Sir Ed Davey ties himself in knots over Brexit and is branded the Lib Dem Basil Fawlty
SIR Ed Davey has been declared the Lib Dems’ “Basil Fawlty” with the message: Don’t mention the Brexit!
The party leader tied himself in knots yesterday by dancing around whether he wanted to rejoin the EU.
In a series of gruelling interviews he said: “That's currently not on the table as everybody knows.
“We are a proud pro-European party. I've said that many times and I believe we need to be back at the heart of Europe.
“But at the moment, the issue for us is rebuilding our relationship with Europe that's been so soured by the conservatives.”
Sir Ed also said going back into the EU’s single market or customs union was “not on the table”.
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At the last election the Lib Dems campaigned on a flagship pledge to reverse the Brexit decision entirely - and subsequently bombed.
But Lib Dem activists at the party’s conference in Bournemouth have grown frustrated with their leader’s reluctance to talk about rejoining.
He was heckled on stage by one of the members accusing him of trying to sweep the topic under the carpet.
One MP candidate said: "I think we need to foreground our position on Brexit a bit more, we need to be talking about it."
Tory MP Jonathan Gullis said: “Ed Davey is doing his best Basil Fawlty impression with his ‘don't mention the Brexit’ desperation.
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“It's almost as though he's finally clued on voters don't agree with him, and maybe that Sir Keir has told him to stop it if he wants to be Deputy Prime Minister in a coalition of chaos."
Sir Ed suffered another blow yesterday as an activist rebellion blocked a bid to make scrapping housing targets a key policy.
A fiery debate on whether the party would do away with the national housing target of 380,000 collapsed into infighting before the motion was overturned.