Party leader says it is ‘entirely feasible’ that more MPs will switch allegiance

A number of Conservative and Labour MPs could be tempted to cross over to the Liberal Democrats if the party makes major gains in the general election, Jo Swinson has predicted at the start of her party’s election campaign.

Speaking to reporters on a party bus taking her on a tour of three Conservative-held seats that the Lib Dems say they have a chance of winning despite coming third in all of them in 2017, Swinson said a significant number of defections was “entirely feasible”.

“I have had MPs from both of those parties say to me that I would be a better prime minister than Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn,” the Lib Dem leader said.

Play Video 0:58 Jo Swinson: 'I could do a better job as PM than Corbyn or Johnson' - video

“Obviously, those people are standing under particular party banners. But it really is the case that those two old parties are fracturing. We’ve already seen a lot of defections to the Liberal Democrats in recent months.

“In the scenario that we do make this breakthrough then I wouldn’t assume that everything else remains static.”

In recent months eight former Labour or Conservative MPs have defected to the Lib Dems, and Swinson said her party had already been in talks with others.

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“There’s plenty of people we’ve had discussions with who didn’t take the jump,” she said. “People who are considering that move do so on their own journey.”

A scenario in which defections could result in Swinson becoming prime minister does, however, seem extremely unlikely given the Lib Dems’ starting base of just 20 seats, and expectations that even a good election might do no more than double this.

The first stop on Swinson’s inaugural bus tour of the campaign – using what the party believes is the only electric-powered coach in use in the UK – was in the north London constituency of Finchley and Golders Green, where former Labour MP Luciana Berger is pushing to unseat the incumbent Tory, despite the Lib Dems winning fewer than 3,500 votes in 2017.

However, polling by Queen Mary University of London released on Tuesday showed that in London, the Lib Dems are attracting twice as much support as in 2017, with Labour down by 10 percentage points.

“I don’t think the 2017 election is a good guide to our politics now,” Swinson said. “All of that is evidence that the Liberal Democrats are in a very different place. We know that we are genuinely competitive in a huge number of seats now. And that includes seats where we’ve never before really been in serious contention. And that’s a very exciting place to be.”

It is Swinson’s first election as leader – she only took over from Vince Cable in July – and she is very much the face of the party campaign. The bus has an enormous picture of her on it, with the party called, “Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats”, and the slogan: “Stop Brexit, build a brighter future.”

Brexit was the focus of the next stop, where Swinson visited Sigma, a pharmaceuticals supply company in Watford, which supplies a third of all UK pharmacies, and worries that Brexit could affect the supply of drugs from the EU.

Paras Shah, the company’s executive director, said Brexit could bring stock shortages and affect prices – even as he conceded he would probably vote Conservative in the adjoining constituency where he lives. “There’s a part of me that just wants Brexit to be done,” he added.

In 2017 Watford was narrowly won by the Conservatives over Labour, with the Lib Dems taking less than 10% of the vote. But Swinson insisted such areas were now winnable.

“Politics is very volatile at the moment, and it’s volatile because we’ve got a new fault line that runs right through both the Conservative and Labour parties as they currently are,” she said.

“There are some people who hope, hope, hope it’s going to go back to business as usual, and that they’ll wake up from what they consider a nightmare and it’ll be the same politics. And I don’t think that’s going to be what happens.”

On a day that conformed to election campaign stereotype, Swinson cuddled an activist’s baby in Golders Green, donned hi-vis to visit the pharmaceutical firm’s warehouse and ended in the Surrey town of Esher with a visit to a school.

The constituency is currently represented by Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, who enjoys a 23,000 majority, making it a seemingly unlikely Lib Dem prize.

Swinson has over recent days declined to say what she would do if, as seems the realistic best-case scenario for her party, it holds the balance of power in a hung parliament after the election.

She has categorically ruled out backing either Johnson or Corbyn in Downing Street. Asked if she could hypothetically support a Labour government under a different leader, Swinson said even this did not seem realistic.

“I don’t think anyone should assume that either of those parties is in any short time frame – or even ever, who knows – going to retreat from the more extreme positions that they’ve taken,” she said.

“I think they’re built on wishful thinking, about what people would like the Labour party or the Conservative party to return to. It’s not where these parties are.”