It is with a perfectly straight face and a fair bit of passion in her eyes and her voice that Jo Swinson insists she can be prime minister. Soon. This may seem ludicrously far-fetched, given that at the time of our first interview – on 27 August – she led just 14 Liberal Democrat MPs. When we spoke again on 6 September, independent MP Luciana Berger and Conservative Phillip Lee had defected and made it 16. Swinson now leads 18. But she argues we are living in unprecedentedly volatile times, the country wants neither Boris Johnson nor Jeremy Corbyn as PM and the clarity of her “stop Brexit” message is striking a chord.

The first UK party leader who was born in the Eighties, the first woman to lead the Lib Dems, a former minister in the David Cameron-Nick Clegg coalition, it must have felt very different four years ago, when both she and her husband, Duncan Hames, lost their seats as Cameron finally won a majority. She admits it was a little bit like grief after a death. But a year later, thanks to his disastrous referendum decision, Cameron was gone; then hubris struck his successor, Theresa May, who called an election expecting a landslide, which instead saw her lose the Tory majority and Swinson back as MP for East Dunbartonshire (a seat she first won as a 25-year-old in 2005). Two years later, she was elected Lib Dem leader. As Cameron and May reflect on their failures and mull their place in history, Swinson is now in a potentially critical position in the stormy politics of our time, as the fight over Britain’s future continues to rage.

Alastair Campbell: How big a mess do you think our politics is in right now?

Jo Swinson: A huge mess: a moment of national crisis, on the verge of crashing out of the European Union without a deal, a prime minister who is saying that he’s not going to listen to our democratic institutions. That actually is pretty worrying for the democracy that we have.

AC: Do you not think he’s got a point, though?

JS: I don’t. I don’t think that there is a mandate or legitimacy for the path that he is pursuing.

AC: But the country did vote to leave and three-and-a-bit years on we still haven’t left.

JS: Sure, but we didn’t vote to leave without a deal.

AC: But we voted to leave.

JS: By a small margin; that was the result. This has huge impact on our country for generations. This is not like a general election when you vote in one government and it all goes horribly wrong and five years later you vote in a different government. I hand on heart do not believe that there is a majority in this country in favour of any specific type of Brexit. I just don’t see how it is in any way a responsible thing to do.

AC: So either we leave on Boris Johnson’s terms or we don’t leave. How in either scenario does the country start to come back together again?

JS: I recognise the real challenges. I say that not just thinking about Brexit, but with the experience that I’ve had as a Scot. A referendum in 2014, five years later and Scotland is still very divided.

AC: And more likely to vote yes to independence next time?

JS: I think the case is stronger than ever for the United Kingdom. If there is one lesson to be taken from Brexit it is that breaking up is hard to do and the idea that you ladle chaos on top of more chaos would be devastating for Scotland.

AC: This is English nationalism that is taking the country in this direction. Scottish nationalism seems to want to take us in the European direction, which is where you want to go as well...

JS: I’m really worried about the rise of nationalism generally. Fundamentally, nationalism is saying that you are somehow different to other people or better than other people because of your nationality. I’m a humanist. I’m an internationalist.

AC: Do you not feel Scotland is a much more liberal and progressive country than England?

JS: We shouldn’t be complacent. Scotland has elected Ukip as members of the European parliament; 38 per cent of people in Scotland voted for Brexit. Again, that narrative that says it’s totally different and separate, I don’t think that it is. I agree that Boris Johnson is an awful prime minister, but I don’t think that’s a reason to throw away 300 years of successful shared heritage, culture, strong bonds.

AC: What does it say about our country that Boris Johnson is prime minister?

JS: I think it is deeply worrying. Six or seven months ago, I didn’t believe that the Conservatives would elect Boris Johnson. I think what happened was they got spooked by the Brexit Party.

AC: I wonder what it’s saying at a deeper level about what our politics is becoming. Is it about showbiz? Is it about journalism?

