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Vince Cable today demanded Jeremy Corbyn RESIGN in a vicious conference speech attack on the Labour leader and his "hard left bootboys".

Closing the Lib Dem' 2018 conference in Brighton, the party leader piled into his Labour rival - exactly one year after calling for more "grown-ups" in politics.

Sir Vince, who spent five years in Coalition with welfare-slashing and wage-slashing Tories, was set to claim Labour had abandoned its principles under left-winger Mr Corbyn and become a "mirror image" of Tories and UKIP.

And he said Labour members should "wave goodbye" to their leader if he does not back a second referendum on Brexit .

Aides said David Cameron's former Business Secretary Sir Vince was calling on Mr Corbyn to quit in such a situation.

But he also invited mockery by fluffing his key line from the speech.

Instead of saying Brexit was Tories' "erotic spasm", Sir Vince bizarrely said it was an "exotic spresm".

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(Image: AFP)

Sir Vince was expected to tell members: "He used to be the campaigning backbencher who joined us in opposing the Iraq War and defending civil liberties.

"In his new role he has kept his hands clean and his image polished by hiring hard left bootboys and girls to do his dirty work. They do the bullying and the intimidation of colleagues and he claims not to know.

"He indulges anti-Semitic bigots and pleads ignorance."

Sir Vince accused Mr Corbyn's inner circle of until recently being "on the Stalinist wing of the microscopic British Communist Party" with policies "more relevant to the steam age than to the digital age."

Quoting a Tory attack line, he declared: "We do not believe in magic money trees and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow."

And comparing both Labour and Tories to a cult, he added: "The tectonic plates of British politics are shifting beneath us.

"The two big parties have changed from broad churches into intolerant cults. And those who question the faith are unwelcome.

"The Labour leadership is dominated by people who believe in doctrines far removed from the sensible social democratic tradition which prevailed from the days of Clement Atlee to Gordon Brown.

(Image: Getty Images Europe)

"They in turn are the mirror image of the Tory zealots who have more in common with UKIP than their party’s one-nation traditions.

"People of moderate, decent, humane views are being marginalised as this new Illiberal International takes shape."

Sir Vince also launched an attack on Boris Johnson, who he said "doesn’t just resemble Trump – large, loud and blonde – he behaves more like him by the day."

He added: "Their cynical disregard for the truth, their treatment of women, and their inflammatory divisive language make Boris and Donald the Terrible Twins of the Rabid Right."

The Lib Dem leader was meant to call for a second Brexit referendum to stop hardline Leavers who want to quit with an "erotic spasm" but no plan - a situation that could prompt "riots".

But instead, inexplicably, he used the phrase "exotic spresm".

He claimed the Lib Dems have gained 10,000 members in 10 days as the party campaigns against a "costly and painful" exit.

He demanded a fresh war against what he called “world class tax-dodgers” like Amazon, Facebook and Google in a bid to revive high streets.

The Lib Dem leader went on: "Big housing developers like Barratts, Berkeley Homes, and Persimmon are mainly land speculation machines with a side line in house building."

Elsewhere he repeated plans to scrap inheritance tax and replace it with a levy on large financial gifts received over someone's lifetime.

Under separate plans the Lib Dems would also tax capital gains from assets at the same rate as income from employment - up to 45% - and raise taxes overall.

Lastly pension tax relief would be rebalanced "away from the highest earners towards those least able to save."