Senior Liberal Democrats are already jockeying for position to replace Tim Farron, after he stepped down as party leader, citing an irreconcilable conflict between his deeply held Christian beliefs and political leadership.
Jo Swinson, who was equalities minister in the coalition government, and regained her East Dunbartonshire seat at last week’s general election, is widely thought to be the frontrunner for the role.
Swinson, 37, was regarded as a rising star in the party before the Lib Dems were all but wiped out in the 2015 general election, punished by voters for signing up to a coalition with the Conservatives.
Vince Cable, who was business secretary in the coalition, and regained his Twickenham seat at last week’s general election, has told friends he was considering whether to run for the leadership.
Norman Lamb, the Norfolk MP who is the party’s health spokesman, and who argued strongly for a 1p increase in income tax to boost funding for the NHS and social care during the election campaign, is another likely contender.
Farron said in his resignation speech that he would step down when parliament entered recess in a few weeks’ time, to allow a successor to be appointed over the summer.
He said he had found it difficult to both uphold his religious beliefs and continue in public life, and he criticised the public culture that led to his being pressed repeatedly about the details of his views on homosexuality.
He told colleagues on Wednesday night: “The consequences of the focus on my faith is that I have found myself torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader.”
Separately, senior Lib Dem sources dismissed as “complete nonsense” rumours that there had been meetings between the party’s MPs and Conservative whips, as Theresa May’s party battled to assemble a functioning government. Farron had stuck resolutely to his line of “no coalitions, no pacts,” with other parties, in the wake of the general election result, which led to a hung parliament.
He was criticised for his views on gay sex and abortion, which MPs in liberal, metropolitan seats said arose repeatedly as an issue with the public, and had helped Labour scoop up waverers even in strongly pro-remain constituencies.
David Laws, another of the party’s leading members, who served as education minister in the coalition but lost his seat in the party’s 2015 near-wipeout, has strongly criticised Farron’s views.
In an online article for the i newspaper, Laws said: “You cannot be a leader of a liberal party while holding fundamentally illiberal and prejudiced views, which fail to respect our party’s great traditions of promoting equality for all our citizens.
“Many of us have despaired over the last few weeks in seeing all the good work of Liberal Democrats, such as Lynne Featherstone – who drove through the equal marriage legislation under the coalition – undermined by Tim’s failure to be able to give direct and liberal responses on his own attitudes to homosexuality.”
The Lib Dems won 12 seats in the general election, a significant improvement on the nine they previously held, but suffered losses as well as gains, and failed to achieve the significant fightback wanted by Farron.
His strategy, of focusing relentlessly on Brexit, demanding a referendum on the final exit deal, had been expected to play well in pro-EU marginal seats across a swath of Britain. But many MPs from all parties reported that Brexit was not at the top of voters’ agendas.
