Twenty Labour MPs and up to five Tories are ready to quit their parties and sit as a centrist group alongside the Liberal Democrats, Sir Vince Cable claimed yesterday.

The Lib-Dem leader said a group of Labour MPs opposed to Jeremy Corbyn planned to resign the party whip and sit as independents by the spring.

A number of anti-Brexit Tories are also ready to quit and form a breakaway group, he claimed, adding that these MPs would then strike an informal alliance with the Lib-Dems, with Sir Vince acting as the leader.

Twenty Labour MPs and up to five Tories are ready to quit their parties and sit as a centrist group alongside the Liberal Democrats, Sir Vince Cable (pictured) claimed yesterday

The Lib-Dem leader said a group of Labour MPs opposed to Jeremy Corbyn (pictured) planned to resign the party whip and sit as independents by the spring

He said: ‘If things play out in a certain way it might become a big bandwagon that even more people jump on.’

‘But if things stay the way they are, I’d think 20 Labour MPs and five Tories will resign the whip.’

He said that the Labour MPs were expected to resign and form an informal centrist movement with shared interests, but the Tories were not as far down the road.

‘The anti-Corbyn [faction] have been going for a long time, but it’s only recently the more liberal one nation Tories have been involved,’ he added.

Sir Vince said he hoped to take the lead, but would ensure the Lib Dems are not subsumed by the centrist group.

‘In the first instance, it will be an independent grouping in Parliament sitting in informal alliance with us,’ Sir Vince said.

‘I’m trying as a recognised leader of a party to play a leader role. But I would not want the Lib Dems to be subsumed by this group.’

He said the grouping was needed because hopes of a new party were unrealistic, and there needed to be a new centre ground in politics.

‘There are people who are thinking about a new party - but with first past the post it would be difficult. We are well-established, and it is hard,’ he said.

‘I would like them to join us, ideally, but I understand that might not work for them.

‘To be successful it would have to be cross party. If it were just Labour people, it would be open to the accusation that this is just the SDP.’

The grouping would form in the spring, after Brexit, he said, and would focus on the future of politics.

‘If Brexit happens in March, we would be trying to set an agenda if the post-Brexit world,’ he said.

He said the Labour party was ‘fragmenting at the edges’ and there was a ‘much bigger group who have totally given up on Corbyn’ then the six who have been named.

Asked how long he intended to continue leading his party, he said he was planning his spring conference speech.

‘I have a post-Brexit forward looking personal manifesto to deliver at the spring conference and I will stay for the local elections,’ he said.

‘Even if I did leave or move on a some point, I do want to be part of it.’

It came as HM Revenue and Customs announced that most EU goods will be waved through UK ports to avoid delays under a No Deal Brexit. Under HMRC transitional plans to avoid huge traffic jams, goods would be allowed to pass through UK ports before customs had been informed and before duty was paid for at least a year.

Importers would then tell HMRC no later than the end of the next working day.

Labour MP Geraint Davies claimed that the plan amounted to ‘waving things through irrespective of our safety’.