Saturday, August 25, 2018

Is Vince Cable planning an early resignation as Lib Dem leader?

Embed from Getty Images

I have no idea, but Adam Payne and Ben Gartside wrote this afternoon on Business Insider:
Sir Vince Cable is set to give a major speech on Friday, September 7, multiple sources have told Business Insider, amid speculation that he planning an early resignation as leader of the Liberal Democrats. 
Senior sources have told BI that Lib Dem members will be invited to a speech in the first week of September, one week before the party's autumn conference, in which Cable will make announcements about reforms and the party's future. 
Two senior sources — a well-placed Lib Dem and a party grandee — suggested that the MP for Twickenham will reveal his plan to make way for a successor before the next scheduled general election in 2022. 
The well-placed source claimed his departure could come as early as the party's spring conference in March.
This sounds to me like an attempt to create a sense of urgency around the changes to the party constitution that journalists have been briefed about all summer.

Those changes would scrap the rule that the party leader has to be an MP and see people who are not members allowed to vote in party elections.

The changes are nowhere to be found in the agenda for next month's Lib Dem Conference, hence perhaps the enthusiasm for holding a special conference to discuss the rules for choosing Vince's successor.

We do, of course, have a perfectly good set of rules for doing just that already in place, but maybe the plan is to bounce the party into supporting Vince's pet proposals.

No comments: