Liberal Democrat MP Jeremy Browne, one of the party’s most challenging thinkers, has announced that he will not stand in the general election, telling his local party that his “race is run” in national politics.
Browne, the leading social liberal in the party, is the Liberal Democrat MP for Taunton Deane and his resignation will be a blow to Nick Clegg’s chances of holding the seat.
He was surprisingly sacked as Home Office minister by Nick Clegg last year and replaced by Norman Baker, even though he had been widely respected by civil servants and ministers, including the foreign secretary, William Hague, during Browne’s period in the Foreign Office.
He had become increasingly disillusioned with the direction of Clegg’s leadership, and the party’s reluctance to embrace more decisions made by the coalition. Some had seen him as a possible contender for the party leadership after the election if Clegg stands aside.
However, he never intended to stand and did not see himself as a natural party leader. In a letter to his local party explaining his decision to stand aside, he said he will have been an MP for 10 years and it was never his ambition to remain in parliament until he retired.
He writes: “There is a world beyond politics full of opportunities and it will be exciting to explore it. It has been a memorable journey but every journey must come to an end.”
He adds for avoidance of doubt he has no intention of joining another political party, or to serve in politics in any other capacity. He has been constantly linked with a possible defection to the Conservatives.
Clegg issued a lukewarm statement in response to Browne’s decision to stand down, saying: “Jeremy Browne has decided that now is the right time to announce he will not stand at the next election and the Liberal Democrats wish him all the best for the future.
“The deputy prime minister regrets that he has taken the decision to leave politics as Jeremy has always had strongly held views, which he expressed with great skill and conviction.
“Jeremy has been a tireless constituency MP to the people of Taunton and served in two important ministerial roles in the early part of this government.”
In his recent book, Race Plan, dedicated to warning Britain about the massive impact of globalisation, he said he feared the 2015 election would be a “me” election that is narrowly defined and focused on the here and now, rather than a “we” election in which the electorate make a historic decision on the future direction of the country. He also claimed the electorate knew politicians were holding back from the full magnitude of what is required to make Britain competitive.
