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The Lib Dems have held talks with pro-Remain Tories about the possibility of defection.

Party insiders said they were confident of winning over Conservatives opposed to Theresa May’s Brexit plans.

A Lib Dem source said: “There are at least two who could join us, hopefully some more.”

It comes as former Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews announced he was defecting to the Lib Dems.

(Image: PA)

The party also said it had 8,000 new members since Theresa May called the election on Tuesday, taking the total to 95,000.

Mr Marshall-Andrews, the MP for Medway from 1997 to 2010, described his former party as a “political basket case.”

He said: “At present there is manifestly a huge vacuum on the centre-left represented in substantial part by the 48% of the electorate who rejected Brexit and the lies on which it was based.

“To many, including me, there was a forlorn hope that a reformed and radical Labour Party would rise to the historic occasion. It has not and shows no real sign of doing so.”

Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael said: “ Jeremy Corbyn is never going to be Prime Minister. He can’t lead his own party, let alone our country. The more people see him, the less they want to vote for him.

(Image: PA)

“That is not just my view. It is the view of the 172 Labour MPs who just last year said they had no confidence in his leadership.

“That’s why senior Labour figures such as Bob Marshall-Andrews are defecting to the Liberal Democrats .

“ Jeremy Corbyn ’s Labour has waved the white flag on Brexit, is failing as an opposition and has given Theresa May a blank cheque to pursue a divisive Hard Brexit.”

A Labour spokesman said: “Bob Marshall-Andrews has not been a member of the Labour Party for some years.”