The Lib Dems are so sure they’re getting a flood of Labour defectors that they’re squabbling over what to do with them.
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He spoke of “dire consequences” should Mr Corbyn win the leadership election, but has since called for unity in the party, and his appointment is part of the opposition’s broad shadow cabinet team.
Speculation about defections has run at fever pitch since Mr Farron told the Standard last week that he had been in phone and text contact with Labour figures in despair at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
The five day event on the English south coast was a chance for new members of the party to see Mr Farron in his new role – the supposed champion of grassroots progressive liberals.
But Labour has sought to play down the prospect of a split by moderate MPs, repeating the formation of the SDP in the early 1980s.
Mr Farron said: “It’s quite a good gag, but he’s flattering himself if he thinks he would ever have been in the Beatles…”
But Sir Menzies urged Lib Dems to be realistic, and said the claim they could recover so quickly risked being met with cynicism and scepticism by voters.
Mr Clegg, who quit as party leader following the electoral mauling in May which saw the Lib Dems lose all but eight of their seats, will return to the conference stage in Bournemouth.
He said: “I’ve got no personal agenda and I am certainly not advocating the creation of a new party – I want our party to rebound and fightback and all the rest of it”.
He said: “I have no doubt that David Cameron’s referendum will be contested on the issue of jobs, economic security, the terms of any renegotiation and so on”. ‘It will be a very long process but ultimately, this movement might well have to become a fully-fledged political party’.
Mr Farron, asked whether the Lib Dems could be in power at the next election, replied “absolutely”.
Richard Wyn Jones, professor of Welsh Politics at Cardiff University, will warn also tonight of tensions and difficulties between an opposition Labour Party at Westminster and a governing one in Wales.
The group said there was “the opportunity to develop Labour Party policy so that it truly supports Palestinian human rights”.
The agenda, for me, has not changed – the NHS is still a priority along with fairness for everybody, not the few, decent affordable homes, fair pay, with workers rights protected and better public transport.
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In an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live Pienaar’s Politics programme the Liberal Democrat leader refused to confirm whether he would be happy to work with Mr Corbyn’s Labour – insisting this was a matter of “arithmetic” following an election because preferences are “redundant”.
