The Liberal Democrats have wrapped up their four-day annual conference in Bournemouth, just weeks before the looming Brexit deadline and a likely general election.
With almost 3,500 members attending, it was the party's biggest gathering in recent years as it enjoyed a surge of support from pro-EU voters. Six MPs have defected to the Lib Dems from other parties since June, including one — ex-Tory MP Sam Gyimah — who was announced at the conference itself.
The Lib Dems have a new leader, record membership levels, and a sense of renewed optimism. But it wasn't all plain sailing. Here are the main things we learned from the conference.
The party’s new "cancel Brexit" policy was not liked by everyone.
The big flashpoint of the week came on Sunday lunchtime, when members debated the party's new policy on Brexit — to revoke Article 50, effectively cancelling Brexit, if the Lib Dems win the next general election. This was backed by an overwhelming majority in the hall, but several members took to the stage to voice their dissent.
One was Niall Hodson, a councillor from Sunderland, who warned that the policy was needlessly divisive and risked putting off soft Leave voters who might be coming round to the idea of a second referendum. He told BuzzFeed News afterwards: "I would feel more comfortable putting it to the people — an issue that began with the people should be decided by the people and not by a diktat."
The new "revoke" policy is an attempt to brand the Lib Dems the most pro-EU party, further distancing it from Labour ahead of the general election. It is harder than the Lib Dems' previous Brexit position, which was campaigning for a second referendum and backing Remain.
It means that if the Lib Dems win a majority at the election, Brexit would be cancelled outright. But if it does not (which is somewhat more likely), the Lib Dems would go back to attempting to secure a Remain vote in a second referendum because it would not have support in parliament for revoking Article 50.
Hodson said that far from making things more clear, the policy actually made the position harder to explain on the doorstep. And it risked voters turning on the Lib Dems after the election for breaking their promise, just as they did on tuition fees. MP Norman Lamb and former MPs Andrew George and Simon Hughes have also argued against the policy.
But, as the number of "bollocks to Brexit" T-shirts around the conference showed, most members seemed pretty happy with it.
Most of the new MPs were warmly welcomed — and teased — by party members.
Gyimah, a former Tory who lost the whip over Brexit, became the sixth MP to defect to the Lib Dems as he was brought out to cheers on the main stage at the party's rally on Saturday night. Gyimah told BuzzFeed News he was genuinely moved by the support he received from members at conference, a far cry from the frosty reception he had within the Tory party when he dared to voice some opposition to the government's policy.
Other defecting MPs also received an enthusiastic welcome: Sarah Wollaston and Angela Smith (wearing yellow jackets and dresses, naturally) were stopped for selfies in the corridors, and a Q&A with Luciana Berger was so packed that members had to be turned away.
As the first defector this summer, Chuka Umunna was the star of the show. He is now the party's foreign affairs spokesperson and so he was allowed his own big speech, culminating in a long standing ovation.
It wasn't all sweetness and light though. The new MPs came in for some lighthearted, but brutal, ribbing at the party's infamous Glee Club on Monday – effectively a night of drunken singing in a hot, crowded room. Berger and Wollaston joined members as they sang: "Though Angela's defection might make some people cringe / But she's promised if she joins us she'll stop saying funny tinge."
There was talk of another defection taking place during conference, but this failed to happen. The rumour mill is now pointing to the Lib Dems unveiling a new recruit during Labour's conference next week, or the Tories' the week after — or maybe both — in order to garner more headlines and disrupt their rivals' events.
But there was still fury from some LGBT+ members over the defection of ex-Tory Phillip Lee.
The bubbling anger over the defection of former Tory Phillip Lee burst out into the open on Sunday when a party member heckled leader Jo Swinson during her Q&A in the main conference hall. "Lying is what she's doing!" shouted Catherine Finnecy, a councillor in Chelmsford, Essex.
