The paper goes on to say:In an echo of the split that led to the creation of the Social Democratic Party in the 1980s, up to a dozen Blairite MPs have discussed leaving the party.
Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, has disclosed that senior Labour members told him they were prepared to leave the party because they fear it could lurch to the Left.
Lord Ashdown – who was offered a seat in Mr Brown’s Cabinet in 2007 – said: “What happens after the election if Labour loses? Very senior people in the Labour Party have told me there will be a heart and soul battle.
''There are signs that certain constituency parties are growing really Left-wing. Senior Labour figures have said to me, 'If that happens, I’m off'.”
Sources close to the Lib Dem leadership confirmed there had been “tentative” discussions with disillusioned Labour MPs and peers.
Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, has privately authorised secret approaches to unhappy Blairites, trying to persuade them to join the Lib Dems instead of forming their own breakaway party.
One Lib Dem said: “There is nothing imminent or even concrete, but there have been conversations with people on what you might call the moderate side of the Labour Party.
“They look at the likely outcome of the election and worry about the direction the party could take.”
Another Lib Dem source said at least six Labour MPs had indicated that they could be prepared to leave the party.
6 comments:
Are any of them the Gurkha rebels?
"Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, has privately authorised secret approaches to unhappy Blairites"
But not THAT private, eh?
The "moderate side of the Labour Party" includes those who continue to hide their reasons for going to war, were complicit in torture and did nothing to discourage rendition.
Welcoming their ilk reeks of expediency!
“They ... worry about the direction the party could take.”Me too.
People were called up and died for our country in the past.
Now the country is in a mess, and we're asking those who can afford it to pay a bit more.
Not to lay down their lives, not to live lives of penury, no, to give 50% rather than 40% of their income over £150,000. That is, to give more of any money which is way above what is needed to live in extreme luxury. They will have to live in slightly less extreme luxury. Others right now are losing their jobs and their houses.
And they threaten to go abroad, or find tricks to get out of it. And they call on their tame friends in the press to concoct ridiculous stories like this - people leaving the Labour Party because it's become too left-wing, indeed. Labour has been losing people because it's become too right-wing.
The 50% tax was massive popular in opinion polls, and those newspapers denouncing it have been revealed for what they are - no friends of Britain, instead tame mouthpieces of some international money class who have no loyalty to this country, who have sucked what they want from this country and will now run off elsewhere when asked to deal with the consequences.
Now, if the 50% tax doesn't raise much because those who are asked to pay it have fled the country or found tricks to hide their income, well, those poorer people who then have to pay more tax or suffer more cuts in service will know who to blame. I think we have words for deserters who will run away rather than contribute when this country needs them.
The real issue here is the utter failure of the left to have predicted, opposed, and spelt out clearly to the people of this country what was happening that led to the current financial crisis. Which has led to the utter failure of the left even now when the right - all of it, New Labour, the Conservatives, and parts of the Liberal Democrats have been revealed as politically bankrupt - to make political progress and get support from ordinary people at the bottom of the pile. The stupid, stupid, left have been concentrating on issues which really are quite peripheral to the lives of ordinary people in this country.
They will be scratching at the LibDem door, and not only from the Blairite wing of Labour. On party membership, we will give them the benefit of the doubt of course. For keeping their seats, they will find it a shock that they have to actually convince the local members that they deserve to be candidates. But for accepting them wholeheartedly at once, we need a quick test. They will almost all be New Statesman readers; so I suggest asking them "What was the first item you looked for in the NS?" If the answer is Cold Comfort Farm, they are in.
Oh lovely; I wonder who we can look forward to???
Blunkett Blears Clarke Byers
I can barely contain my glee!!
(Does anybody have Steve Radford's telephone number?)
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