It used to be hard to take the Lib Dems seriously- but under Jo Swinson, that’s changing fast The political cycle appears to move at an accelerated rate for the party – they’re now interrogated as a major force

In 2005, when the Liberal Democrats, buoyed by their opposition to the Iraq War, were riding high in the polls, and I was the editor of The Independent newspaper, which had a similarly strident view on Iraq, I was asked to chair a question and answer session at the Lib Dems’ conference in Blackpool with Charles Kennedy, who was then party leader.

I had a cordial relationship with Charles, but it was something of a nerve-wracking experience, in front of a huge live audience, and on TV, too. But I had prepared myself well (principally, by not going to a party the previous night) and, just before we were due to go on stage, I felt calm and confident. Until, that is, when I turned round and the leader of the Lib Dems was nowhere to be seen.

The producer began to panic, but we quickly located Charles. He was outside the stage door, having a crafty cigarette (it was 2005, after all, and people used to smoke then). His hands were trembling a little, and his nervousness immediately communicated itself to me. Anyway, we got through it, and the Lib Dem faithful seemed to lap it up. But the feeling that stayed with me was that if Charles Kennedy was suddenly told that he was going to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he’d have run screaming to the hills.

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In those days, there was something not quite real, not serious or meaningful, about Lib Dem conferences. It had the feel of provincial repertory company set alongside the West End productions of the two major parties. Little did we know that, five years later, they’d be in government, and five years after that, they’d be obliterated at the polls.

The political cycle appears to move at an accelerated rate for the Lib Dems, so here we are in a place where the party is being discussed, and interrogated, as a major political force. They may have only 18 MPs, but they have a defining cause again, and Jo Swinson was right to go further than she’s been before by saying they’ll revoke Article 50 if the Lib Dems win power at the next election (not the fantastical thought it once was).

If a fundamental belief of the party is that leaving the EU will do historic damage to the social, political and economic fabric of the United Kingdom, then this is surely the honest position to take. The party will set out this policy before the electorate, and if they get elected, this will supersede anything else as the will of the people. I fail to see what’s anti-democratic about that.

The world has revolved on its axis many times since the referendum in 2016 – back then, people thought a backstop was a position in rounders – and if we’d known then what we know now, the result may have been very different. The Lib Dems, through an unequivocal statement of intent, will give us the chance to resolve that question. Above all, it’s a politically expedient move.

In politics, it may be better to be lucky than good, and Jo Swinson has taken over at a moment of huge opportunity, when the Lib Dem tide is rising. She would be incautious to tell her conference delegates to go away and prepare for government, but these are unpredictable times, and, as we have seen in politics, business and sport recently, stranger things have happened.