JS: I think we’re at a moment of shift where the old fault lines of British politics between the left-right spectrum aren't where the debate is anymore. It is now about this liberal to conservative, or authoritarian, spectrum. Whether you have an open or closed view of the world.

AC: Would you argue that both main parties are there?

JS: They're both split and that is why they are both struggling. That’s one of the reasons for the increase in support for the Liberal Democrats at the ballot box. Tens of thousands joined the Lib Dems since the start of May because people want someone that speaks to those small "l" liberal values for opportunity, internationalism, equality, fairness, treating people as individuals.

AC: Where would you put Corbyn and Johnson on the traditional left-right spectrum?

JS: Jeremy Corbyn is pretty far off to the left. Boris Johnson... it’s hard to know what he thinks because we have seen so many different faces of Boris Johnson. I have to confess, he is one of the small number of politicians I really find it difficult to have time for. Normally I can disagree with people in different parties and find a way to work together and think, “Well, at least they’re trying to do the right thing.”

AC: Not him?

JS: I don’t think he cares! I think he really doesn’t care. What he did in the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe just makes me furious. He doesn’t seem to show any kind of remorse or feel bad about it – he says he feels anguish, but he shows no evidence of it whatsoever. All he cares about is Boris Johnson and becoming prime minister and he was prepared to say whatever it took to get him into Number Ten. One of the reasons I have stood for leadership of my party is that I think the public needs a better choice. At the next election, the offer of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn is not good enough. That’s why I’ve set out ambitious plans for the Liberal Democrats, that we are aiming for government and I am a candidate for prime minister, because I think the country needs us to be doing that.

AC: But you have 14 seats?

JS: There will be a general election at some point, because Boris Johnson has a majority of one, thanks to the Liberal Democrats winning a by-election victory in Brecon And Radnorshire. I have been in cross-party talks because I believe in working with other people, where you agree to try to achieve shared goals, even if you can’t agree about anything else.

AC: Say Tories and Labour got identical outcomes in terms of seats, which of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn do you think you could work with as prime minister?

JS: They are both, I think, not fit to be prime minister.

AC: If that is the choice?

JS: There are millions of people out there who agree that Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are not fit to be prime minister and so we have a general election campaign and we make our case and our pitch to the country. I think the way that politics is right now, things are volatile. I think we are at a tipping point because we are changing from that old system, where it was all about left-right and those two big parties and people want some new and something different.

'There are millions of people out there who agree that Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are not fit to be prime minister'

AC: As you know I voted for the Liberal Democrats in the EU elections...

JS: Thank you very much, Alastair!

AC: But if you're going to stop Brexit, there are going to be lots of areas where presumably you will want Labour to beat the Tories?

JS: I know that there are people in the Labour Party, who are working hard and trying to get Labour to a sensible position on Brexit. But basically we both know that the Labour leadership is not currently in favour of Remain. We don't know what the manifesto is going to say. It doesn't matter whether you put a red rosette on it or a blue rosette on it, Brexit is going to be bad for our country. People deserve, I believe, to have the choice to vote for a party that will say we should stop Brexit.

AC: You and Labour are hitting each other into the low twenties and you're in danger between you of setting Johnson up for a winning position, where he then has a mandate for a hard Brexit.

JS: I think that our politics and the public need a clear choice of a party that is unequivocally backing remaining in the European Union. The Liberal Democrats are that party.

AC: Do you differentiate between Corbyn and Richard Burgon and Ian Lavery, and the Peter Kyles and the Phil Wilsons and the Anna Turleys?

JS: I have a very positive working relationship with lots of Labour members of parliament, and indeed Chuka Umunna joined the Liberal Democrats. He has talked about how it was like gang warfare in the Labour Party and he is struck by how positive and welcoming it feels in the Lib Dems. I know there are many former Labour members and voters who have come to our party and I think there will be more. That includes people who are currently in parliament.

AC: I see you at meetings of the People's Vote campaign. We're not going to get one without the Labour Party’s support.

