‘Ditch leader Clegg or face disaster’
Oakeshott warns Liberal Democrats after resigning
LONDON, May 28, (RTRS): Prime Minister David Cameron’s junior coalition partner is heading towards electoral disaster unless the party ditches leader Nick Clegg, a senior Liberal Democrat peer warned on resigning from the party on Wednesday.
Deputy Prime Minister Clegg, the most senior Liberal Democrat in Cameron’s coalition government, has repeatedly said he will not step down after the Liberal Democrats lost all but one of their 11 seats in the European Parliament elections.
After a bitter row over an opinion poll suggesting Clegg would lose his seat in next May’s national election, Liberal Democrat peer Matthew Oakeshott resigned from the party and called for a change of leadership.
“The Party is heading for disaster if it keeps Nick Clegg,” Oakeshott said in a statement sent to reporters.
“Nick Clegg’s dire approval ratings year after year in all national polls, and Thursday’s appalling council and European election results is crystal clear: we must change the leader to give Liberal Democrat MPs their best chance to win in 2015.”
If Clegg were to face a leadership challenge, it could throw the future of Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition government into doubt less than a year before the 2015 national election.
Clegg had earlier criticised Oakeshott for seeking to undermine his leadership by paying for opinion polls that showed Liberal Democrats would lose seats next year.
“It is wholly unacceptable for people in a campaigning political party, facing very, very difficult elections last week as we were to find out now with hindsight a senior member of the party far from going out and trying to win votes was spending money and time seeking to undermine the fortunes of the party,” Clegg said.
Such is the turmoil within the party that Business Secretary Vince Cable, a Liberal Democrat minister who has been named by local media as a potential successor, interrupted a trip to China to scold Oakeshott on Tuesday.
“Lord Oakeshott’s actions are totally inexcusable and unacceptable. I have made it very clear repeatedly that he does not speak or act for me,” Cable said.
“Public speculation about the leadership is an unwelcome distraction and as I made absolutely clear yesterday there is no leadership issue as far as I’m concerned.”