Former Lib Dem president Tim Farron is to stand as leader of the party with a pledge to radically rebrand it as a liberal force but without changing its name.
Announcing the move on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday, he said that after discovering that his supporters were “up for a fight ... I will put myself forward to be the next leader of the Liberal Democrats.”
Farron is expected to face only one other candidate, former care minister Norman Lamb, who announced his candidacy on Monday.
Farron said he wanted to change the image of a party that lost 48 MPs in last week’s election.
He said he had no plans to change the party’s name, but added: “I think rebranding ourselves is very important. We have got to be absolutely radical about that.”
Farron, one of only eight Lib Dem MPs in the new parliament, including former leader Nick Clegg, said he liked to refer to himself as a liberal. “There is nothing wrong with us referring to ourselves as what we are ideologically,” he said.
He said there was a “silver lining to our dark cloud” in the increase in party membership since last week’s dismal election performance.
“Eleven and half thousand new members in the six days makes us the fastest and biggest growing political force in Britain, amazingly,” he said. “At the heart of Cleggmania we had half that many joining us. And half who are joining us are under 30. There is great sense that liberalism is under great threat.”
Setting out his vision for the party, Farron, the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, said: “I want us to be a unifying force that is liberal, that is tolerant.”
He said there has “never been more need for a liberal voice” pointing out that in the first days of the new government Conservative ministers have vowed to press ahead with plans to scrap the Human Rights Act, cut welfare by £12bn, and bringing in a “snoopers charter”.
Farron said his first job was to save the party from collapse. “We fully accept the drubbing that we got,” he said. “There are thousands and thousands of people in this country who got up on the Friday and thought ‘goodness me we are not losing the Liberals’. And that’s why I’m standing for the leadership because I believe that this party not only can be saved but that it must be saved.”
Farron said his party was right to go into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010, but that the decision was “always going to be hugely damaging to the party”.
He said he drew heart from the experience of the Dutch liberal party D66 – which was virtually wiped out after entering a governing coalition seven years ago, but has since recovered to top the polls.
“There is plenty of precedent for us to work from to make sure we have that comeback,” Farron said. “And we are going to do it having bloody-minded self-belief that we are going to recover ... I’m determined that fuelled by a sense and desire for justice and belief in the rightness of our cause I can inspire us to come back to the centre of British politics.”
To get on the leadership ballot, a candidate must have the endorsement of 200 members from 20 local party organisations as well as 10% of the parliamentary party.
The winner of the party’s leadership contest will be announced on 16 July.