JS: That is why we have to work cross-party. I think the Remain cause needs a very strong Liberal Democrats at the centre.

AC: Do you think we'll see at the general election a bigger version of the Brecon by-election where parties stand down from each other?

JS: My instinct is there will be some more of that. It’s not new. At the last general election. We didn't stand in Brighton Pavilion against Caroline Lucas of the Greens and there have been various local arrangements. There will also be a lot more tactical voting. We have a broken voting system.

AC: Johnson's not going to change it is he?

JS: I think its days are numbered. You have a system which has been for so many years geared towards two main parties, but those parties do not work within the new landscape of political opinion.

AC: Jeremy Corbyn in a word?

JS: [Sighs.] Is a sigh appropriate as a word? I think maybe the word would be frustrating.

AC: But that’s because he doesn’t share your views on Europe and also maybe he is trying to deliver on the result of the referendum.

JS: I think you’re right. It’s because he wants us to leave the European Union. That’s not where the majority of his party membership and MPs are. He’s not listening to them. It’s another reason why so many people in the Labour Party are very unhappy.

AC: Do you think you were a bit hasty in rejecting his initial “Let’s get together and stop no deal”, because that frustration poured out?

JS: There is no doubt that he has been pretty frustrating. I’m also genuinely worried about what happens next.

AC: Whether you like it or not, he is the leader of the opposition and the constitution says if the prime minister can’t form a government the opposition has to try.

JS: Well, actually, under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act it is much more vague than that.

AC: But he is the leader of the opposition.

‘When I look at Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, hand on heart, I am very confident I could do a better job than either of them.’

JS: He is and so what we have positive agreement about among the parties is the need to pursue a legislative solution to stopping a no-deal Brexit.

AC: You feel the legislative route is much more credible than a motion of no confidence?

JS: Not least because in order to succeed in a motion of no confidence you are requiring Conservative MPs to vote down their prime minister and, as somebody has put it, it basically means ending their parliamentary careers.

AC: You’re obviously not happy with Johnson being prime minister, but would it be better or worse if Jeremy Corbyn were prime minister?

JS: I genuinely do not think that choice is a good enough choice for the British public. When I joined the Liberal Democrats I didn’t think that I would be sitting here today and talking about potentially becoming prime minister and running for that, but when I look at Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, hand on heart, I am very confident I could do a better job than either of them. We have got a no-deal Brexit around the corner; we have a climate emergency that we have less than 12 years to tackle; we have got poverty in our communities; we have real problems with our politics more generally. I genuinely feel we need to make sure that the Liberal Democrats can be that home for people with liberal values who want and demand and deserve something better than either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn.

AC: From a purely selfish Liberal Democrat perspective, would it worry you if Jeremy Corbyn vanished and somebody more credible came in?

JS: I'll certainly say there have been many times over the last couple of years when Jeremy Corbyn stood up at the despatch box and said something and then 20 minutes later Yvette Cooper is called from the backbenches and you just think, "Yep, she's showing you how it’s done." History is littered with what-ifs. What if those Labour MPs hadn't put Jeremy Corbyn on the ballot paper and somebody like Yvette had become leader of the opposition? We might have been – would have been – in very different territory. I think you'd have had a Labour Party that would have enthusiastically campaigned to Remain at the referendum in 2016, which I think might have meant you’d have had a different result given it was so close in the end and you'd certainly have had a different past three years in the aftermath.

'History is littered with what-ifs. What if those Labour MPs hadn't put Jeremy Corbyn on the ballot paper and somebody like Yvette Cooper had become leader of the opposition?'

AC: Is that where a lot of your antipathy to Corbyn comes from, failing to campaign in the referendum?

JS: Brexit is part of it. That Panorama documentary where you saw those staffers, young people... Instead of saying he would root out the anti-Semitism and going to war with anti-Semitism, he goes to war with the BBC and impugns the reputations of those former staffers. I do find that really troubling.

AC: Does Corbyn not care? He does have a world view.

