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Whatever happened to the Liberal Democrats?

They’re the only major party willing to stand up and oppose Brexit.

If you’re one of the 48 per cent that voted to remain in the EU – and assuming you still feel that way – they’re the only party for you.

But it hasn’t helped. The Lib Dems appear to be a spent force. Irrelevant and unloved, there’s no sign of a comeback.

Perhaps the problem is the leader.

Sir Vince Cable got the top job in July last year.

He doesn’t hold inconvenient religious views, like his predecessor Tim Farron, but he’s not much of a character.

Slow and steady is Vince’s style, and that makes him a good deputy – maybe a good Treasury spokesman – but not a great leader.

There’s another problem. A portion of the Lib Dems’ support has always come from people who regarded them not as a centre party, but as the only truly radical party of the big three.

For people disillusioned with Labour’s compromises, foreign policy mistakes and flirtation with right-wing views on immigration, the Lib Dems were a tempting choice.

Of course, Lib Dems always drew support from a range of places. In the South West, they were an anti-EU party backing the fishing industry in the face of meddling Brussels bureaucrats.

(Image: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire)

But some Lib Dem supporters – including students and middle- class graduates – backed them because they saw the Lib Dems as more left-wing than Labour.

Two things put paid to that. First, when the Lib Dems were in Government with the Tories from 2010 to 2015, they had to make the same sort of messy compromises as any other party.

Their purity vanished almost as soon as party leader Nick Clegg stepped into Downing Street to become Deputy Prime Minister.

Second, the Labour Party now offers a tempting alternative to former left-wing Lib Dems.

Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Labour has jettisoned all the baggage of the Blair years.

It’s no longer the party that invaded Iraq or signed expensive hospital PFI deals with private firms.

If you like your politics left wing and unsullied by compromise, Labour’s the party for you.

James Schneider, Jeremy Corbyn’s press spokesman, was president of the Liberal Democrat club at Oxford University. And he was a Lib Dem party member until 2010.

Now, of course, he’s entirely committed to Mr Corbyn’s Labour Party.

Some people think that’s a bit odd.

But it’s not. It’s a perfectly logical journey to make.

For a certain type of Liberal Democrat, Labour is now their natural home.