"If they won't listen through the appropriate channels you have to make them listen any way you can," Finnecy told BuzzFeed News afterwards. She is among several LGBT+ members who are furious at the way the leadership have handled complaints about Lee's perceived political views and voting record.
Their main concern is Lee’s proposal in 2014 that people coming to settle in Britain should have to first prove they do not have HIV or hepatitis B, which he has insisted was motivated by a desire to protect public health but members believe strongly conflicts with the party's pro-LGBT, pro-immigration stance.
There was no sign of Lee at conference until Monday when he held a private meeting with some members of the LGBT+ executive to try to end the dispute. He said most Lib Dems he had spoken to had accepted his argument. "I think this is going to be an ongoing conversation because of the way it’s been stirred up by the extreme left and the extreme right," he told Channel 4 News.
Some members seemed far from convinced, saying they feel "betrayed" by the leadership putting MP numbers ahead of the party's core values. Expect this row to rumble on.
New leader Jo Swinson was repeatedly hailed as the next prime minister.
This was Swinson's first real test as party leader, her chance to prove to thousands of members, and millions of viewers watching her on the news, that she has what it takes in an election that could happen in a matter of weeks. She had taken power at a time of critical national importance, when the stakes for the Lib Dems could barely be higher, and needed to prove that she is not simply the leader of the fourth biggest party in Westminster but the person who could hold the cards in a messy hung Parliament.
Her interview on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday was widely seen as a success — she was calm, considered, and statesmanlike as she explained the reasons for the party's new Brexit policy — quite a contrast from her student politics–style performance at the conference rally the night before. But later on Sunday, the conference hall was only half full for her hourlong Q&A session with members. The timing of the event was not ideal (just after lunch on a sunny day when many members were probably enjoying an ice cream on the beach), but the mood was flat and some activists even looked a little bored.
A video clip of Swinson calling for a Brexit referendum in Parliament in 2008 then went viral on Twitter, prompting claims of hypocrisy over her new "Revoke" plan – and she was subjected to a rant from Piers Morgan on ITV's Good Morning Britain which also did the rounds among Brexiteers.
But she was repeatedly hailed as the next PM on the conference stage and there was a genuine feeling of excitement among MPs and members that they were being led by an energetic, unashamedly pro-EU young woman, who talked openly about juggling the job with two young kids — a marked contrast to her rivals Jeremy Corbyn and prime minister Boris Johnson.
Swinson delivered a punchy, expressive speech to close the conference on Wednesday afternoon, ditching the lectern to pace the stage and look activists in the eye: "Today I am standing here as your candidate for prime minister!"
Members rewarded her with several noisy standing ovations, not least for this line: "Boris Johnson's insults of choice are rather revealing. Big girl's blouse, girly swot. Let me tell you, if he thinks being a woman is somehow a weakness he's about to find out — it is not."
There are real concerns that the Lib Dems are becoming a single-issue party.
Away from the conference hall, there was one looming question being discussed in the bars and restaurants after hours. Are the Lib Dems in danger of becoming a single-issue party? There is a real danger that if Brexit happens on Oct. 31, perhaps with a last-ditch deal, then the bubble bursts and voters will be unsure what the Lib Dems have to offer them in an election.
One former adviser said the current situation had parallels with the early 2000s, when people abandoned Labour for the Lib Dems in protest over the Iraq war. "The question is whether all these new members will stay with us after Brexit?" they told BuzzFeed News. "We don't want to be a reverse UKIP, we need to be more that."
But look at our other policies, the party will cry. A host of other proposals won support at conference — net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, extra neighbourhood police officers, protecting music venues from closure, and giving young carers a free bus pass.
All this risks getting drowned out by the party's Brexit policy, which critics argue has pushed the Lib Dems to the extreme end of politics — to the point that Swinson is now the anti–Nigel Farage. This could put off centrist voters who want to stay in the EU but don't want to entrench already bitter divisions in the country by overturning a democratic result. The Lib Dems are gambling everything on Brexit — only time will tell if it pays off.