Dear Jo Swinson, surely stopping no-deal Brexit is more important than scoring points over Corbyn?

Ultimately Jo, your choices will determine whether we stop Brexit and begin to tackle the very real social and economic reasons underlying the Brexit vote

Jeremy Corbyn has played Labour’s opening hand to begin negotiations with those opposed to Boris Johnson’s no-deal strategy. Everyone it seems, except Jo Swinson and the Liberal Democrats, is prepared to meet and begin negotiations. Clive Lewis MP explains why he thinks the Lib Dems should change tack

Our country is locked into a countdown until 31 October – it’s approximately 11 weeks before a no-deal Brexit as I write. In the past two- and a-bit years we’ve seen MPs indulge in the luxury of time, wallowing in all manner of contortions, futility and posturing when it comes to the Brexit question. But like a convict whose hour of reckoning is at hand, the existential peril before us is only now beginning to really hit home.

What Theresa May and all of her “compromises” and fudges were unable to achieve, Boris Johnson and his cabinet of amoral, neo-con, hard Brexiteers may yet unwittingly achieve – a cross-party coalition of those opposed to no deal.

But we’re quite not there yet. The Greens, SNP, Plaid and some Conservative rebels are now willing to talk to the Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn set out an opening gambit to stop no deal.

In effect he wants to build a parliamentary coalition to extend Article 50 and then force a general election in which Labour would campaign for a public vote with Remain on the ballot. This is a far cry from where the party was just a few months ago. But for some this is still not enough.

Yes, they want to see the Article 50 extension, but they want a parliamentary coalition to secure the legislation for a public vote before any attempt at forcing through an election. There are many reasons for this, some more opaque than others – but the bottom line is that Labour hasn’t ruled this option out.

As a result, the parties concerned have signalled a willingness to get around the table and begin the urgent process of fleshing those differences out. Everyone, that is, except for the Liberal Democrats. Their leader Jo Swinson is saying that she cannot countenance dealing with Jeremy Corbyn.

To understand the dangerous futility of this position I think we need to understand the actual risk before us. Ultimately, Boris Johnson and the political and financial support behind his Brexit project are probably the biggest threat to both British democracy and the post-war welfare state settlement we’ve faced in the post-war period.

Many of us mistakenly believe a coup d’etat is the only kind of coup possible. But a coup doesn’t always require tanks on a lawn and senior ranking military types appearing on your TV and radio declaring that democracy as you knew it, is now over.

The American political scientist Nancy Bermeo identified six different forms of coup and I would argue that the UK is now experiencing a combination of two distinct types: part “executive coup” and part “strategic election manipulation”.

The former is when those already in power suspend democratic institutions. In our case this would be Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings threatening to prorogue parliament. The latter is when elections fall short of being “free and fair” but fall short of being stolen outright. Again, we now know how the 2016 referendum was in effect “hacked” by the likes of Cambridge Analytica and the questionable funding behind the Vote Leave campaign.

If this coup is successful, then the UK won’t just leave the EU. It will in effect pave the way to deregulated Thatcherism on steroids, that will make the past 40 years of neoliberalism look tame. Don’t take my word for it. Look at what Priti Patel and Dominic Raab have in store for the UK in “Britannia unchained”.

Look at how Trump’s neocon allies like John Bolton in the US are bending over backwards to ensure no-deal happens. They can see the lucrative markets in the NHS, pharmaceuticals and adult social care they’ll be able to clean-up in. This dystopian, super-max prison, chlorinated chicken hell is our future, if, Brexit happens on 31 October.

So, it’s against the backdrop of this threat that Swinson’s objections to even talk to Jeremy Corbyn, let alone work with him sound so utterly ridiculous. Stopping this dire threat should be the main political objective. Whether you are beset by national security concerns or economic ones, Corbyn has already stated his caretaker government would be time limited with its goals also limited to stopping Johnson’s Brexit.

So, my message to Jo Swinson is a simple one – the choices before you are binary. Arguing about who should be caretaker leader and letting that get in the way of stopping no-deal Brexit makes rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic look like a deeply worthwhile endeavour.

As you well know from your days in the coalition government, trust is easily lost and hard won in politics. You pledged to “stop Brexit at all costs”. Breaking that pledge days into your leadership is not a great look. Get around the table with Corbyn if you really mean it.

Ultimately Jo, your choices will determine whether we stop Brexit and begin to tackle the very real social and economic reasons underlying the Brexit vote. Or whether our country sets course to becoming a quasi-fascist state, supercharging inequality and insecurity. Ultimately pushing us towards the anti-democratic, climate crisis denying strongmen now rising to power across the globe, in this, the second decade of the 21st century. Personally I think it’s a no-brainer.