A lifelong Labour voter, I've now left to join the Lib Dems – Corbyn's finally pushed me too far

Political commentators are cautious about calling it a Lib Dem fightback but there has been a steady drumbeat from disgruntled Labour supporters looking to the Lib Dems over the past fortnight. A Lexit, you might call it, but not quite the one Jeremy Corbyn envisaged.

Perhaps he should have listened to some of the 700,000 voices on the People’s Vote and Final Say March in October. I was one of them, protesting with the Lib Dems; I joined the party in August after a lifetime of supporting Labour.

Now we learn that opinion among the Labour Party membership has hardened. Nearly three-quarters want a Final Say referendum and 16 per cent have considered quitting just like I did.

I surprised myself when the decision finally came. I was raised in a politically split household: my mum, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants and a Women’s Libber, took my sister and I on marches and Labour Party picnics. My dad had been in the Middle East Land Forces and admired Thatcher. It was sometimes like living with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and the rows were furious.

At my radical comprehensive kids were invited to stay at miners’ homes during the strikes, Ken Livingstone spoke at our sixth form society, and we were forced to sing Ebony and Ivory during the Brixton riots.

By the time I arrived at Essex University my commitment to Labour was assured, and I was elected on to the student union newspaper as a Labour candidate. I drifted in and out of actual party membership, but continued to support Labour and in the late nineties, as a newly single parent, things did get better under Blair’s government, for a while.

Like much of the country I was dazzled by Nick Clegg during the 2010 election TV debates, briefly flirting with the idea of voting Lib Dem. But the palpable fear of a Tory becoming our local MP meant sticking with Sadiq Khan. That didn’t prevent me, like so many others in the country, from feeling utterly betrayed when the Lib Dems formed the Coalition with the Conservatives, and feeling the collective sadness watching the Browns leave Downing Street.

What followed next – tuition fees, the bedroom tax – ensured I kept voting for Labour and was extremely vocal in my condemnation of the coalition; particularly when my own son was kettled during the first student loans protest in Whitehall.

I might have remained “soft” Labour but for the perfect storm of Jeremy Corbyn and Brexit. The latter is quite simply anathema to me, not just because I’m the granddaughter of immigrants, but because I believe so strongly in freedom of movement, and that the evidence backs up the overwhelming truth that we are better off in the EU than we can possibly be out of it.

The Momentum-propelled adulation of Jeremy Corbyn left me cold. I was also increasingly uneasy about the accusations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and for the first time in my voting life I started to feel politically homeless.

Last summer I explained how I was feeling to a friend who had joined the Lib Dems, and he asked me why I was still supporting Labour. After a heated debate, the conclusion was tribalism. I had been clinging on to my political heritage and the promise of what might have been, had Blair not led Britain to war in Iraq, had Corbyn not become leader, had David Miliband stuck around or Ed not eaten that bacon sandwich.

The more I delved into Lib Dem policies, particularly on education, the NHS and crime, the more I realised that this was the party for me. I have always believed passionately in equality and internationalism, and politically, I am home.

Like any relationship it takes work. I was welcomed with open arms into my local party, which has a small but dedicated group of activists, and plunged headfirst into campaigning. Since joining I’ve canvassed, attended meetings and hustings, placed coloured stickers on a Brexometer (it’s really a giant whiteboard, but useful for gauging opinion) and been selected as spokesperson for my local ward.

I’m also managing our local communications, working towards approval as a parliamentary candidate, and in March I’ll be going to my first ever party conference in York (though I’ll probably steer clear of the infamous Glee Club).

Resources may be limited, but energy and enthusiasm definitely is not, and there’s a lot of support between local parties, from Tooting to Tower Hamlets.

In 2015 when they were decimated in the General Election you might have written off the Lib Dems, but it’s testimony to the strength of feeling about Brexit that the party is once again rebuilding. Local elections in May are seen as critical.

On the doorstep, in the street and on social media the main objections to voting Lib Dem that I’ve encountered are still the legacy of coalition, student loans and party leader Vince Cable.

Not everyone is obsessed with Brexit, of course, and Vince, while an experienced voice at a critical period in the trajectory of the country, doesn’t capture the public imagination. He is still too closely associated with the coalition for some soft Labour or Conservative voters.

He announced at the September conference that he would step down once the issue of Brexit is resolved or stopped, though some members would like to see a new, dynamic and charismatic leader in place sooner rather than later.