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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: So with the Labour party, as we’ve just been discussing, consumed by its own bitter infighting and the growing speculation of a split, is this an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to bounce back from last year’s crushing general election defeat which left them of course with just eight MPs?  Well the party’s leader, Tim Farron, is there in Kendal and a very good morning to you Mr Farron.  Well we’ve just heard Owen Smith say he fears that it’s creaking, the Labour party, dangers of a split, it is something you’d rather like to see then is it?  

TIM FARRON: Well to be honest with you, Dermot, the things that worries me amongst others is that we will face a generation of Conservative rule unless there is a decent credible opposition that is electable and that is able to bring the country together.  Now I take the view as a Liberal Democrat that we should be central to the forming of that movement but I look at what is going on in the Labour party actually with more sadness than anything else.  I think that the fact that there is a shambolic opposition at the moment means that the Conservative party is able to lay down the foundations of a substantial shift in Britain away from a fairer politics which takes environmentalism, which takes internationalism, which takes building an infrastructure for the long term and having a decent economy and a fair society, it pushes all that out of the way and that troubles me and so I don’t take any pleasure in Labour’s travails but it may well be the moment when a realignment that the Liberal Democrats will be at the centre of can take place, so some good could come out of this.

DM: Let’s talk about some of the mechanics of that, if it did happen and if, as you say, some good you’d like to see come out of it.  As we pointed out, eight MPs as you know only too well, if the bulk of those MPs from the Labour party who don’t support Jeremy Corbyn left in some form, you’d have to merge your party into theirs and become the junior party, would the Lib Dems continue to exist?

TIM FARRON: Well the Liberal Democrats have had a huge blow in the May election in 2015 but in the 14 months since then have been immensely resilient and to grow into the point now where our membership is the highest it’s been this century and in the aftermath of the referendum result we’ve seen upward shifts in pretty much all the polls, the best set of local election results for our party in eight years and every Thursday you see the Lib Dem gains in council by-elections every week so our …

DM: Sorry to interrupt Mr Farron, the question was about the MPs.  Now we’ve had the general election over a year ago, we’re not expecting one until 2020, as it stands now you’ve got, well just a handful of MPs, you would be very much the junior party in the House of Commons.  

TIM FARRON: I think it is just bearing in mind that we are in the most volatile period of British politics that certainly has taken place in my lifetime and if we go back two years and look at the Scottish National party which had just six MPs two years ago and you have seen the dominant position they have now found themselves in in Scotland, all really because of what happened in the aftermath of a seismic political event which happened to be a referendum and I think the referendum has done more than just damage Britain’s place in the world and risk our place in Europe, it has also completely shaken up our politics so the numbers in parliament of course are significant and if I had a magic wand we’d have lot more MPs than we currently have but my job is to take what I’ve got and do the best with it and what we’ve seen over the last month is the Liberal Democrats being the only party with a really clear position, that Britain’s position whilst we respect the result of the referendum, we haven’t changed our principles, we believe Britain is better off in Europe for our economy and for our relevance and control throughout the world, and that means that so many people have come to us that you begin to think there could be a real movement forming around us that could mean we are in a very different position in a year or two’s time than we are now.  

DM: Okay, Tim Farron, thank you very much indeed, leader of the Lib Dems there in Kendal.