Two Liberal views on Britain and Europe after the election

Bremain in Spain has a page giving the reaction of half a dozen pro-European voices to the result of the general election.

Among them are Nick Harvey:

Yes, we would all have preferred Labour not to be elected with red lines drawn against the customs union, single market or ‘rejoin’ – though experts tell me those would barely have been feasible in the first term anyway.

 But we have seen the new PM totally reset the relationship with Europe at the Blenheim summit, the new Foreign Secretary start talks about an ambitious UK-EU security agreement, and the first King’s Speech signal an enabling bill to allow ‘dynamic alignment’ with evolving EU regulations.

It is a great start.

and Chris Rennard:

Incremental changes in the right direction are already being made. But it will take greater courage and more time for Keir Starmer to use his advocacy skills to explain that aligning ourselves again with our neighbours is in the interests of our own economy. He must also explain that this will be best done by us having a proper say in the rules, requiring membership of the Single Market.  Perhaps a 2029 Manifesto commitment?

Re-joining the EU will probably also require the adoption of Proportional Representation, which has had the support of the Labour Party members in recent years. I doubt if we could be readmitted without ensuring that the U.K. would not adopt a “Hokey Cokey” approach to membership in future. 

There are also reactions from Gina Miller, Anand Menon, Chris Grey and Liz Webster.

Bank closes the account of Gina Miller's political party

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From BBC News:

Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller was told a bank account for her political party would close without explanation.

Monzo initially refused to tell Ms Miller why her "True and Fair" party account would be closed in September.

After the BBC contacted the bank about the case, it said it did not allow political party accounts and had made a mistake in allowing it to be opened.

To which I can only reply: I told you so. How the people who've spent the last fortnight telling us that banks must be allowed to act precisely as they choose will react to this, I don't know.

Debanking is a huge problem for those affected - as the first article in my latest Joy of Six shows - and I can see it becoming a political weapon if the government does not act.

You young people won't remember it, but when we lived among the ruins of the Liberal Democrats' performance in the 2015 general election, there were those who wanted Gina Miller to be our next leader, even though she wasn't an MP (or a Lib Dem, come to that).

There's nothing as odd as the recent past.