JS: Does he care about anti-Semitism? That is the genuine question you are left asking.

AC: You mentioned Caroline Lucas earlier. What do you think of her woman-only cabinet idea?

JS: I'm a big fan of Caroline. We get on very well and we agree on a lot of things.

AC: I can feel a "but" coming.

JS: She made a contribution about how we work more cross-party, and I am a huge feminist, but I think men have something to offer the debate as well. There's the but. When I first entered parliament, women were about one in five MPs. Now it’s up to about one in three. We've all had that experience of being the only woman in the room and knowing what that feels like to feel a bit different. There is a degree of shared sisterhood that is sometimes unspoken and silent but acknowledged.

AC: What did you learn from losing, when you and your husband both lost on the same night?

JS: Yeah, it wasn't a great day in our household, though when we had the vote to leave the EU it felt much worse. I was in the situation where most Lib Dem MPs lost their seats, most Scottish MPs lost their seats, so as a Scottish Lib Dem MP it helped not to take it too personally. Certainly, Duncan and I supported each other, but also our colleagues were in the same situation. There was a degree of shared experience about it. Obviously, it wasn’t in the plan, losing, but I do think in some ways it ended up being positive, because you often learn more about yourself when things don't go well than when they do.

AC: Did you know straightaway you wanted to get back into parliament?

JS: No. You need to process. It’s quite like the stages of grief. I was a minister as well, so the pace of work had been intense. We had a 16-month-old son at the time. He was amazing, actually.

AC: How did you manage that with a husband in Wiltshire and you being in Scotland?

JS: A lot of planning. One thing we’d decided very quickly after 2015 was that we were not going to reinvent the Glasgow-London-Wiltshire triangle.

AC: So one of you was always not going to be an MP after that?

JS: Yeah. We were pretty clear about that.

AC: Now you’re party leader, with the possibility of an election just around the corner, or a referendum, with a new baby as well...

JS: Yeah. You just add another difficulty level on the whole parenting thing. It is logistically challenging, but that is parenting, right? It’s always hard.

AC: I guess so. That feels very hard to me. Two young children, including your baby, taking on the leadership of a party.

JS: Hang on, did Tony Blair not have a baby when he was prime minister, I seem to recall?

AC: He did.

JS: Yeah. I mean, men do do this. It has been known.

AC: I know, but Tony Blair also had a massive amount of support in a way that perhaps the leader of the Liberal Democrats doesn’t.

JS: Well, we’re growing. I’m ambitious for the party.

AC: I forgot – you’re going to be Prime Minister!

JS: Well. Watch this space. You make things work. If I think about the state that our country is in, its actually because of Andrew and Gabriel that I'm really motivated as well. I took Andrew to the Extinction Rebellion protest. He's five-and-a-half. He can understand that. In Cornwall we went to the Eden Project, where they had some really good stuff about climate change in a way children can engage with and understand. I think that’s important because the voice of young people in these debates is crucial. If we don't act now in the next decade, what future are we going to hand on to then? If we don't win this fight to stop Brexit, think of all the opportunities that they are not going to have that my generation and your generation had.

AC: We're the same generation.

JS: Yeah, obviously.

AC: Me as a child of the Fifties, you as a child of the Eighties. What does it say about politics that Greta Thunberg has become such a symbol?

JS: I think it’s a positive thing and also a sign that things are broken. It is genuinely positive because young people should be listened to. I was the youngest MP when I was 25, 14 years ago. I kind of hated being called the baby of the house, but I always felt that we should have young people involved in politics. Often young people are quite patronised in politics, so I think it’s fantastic Greta Thunberg is leading this fight, that the School Strikers For Climate are doing the same.

'I was the youngest MP when I was 25, 14 years ago. I hated being called the baby of the house'

AC: What do you think it says that so many people seem to want to do her in?

JS: That is part of the way in which public debate is at the moment. I read this brilliant book last year called Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.

AC: You haven’t done that.

JS: I did pause for three months while I was on mat leave and it was lovely.

