Lib Dems get noticed
- 7 Mar 08, 10:20 AM
Get noticed. That is always the first challenge for any new Lib Dem leader.
It’s unlikely that before he got the job, Nick Clegg would have planned to get noticed in the way he did this week: by accepting the resignation of three of his top team and presiding over a revolt of almost a quarter of his MPs.
Nor, one suspects, would he have chosen to do it whilst taking the some of the blame for denying the public a vote on Europe.
So why did he order his MPs to sit on their hands, to vote neither yes nor no in this week’s referendum vote in the Commons? That is the question being asked not least by those heading today to the Lib Dem spring conference in Liverpool.
The answer is that he feared something much worse. Given a free vote, a vast majority of his MPs – some suggest as many as 50 - would have voted with the Tories to try and force a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and to defeat the government.
The problem is that a number of key figures would have refused to join them. The former leader Charles Kennedy, the man Nick Clegg narrowly beat, Chris Huhne and above all, Mr Clegg himself.
All passionate pro-Europeans, they believed it would have been irresponsible to risk derailing the EU treaty by forcing a referendum which the government might well have lost.
There was one other big problem. Those voting with the Tories may well have been led by one Vince Cable. The man who made his name thanks to Northern Rock, to Strictly Come Dancing and to being acting leader and who’s proved such a hard act to follow.
So Nick Clegg couldn’t vote Yes to a referendum on Lisbon and most of his MPs wouldn’t vote No. So the parliamentary party agreed to vote neither and to live with the consequences.
It was though, his decision to pick a fight with the other parties and the Speaker of the Commons for the only Euro referendum he says the country should have: one on whether to stay in the EU or to get out.
It was also he who sanctioned the decision to stage a walkout from the Commons chamber in protest at the refusal of a debate on that option.
A decision described as a student prank by some of those very high up in the Liberal Democrat party.
The result: That Nick Clegg first got properly noticed for that split in his party.
He hopes though this week that the public may also have noticed one other thing – that he took a principled stand on something he cares deeply about despite the obvious problems.
