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Senior Lib Dem quits party from the podium at their spring conference

March 11, 2013 8:58 am

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Jo Shaw was the Lib Dem PPC for Holborn and St Pancras at the 2010 General Election, losing out to Labour’s Frank Dobson, but yesterday she dramatically resigned as a member of the Lib Dems live on stage at the party’s Spring Conference. Shaw has been campaigning against Secret Courts in recent weeks, and as she quit the party, she said “It’s not me Nick, it’s you”.

Remarkably – the now ex-Lib Dem was applauded from the stage by party activists.

Here’s the video:

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  • Jeremy_Preece

    A few observations:

    1. That sounded like a huge burst of applause at the end of the speech. Therefore we assume that she was speaking for a significant number of people in the hall.

    2. Jo Shaw has left the LibDems but has not joined another party. It would have been very significant if she had, for example, joined Labour.

    3. The fact that she has not joined another party makes me think that this resignation is all to do with making a point, and urge deligates to vote against the Justice and Security bill. The strategy seems to be to leave the way open for her to then rejoin the LibDems if they defeat the bill.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

      I don’t always expect people who leave their party to come to Labour. I left Labour over Iraq, because I realised that I couldn’t defend it on the doorstep. However, I didn’t join any other party and did still vote Labour in 2005. I rejoined Labour in 2010 after a 6 year gap, and although I still have my disagreements on some issues, don’t think I’d feel at home in any other party

  • Gabrielle

    Well done Ms Shaw, although there were loads of other terrible things your party assisted the Tories with, which you didn’t resign over – the creeping privatisation of the NHS for example. But obviously this was the straw that broke the camel’s back – plus taking into account how the LibDems were, back in their halcyon days, so big on civil liberties and forever denouncing Labour on that particular issue.

    There’s an ever widening gap between the LibDem rank and file, and the Clegg cabal that exist as Tory enablers. If they could defenestrate Clegg they would do the country a huge favour, but I won’t hold my breath.

    It’s interesting also how Clegg was crowing about Eastleigh being a vindication of the LibDems in government, AND YET the LibDems’ whole strategy in Eastleigh was to promote Mike Thornton as a good local councillor and to separate him entirely from what LibDems in government were doing!

  • John Reid

    I recall the Lib dem literature she put out saying Dobson was pro 90 days and I’d cards , which weren’t t true

  • Calorus

    She left the Lib Dems in opposition to a bill opposed, this is not anything which should cheer Labour party members.

    This is not a bill Labour should be supporting either.

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