AC: Didn’t do anything at all?

JS: There was one exception, a day in early December last year when there was lots of stuff that was going to happen on the Brexit vote and I thought I need to know what @BBCLauraK is saying. But, no. I didn't do any posting on Twitter or Insta for three months. It was very positive. The whole premise of the book is that the way the business model works is about getting our attention and then selling us stuff and manipulating us and that has negative impacts on our politics and the echo chambers have a negative impact on our debate.

AC: But you need it for campaigning.

JS: That’s why I did it on mat leave, but as an active politician that is not very practical.

AC: How would you define Trump’s influence on public debate?

JS: The thing that worries me the most is about truth. I think there is an assault on truth. I’m not going to say there were glory days when nobody fibbed about anything, but, generally, people didn’t just make random stuff up or if they did they were called out on it and it was really seen as bad practice. Trump has come in and he lies about the size of the crowds at his inauguration, which is a tiny thing. It is that assault on truth.

AC: Well, Melton Mowbray pies, which Johnson lied about, is a tiny thing.

JS: I almost wonder, is he trolling us? Because he’s even chosen a thing that is rhyming slang for lies. Is it deliberate?

AC: If Johnson lied would you call him out on it?

JS: Yeah, although there is a way to say, “That is not true” that is then not turned into calling someone a name, which I think is positive for our debate.

AC: It used to be that if a prime minister or minister was lying at a despatch box it was a resignation issue.

JS: Exactly! With this government there have been so many things that would have been a resignation issue, which have all been sacrificed to this altar of managing to hold together this split Conservative Party. I mean, Chris Grayling, how many times should he have been sacked? Boris Johnson, [with] the Nazanin case that I stated earlier.

AC: Now he’s prime minister.

JS: Exactly.

AC: There’s no shame.

JS: There is no shame. I think that is a problem. I think there are still a lot of people in our country who would like to see consequences when people act in that way.

‘Anger can be channelled in a positive way. We saw it after Trump’s election.’

AC: There is a lot of talk about anger. Should we not be a lot angrier over the state of our politics, the state of our government, the state of the world?

JS: I think people should be a lot more active than they are. We are seeing more of that, because that anger can be channelled in a positive way. We saw it after Trump’s election. Lots of people, women in particular, given what he had said about sexual assault. We did see elected a fantastic new generation of women. All is not lost. There is hope. People all have power. Some of us have more power than others. Some of us have more privilege and are better able through having more money, or a position, or a status, or influence. Everybody can do something; nobody is entirely powerless and if we work together, we can achieve a huge amount.

AC: Eton has produced three times more prime ministers than the Labour Party in its entire history. This is a country still running on privilege.

JS: It is and it’s not good enough. There are two responses to that: you can give up and go home and say it’ll never change or you can say it will only ever change if we get involved and try to make it change.

AC: Final question. Does it help or hinder that Nick Clegg is off making squillions in California?

JS: I’ve got a good relationship with Nick. I think he did a lot of good things. He was very passionate about social mobility and the pupil premium...

AC: What about social media?

JS: I think there are some really interesting issues about technology and I’m pretty sure there will be some areas where Nick and I have disagreements about the role of Facebook, but we need to have those discussions. It’s a good example of one of the things that gets almost zero airtime, zero political attention, because everybody is constantly talking about Brexit. The relationship between technology and our lives and where the power lies, the way in which tech companies are able to dictate, regulate, how that can be regulated and how we can make sure that tech is used for good and to create new opportunities to solve problems. That is the stuff we should be discussing. What does the future of work look like and how that will be changing, and how we need to skill people up differently, and how do we then use that to tackle the climate emergency and make sure everybody has a decent standard of living? There is a better future that we can have if we can get out of this Brexit nightmare and get on to a more positive footing. I’m determined to do that. I believe that is possible.

So much happened in the immediate aftermath of our interview that we spoke again at the end of a week in which Boris Johnson lost more Commons votes than Tony Blair did in his entire Premiership, and lost his brother Jo from the cabinet too.

