Nick Clegg calls time on 'complacent' moderates after Brexit vote

Nick Clegg is teaming up with Labour MP Stephen Kinnock and former Conservative minister Andrew Lansley to call time on "complacency" from British moderates. The former deputy prime minister has joined Kinnock and Lansley in becoming a trustee of Radix, a new think-tank which aims to promote the "radical centre".

"I think the EU referendum result really showed centrists how far the pendulum has swung against mainstream convention in politics. With hindsight, things like Ukip topping the EU parliamentary elections in 2014, or Jeremy Corbyn coming from nowhere to become leader of the Labour Party foreshadowed the Brexit vote," Clegg told IBTimes UK.

"That's one of the reasons I was interested in joining the board of Radix – the time for complacency from British moderates is definitely over."

The project is the brainchild of chief executive Nick Tyrone, who previously headed up the CentreForum think-tank and had a brief spell at pro-EU group British Influence.

Radix, although devised before the Brexit result of the EU referendum, comes at a crucial time for centrism.

Left-winger Corbyn looks set to retain the Labour leadership, while anti-mass immigration politics has entered the mainstream after the victorious Vote Leave campaign committed to an Australian-style visa system.

There is also the rise of Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for US president, across the Atlantic. The property tycoon is now vying for the White House on an anti-Muslim, pro-wall building ticket.

The radicalisation of Western politics has even led former Prime Minister Tony Blair to openly question whether centrism has a future. But Tyrone wants to move away from Blairism and attempt to create a "bunch of bold new ideas".

"The problem is that centrism isn't sexy enough at the moment," he added. "Beyond just a think-tank, you need the personalities, which we don't have at the moment.

"When you look at when centrism was sexy, you had people like Bill Clinton and Blair who were charismatic figures."

Tyrone stressed that he did not want Radix to become a Liberal Democrat talking shop and, beyond the appointment of Kinnock and Lansley, he plans to attend the Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat party conferences this year where he has set up discussions on trade unionism and foreign policy in a post-Brexit world.

The proof of the pudding, however, will be whether Tyrone can really make centrism "sexy" and, in a Westminster village rebuilding and reforming after the EU referendum, can Radix get some of its policies adopted by the political parties, particularly the government.