Lib Dems make opposition to Brexit manifesto priority

A defiant Tim Farron vowed the Liberal Democrats would fight to keep the UK in the European Union at a manifesto launch in which he sought to entrench the Lib Dems as the party of remain.

Bathed in yellow strobe lights at an east London club, the Lib Dem manifesto launch put opposition to Brexit at the heart of the party’s offering, pledging to preserve free movement, remain in the single market and hold a referendum on the final EU exit deal with the option of remaining a member.

Farron said the manifesto would show that voters “don’t have to accept Theresa May and Nigel Farage’s extreme version of Brexit that will wreck the future for you, your family, your schools and hospitals”.

In his speech to more than 800 activists at Oval Space in Hackney, Farron evoked his clash with leave-voting pensioner Malcolm Baker, who confronted the Lib Dem leader on the campaign trail. His pledge to give voters a chance to reject Brexit was also an appeal to leave voters like Baker, he said.

“I want Malcolm and every single one of you to have your say over what comes next,” he said. “The choices Theresa May makes – and the compromises she negotiates with bureaucrats in Brussels – will affect our children’s future for decades to come. My children, your children, Malcolm’s grandchildren.”

Labour had failed to oppose the plans, he said. “In the biggest fight for the future of our country in a generation, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour has let you down by voting with Theresa May on Brexit – not against her.

“The Liberal Democrats want you to have your choice over your future. If you don’t like the deal you should be able to reject it and choose to remain in Europe.”

Party sources were unequivocal about the message the manifesto intended to send to the 48% who voted to remain: that Brexit is reversible. “This is the only manifesto that is based on the premise that we can remain in the European Union, we can remain in the single market and can have all the benefits for the future generations that entails,” a party spokesman said. “That is why the referendum on the deal and the option to remain is at the heart of this document.”

The Lib Dems’ success in the June election will be contingent on remainers still caring enough about Brexit for the referendum result to be pivotal to their vote. Recent YouGov polling suggests remainers are no longer the 48%, with more than half that demographic accepting the UK should leave the EU and around 22% still hoping to remain.

The traditional heartlands of the party in the south-west were also pro-Brexit and with Ukip standing aside for the Conservatives in many seats, it could be an uphill struggle there. With the party’s electoral stall aimed at despondent remainers, Farron has directed his pitch at metropolitan liberals in the hope of clinching seats in south London, Bath and Cambridge.

Earlier, Farron said the Lib Dems in government would offer the British public a referendum on the final Brexit deal and ruled out a coalition with either the Conservatives or Labour.

Priorities for the party’s nine MPs will be to protect the rights of EU and UK citizens, including simplifying the citizenship process, and campaign for continued membership of the single market and customs union.

At the launch, Farron said: “The Liberal Democrats want you to have your choice over your future. If you don’t like the deal you should be able to reject it and choose to remain in Europe.”

The party also commits itself to protecting EU-funded schemes such as the Erasmus exchange programme, workers’ rights derived from EU law, environmental standards and maintaining “the closest possible cooperation” on justice and home affairs. It says it would also strive to retain traveller benefits such as the European health insurance card, reduced roaming charges and pet passports.

Many of the policies are designed to appeal to young voters, the demographic most likely to vote Labour and oppose Brexit, including a “rent-to-buy” pledge to build deposit-free homes for young professionals and working families to buy for the same cost as renting.

The party also commits to legalising cannabis, suggesting it could raise £1bn in tax revenue. However, the manifesto does not match Labour’s pledge to scrap tuition fees, which the Lib Dems promised to oppose but then voted through during the coalition government, to outrage from student campaigners.

The party’s flagship tax-and-spend pledge will centre on the NHS and social care – a 1p increase on income tax, including dividends, raising more than £6bn, which would be ringfenced for health and care spending. Spending plans include state funding for 300,000 new homes a year, protecting the education budget in real terms for each pupil and ending the 1% cap on public sector pay rises.

The manifesto’s spending plans would mean borrowing £5bn more than the government plans to in 2018-19 and £14bn more in 2019-20 for day-to-day spending. Total borrowing costs would be almost double the government’s plans: £40bn in 2019-20 compared with the government’s £21bn.

Defending these costs, the Lib Dem manifesto said Conservatives had “failed to take advantage of historically low interest rates to borrow for the investment that would create jobs now and prepare us and our economy for the future”.

The party says it has “no intention of just throwing away our hard-fought efforts to control the deficit during the coalition years” and said it would commit to eliminating the deficit in day-to-day spending by 2020.

“We want to give all our children a brighter future in a fairer Britain where people are decent to each other, with good schools and hospitals, a clean environment and an innovative economy,” Farron said. “Not Theresa May’s cold, mean-spirited Britain.”

The Lib Dem peer Dicky Newby, the manifesto’s primary author, said it was clear Brexit was not the priority for every voter in the election, which was why the party had drafted detailed policy proposals on a wide range of topics, despite ruling out being in government to enact them.

“For some people, it isn’t the most important thing in their lives, but the health service might be or education, so although Brexit is the most important, central theme of the whole document, we haven’t just written, ‘let’s have a referendum’ and put a full stop.”

Lord Newby said his party was making a “clear and distinct offer on health” with its promise to ringfence a tax increase for the NHS and care costs.

“If you take a seat like Twickenham [the former seat of former cabinet minister Vince Cable and one of the party’s top targets], the cuts to the schools budgets are mentioned very frequently on the doorstep as well as Brexit. This is not a one-dimensional document.”

Party sources said the drafting of the document, which runs to over 100 pages, had begun after the EU referendum over the summer, in preparation for a snap autumn election, which had not materialised, but meant the party had been more prepared for June.

Newby said the document would show voters the value of voting for Lib Dem MPs, even if they would not be in a position to enact their policies. “People looking at the Lib Dems will now have a guide to their behaviour in parliament, when it comes to a whole raft of issues.”

Conservative party chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin said there were striking similarities between the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos, including scrapping corporation tax cuts. “This manifesto makes one thing abundantly clear: a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote to put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street,” he said.