AC: What were the last few days like?

JS: Crazy. Intense. I loved the tweet of the politics lecturer who said his current module is UK politics since 1945 and he’s thinking of changing it to 3-4 September 2019.

AC: Have you been surprised at just how crap Johnson has been?

JS: Yes and no. No, because I have never had a high regard for him. He has sailed through life on a cloud of privilege. The media have made him appear much better than he is. But he doesn’t do the work. Say what you like about Theresa May, she did the work. But, yes, because he has had the whole summer to prepare for this. There seems to be no plan, nothing, just the usual bluster. I don’t think he understands how he comes over to people. Like the question from [Labour MP] Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi on his remarks about Muslim women looking like letterboxes. He cannot see that it’s something one day he will have to apologise for.

AC: Do you worry he might have fascist tendencies?

JS: I am not going to put that label on him. You have to be careful with language. But I found the imagery of that speech in front of police officers, where he was effectively saying he might not obey the rule of law, very worrying. The juxtaposition was quite sinister. It felt rather authoritarian.

AC: He didn’t show much concern for the officer collapsing behind him either.

JS: He misses the gene that makes you care about other people.

AC: What do you make of the way Dominic Cummings is operating?

JS: He wants to smash the system. It is actually very unconservative. But it is Johnson who allows it.

AC: The first part of our interview was the day you had the first meeting with Corbyn and the other leaders. You’ve had more. Has your assessment of him changed at all?

JC: It is still frustrating, to be honest. There is not always the urgency I think there should be. But I think we got to the right place in resisting the calls for an election. I am not scared of an election but I believe the People’s Vote is the way to resolve Brexit, on its own, not mixed up with everything else.

AC: Who is more flakey on maybe falling into the trap of an election for their own reasons, Labour or the SNP?

JS: It is complicated. There are lots of different motivations at play. We are working together on this at the moment, so I am not going to be overly critical. We had another call today and Anna Soubry, Caroline Lucas, Liz Saville-Roberts and I were absolutely clear: we should not be playing Johnson’s game, letting him have an election on his terms just because he can’t do the job. He was desperate for the job. He was going to get a great deal. He is not even trying. He has got to the hot seat and been shown up for what he is. It is not our job to help him.

AC: Mrs Thatcher won a huge majority in 1983 on roughly the same share of the vote as Theresa May got in 2017 – because Labour and the SDP split the opposition vote. Do you not need to make sure there is a lot of tactical voting and arrangements maybe about who stands where?

JS: We are very clear we want to stop Brexit and anyone who wants to stop Brexit should vote Lib Dem.

AC: Even if it splits the vote in seats where only Labour or SNP might beat them and helps Johnson win?

JS: On Brexit, it is not clear what a vote for Labour will mean. I have a lot of time for those people who have worked so hard to get them to a better position, but they are still talking about delivering Brexit and the only clear path against that is us.

'On Brexit, it is not clear what a vote for Labour will mean'

AC: But you accept the risk?

JS: We did not stand against Caroline Lucas last time. There are discussions we are engaged in through Unite to Remain, but in the vast majority of places the best way to stop Brexit will be a Lib Dem vote.

AC: Corbyn has moved on a referendum.

JS: Kicking and screaming. He had the opportunity to lead the charge and failed to take it. We are going to be better funded, target more seats. It is very difficult to predict what will happen. This is a four-party election, if and when it comes. The Brexit Party is still a player.

AC: We both agree a referendum is the best way to resolve this but do you see an election as inevitable now?

JS: I think we are moving to an election, the question is whether it is in weeks or months. Once you have a government without a majority it can’t hold that long. You could have an emergency government led by a grandee that could command support across the House. Currently the Labour leadership is not open to that but that might change.

AC: Who was it who shouted “sit down darling” when you were speaking in the Commons?

JS: I don’t know. I didn’t hear it, but was told afterwards. If I’d heard it, you’d have heard about it.

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