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“Remoaner of the year” Tim Farron will tonight mock Brexiteers as he kicks off the Lib Dem spring conference.

The party boss was handed the dubious accolade by the Leave.EU campaign for his pro-Europe speeches following last year’s Out vote.

Opening the weekend get-together in York, he will tell activists: “Our friends over at very kindly decided to crown me 2016 Remoaner of the Year.

“Obviously I’m speechless, incredibly proud, and I couldn’t have done it without you.

“Anyhow, if ‘remoaning’ means standing up for EU citizens who have made their lives here in the UK, if remoaning means demanding that the British people have the final say in this process, if remoaning means standing up for a family of nations that has healed the wounds of two world wars and a terrifying Cold War - then I am proud to be your remoaner in chief.”

(Image: Daily Mirror / Adam Gerrard)

Urging the 48% of voters who opted to Remain last June to “stand up and fight”, he will deny being an “enemy of the people”.

“I am the enemy of those people who seek to divide our country, to pervert the referendum result for their narrow ideology and trash our values by turning our backs on our neighbours,” Mr Farron will say.

“The more they come after us, the louder I will shout.

“What Britain does in the next two years will define us for the next 100, so now is not the time to sit down and shut up; now is the time to stand up and fight.”

In a thinly-veiled swipe at Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who came under fire for his apparent lack of enthusiasm for the pro-EU campaign, Mr Farron will insist the Lib Dems are “not in the business of just saying the right things, going on the right demonstrations, waving the right placards to make us feel better while the country collapses around us”.

(Image: REUTERS)

Appealing to Labour voters who backed Remain and who fear for their party under Mr Corbyn, he will say: “This is the place for you if you have had it up to here with despair, if you are defiant, if you are determined that a bleak future of a closed, intolerant divided Britain is not inevitable.

“This is the place for you if you believe that there is still a road to a Britain that is open, tolerant and united.

“This is the place for you if you have the stomach for the fight of our lives for the country we love for the cause that is right.

“Because if you believe that a better Britain is possible then the Liberal Democrats are your only vehicle for getting there, so don’t waste another minute, get on board because the future is as yet unwritten.

“We intend to write it.”

Former Lib Dem leader and ex-Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will accuse Brexiteers of a “continued, blatant attempt to pull the wool over the public’s eyes”.

Attacking “shameless pedlars of fake news and fake hope”, he will add: “They spread fake news as indiscriminately as Trump’s Twitter rants.”