Tim Farron admits he decided to resign as Lib Dem boss a month before the election because of his faith

TIM Farron secretly decided to quit as Lib Dem leader a month before the election because of questions about his faith, he said today.

The outgoing party boss admitted his conservative views on gay couples and abortion was damaging the Lib Dems’ election chances.

But he boasted that he had “saved the party” by picking up three extra seats, even though the Lib Dems lost votes compared to the last election.

Mr Farron quit a week after polling day, saying his religious beliefs had become a distraction which was hurting the party.

Vince Cable is set to be confirmed as his replacement next month, with no other MPs coming forward to run for the leadership.

Today Mr Farron said he had made the decision to go weeks before he actually announced it.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I made the decision about two weeks into the election campaign.

“I thought there isn’t a way forward out of this without me either compromising or just causing damage to the party in the long run.

“I kind of thought, well, in which case I cannot see a way I will continue to be leader into the future.

“But I kind of thought, right you’ve got to put that into a drawer, don’t talk to anybody else about it, get on and do as good a job as you can during the election.”

Mr Farron denied the suggestion that he had misled voters by not revealing that he would quit at the end of the campaign.

He said: “Well, they’re giving the party the vote, and the Lib Dems, thanks to what we’ve done in the last two years, will continue.

“So in every election there is a reasonable chance that leaders will step down.”

Praising his own performance in the election, he added: “My job was to save the party. The Liberal Democrats still exist and we’re moving forward.”

Mr Farron revealed that he cried when he quit as leader – admitting that he is regularly teary.

He said: “I’m somebody who does shed tears occasionally, if things move me. Generally they are not things to do with myself. I completely held it together. I knew what I was going to do.

“I made the little statement in party headquarters and was about to kind of head off up north, and I just got this lovely text from my 15-year-old saying, ‘I’m very proud of you,’ and I had a cry then.”

Mr Farron led an aggressively pro-EU campaign, promising a second referendum in a bid to overturn Brexit – but the Lib Dem share of the vote ended up falling.

He was repeatedly grilled over whether he believed gay sex was a sin, and was forced to defend previous anti-abortion comments.

Sir Vince is the only declared candidate for Lib Dem leader after all the other frontrunners ruled themselves out.