My Sunday League team was crap. Leaky at the back, no legs in midfield and the strikers couldn’t hit the proverbial barn door with a banjo. Our record over two seasons was an inglorious played 44, won 0, drew 0, lost 44. We went four months without even scoring a goal. I’d love to say that the lads were plucky and kept playing for the love of the game, but that would be a lie, by the end, so demoralised were we, that we struggled to get 11 players on the park.
Then, we had an unexpected change in fortune – a nearby pub team team self-destructed after a couple of their players fell out with the sponsoring landlord, and, in the absence of any alternative, came to play for us. One was an elegant midfielder, not one for putting his foot in, but, lovely on the ball, and the other was a quicksilver left back who run up and down the touch line like a machine. Suddenly, we looked a much better team. Then, the left back brought a couple of mates to play and, after two and a bit seasons of utter uselessness, we finally ground out a 2-2 draw against second worst team in our league.
How we celebrated that night, I can tell you.
What, I hear you say has this got to do with the Liberal Democrats?
Well, the Lib-Dems sort of remind me of that team – after years of being crap, they’ve suddenly had an influx of personnel. After years of being the but of every political joke, they’ve now got new blood and, without doubt a new impetus. Where once declaring that you were going to vote Liberal Democrat would condemn you to social and political purgatory, now, people are queuing up to state that at the next election they intend to vote Lib-Dem.
Why?
Well there are three reasons for the Lib-Dems current good fortune: the first is Brexit, the second is Corbyn and the third is Johnson.
The Lib-Dems, to be fair to them have always been an unapologetically pro-European party – indeed, when everyone else was urging care over joining the Euro, the Lib-Dems policy was to join, when others were reticent about the expansion of the EU, the Lib-Dems were all for it. They campaigned to remain, all but 2 of their members voted against triggering Article 50 and they now have a very clear policy going into the election : if we form a government, we will remain in the EU.
politics-punked.com 
I share your concerns about the Lib Dems in many respects (I also share a very similar history in terms of Sunday League football, but that’s for another day!). This is a real dilemma for many Labour-inclined Remainers and the Lib Dem leadership needs to be pushed to respond to the issues you raise.
I am in little doubt that, despite my worries as a committed Remainer and despite my worries about Corbyn and the hard left of the Labour Party, if I were in a constituency where Labour were the best placed challengers to the Tories, I would be voting Labour.
I genuinely believe that only Labour can stand up to the Tories and, more particularly, the right-wing press barons and money men that support them.
But, in my constituency (and surely several other shire constituencies like it), where the Tories have long consistently enjoyed a big majority and Labour seem to barely trouble the scorers, the only slim chance of unseating the Tory Brexiteer incumbent (James Gray) does seem to lie with the Lib Dem MP.
So, if my priorities, in order of importance, are:
1. Stop Brexit,
2. Wrest power from the Tories,
3. Maximise the chances of Labour getting back in (even if probably only for now as the senior partner in an Alliance against the Tories and for a People’s Vote),
then surely the only thing that I (and those of like mind) can sensibly do is hold my nose and vote Lib Dem this time round? But I will certainly be putting some of the questions you raise to my prospective Lib Dem MP before I do.
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Yes. But in the end, we’re going to have to vote for whichever party is most likely to defeat the Tories (unless it’s one of those few principled Remainers who have lost the Whip). My Tory MP had 67% of the vote last time and there’s almost no chance of defeating him. None whatsoever if we don’t throw all of our weight behind an alliance.
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