Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson believes she can become Prime Minister and scupper
Brexit – despite having just 3% of MPs.
With a
general election expected before Christmas, the party chief claimed she could oust
Boris Johnsonand beat
Jeremy Corbyn to No10, before torpedoing EU withdrawal.
She leads just 17 MPs, five of whom defected after being elected for other parties.
Speculation is rife another – possibly ex-Tory Heidi Allen - could defect to the Lib Dems and be unveiled at tomorrow night's opening rally.
Ms Swinson insisted the unprecedented political chaos could propel her into Downing Street.
Speaking exclusively to the Mirror as her party gathers in Bournemouth for its annual conference, she said: “Our polling suggests there are hundreds of seats where
Liberal Democrats are in contention now.
“We are looking at an entirely different type of election to any previous circumstance and that's why our level of ambition is on a different scale.
“It's just incomparable to how we have faced previous elections.”
Asked if she thought she could become PM, she said: “Absolutely – and what's more, I think I would be a better Prime Minister than either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn.
“I say that with complete confidence because I don't think either of them is up to the job.”
The Lib Dems returned their highest ever total of MPs in 2005 when, led by Charles Kennedy, they won 62 seats.
Ten years later, they sank to just eight.
But Ms Swinson denied she was setting herself up to fail with her target to become PM.
“I could set myself a little target and say, 'I want us to get 40 or 50 MPs and if we do that I'll be happy',” she said.
“But if we do that and we come out of the EU and we don't keep the UK together then I won't be happy.
“So I'd rather say, 'This is what I actually want to achieve and let's try and do that, and let's not worry about the possibility of failure'.
“Let's believe that we can do this and let's go for it – because if we don't do that, and if the Liberal Democrats don't do that, then nobody else is going to and then we are just giving up.”
She added: “I'm not naïve, I recognise that this is ambitious – but I do think the seismic change in politics makes it possible.”
Ms Swinson refused to say whether she would prop up the Conservatives or
Labour in another hung Parliament – nor would she reveal the price of her support.
“At the moment, both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn want to deliver Brexit – Brexit is fundamentally contrary to the values we stand for,” she said.
“It is therefore inconceivable to understand how you could reach an accommodation.”
Ms Swinson succeeded Sir Vince Cable as party leader in July and has been in charge during what she describes as a “pretty intense time in politics”.
The 39-year-old was the “baby of the House” - the youngest MP – when she was first elected in 2005, aged just 25.
She served as Business Minister in the Tory-Lib Dem coalition but lost her East Dunbartonshire seat in the 2015 Lib Dem bloodbath, before winning it back two years later.
“We obviously made mistakes,” she said of the alliance with the Conservatives, citing the Bedroom Tax and the tuition fees' betrayal.
“We made a promise and we shouldn't have broken it.”
But the ongoing Brexit fiasco has triggered a Lib Dem revival, with 120,000 members signed-up and the party coming second in May's European elections with 20.3% of votes.
Her targeting of Remain supporters worries some senior Labour figures who fear she will strip key backing from Mr Corbyn's party.
He is unable to say whether he would campaign for Remain or a Labour-negotiated Brexit deal at a second referendum.
A Labour source said of Ms Swinson: “She’s comes across as really reasonable, I think it will resonate.”
While she demands a second Brexit referendum three years after the first, the Glaswegian would deny Scots a second vote on separation.
Supporting another EU ballot, she said: “At what point did this idea take root that democracy is a fixed point in time and only a snapshot on a particular day is what matters?
“People do change their minds on things when they get more information.”
But ruling out another Scottish border poll, she said: “I don't support a second independence referendum in Scotland. I want to see Scotland in the United Kingdom.”
Denying a contradiction, she added: “I am doing what I think is right for our country.”
Mum-of-two Ms Swinson has majority of only 5,339 and, despite her claim the Lib Dems are competing in hundreds of constituencies, she admitted she did not “take anything for granted”.
She added: “I know what it is like to lose my seat – and to fight to win it back.”
But she believes all is to play for as another general election – the third in just over four years – looms.
“We are basically facing a question about who we are as a country and, when you have got the Conservative and Labour parties unable to really engage with that and divided, I think that is a fundamental reason why people have not just been moving as voters and as members and activists of parties, but at MP level as well,” she said.
“We are more ambitious than we have ever been before and that all bodes well.
“There is a lot to do so I am very aware of the scale of the challenge we face and absolutely determined to meet it.”