liberal Democrat it was my voluntary opting-in to this, the Social Liberal forum, which by its very nature attempts to bring together/assimilate adherents of more than one political grouping, which prompted me to put it here in print.  Whilst I would clearly like to see the Liberal Democrats grow from their current modest base of eleven MPS and a few hundred councillors I can also see greater or equally great gains for the country in the emergence of any new centre party comprising initially those with solid representative or campaigning experience at any level but representing that large swathe of ‘middle England’ at present without any voice in the Westminster legislature on account of the Brexit debacle. This is that very same establishment we thought of until recently as the ‘Mother of all Parliaments’!

As the European institutions get back to work, most of the talk in Brussels surrounds how the new Romanian presidency of the Council will fare in wrapping up a lot of unfinished business before the European Elections in May. Tongues are also wagging as to the political complexion of the next European Commission, which is expected to begin its mandate in December this year.

To the extent to which non-Brit officials in Brussels still discuss Brexit, their incredulity it seems to me, stems from the fact that they see the UK taking such a huge strategic gamble based on so little understanding of the long, hard and winding process to come. Living in Brussels and working on EU legislation these last few years, I have often been struck by how little the political debate in the UK seems to relate to my day-to-day understanding of how the EU works.

Nothing illustrates this better than references in the UK media to “The EU says” or “The EU wants”, or “Brussels says”. Nobody in Brussels would ever speak like this; for the simple reason that the EU is so multifaceted that it is impossible – especially at the outset – to discern a single EU line. Interests and opinions between member states, between political groups and within and between the institutions vary hugely. What I think most UK commentators tend to mean when they say the “the EU wants” is the European Commission, but I have often seen the descriptor appended to the personal views of single MEPs, often from smaller political groups like the Greens.

If Brexit does go ahead on the 29^th of March, the UK public and media will soon find out that the high degree of consensus between the 27 EU member states on the dry technicalities of the Withdrawal Agreement is unlikely to hold once the UK is out and discussions turn to the future trading relationship. It will be a “blind Brexit”.

The joint political declaration appended to the legal text of the negotiated Withdrawal Agreement is little more than a goodwill statement. But if the Brits are serious about securing access to the Single Market for goods, they will have to begin negotiations with, essentially 27 other countries after March, each of which will have a veto, as will the new European Parliament. What happens to the £100 billion or so worth of services the UK sells to EU countries every year is anyone’s guess. Services are not usually included in trade deals and “passporting” is due to end.

To give a flavour of how long it generally takes to go from vague political statements to fully-fledged regulations and directives, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, the legislation I have been working on, called the Clean Energy for All Europeans Package, first received its “political declaration” from Heads of Government in the European Council in October 2014. It is not yet complete. The EU-Canada Trade deal (CETA) took around eight years to negotiate and ratify and was held up for several months at the 11^th hour by the Walloon Parliament in Belgium, one of Belgium’s three regional parliaments, all of which can block the ratification of an EU trade treaty.

So, if Brexit goes ahead on the 29^th March the UK will be taking a leap into the dark. For non-Brits, this is an unprecedented political and economic experiment on a huge scale. It still gives me the shivers.