I actually feel for Tim Farron. He's almost certainly GC and thinks it's bollocks on a personal level. However he was targeted previously over his religious beliefs and he was effectively forced to set down as leader. Despite his own personal views maybe being different on a number of subjects he has always behaved like a liberal and encouraged debate and represented the line that has been built by consensus. He is in a bind to challenge (which I actually think he has privately).
Back story. Back in 2017 in the aftermath of the 2017 election, a faction of the LIb Dem took it upon themselves to oust him because of his Christian values and the fact he personally regarded homosexuality as sinful. If you look at his voting record and his conduct he certainly didn't reflect his own beliefs.
But I do believe there's more to the story and the bonkers LGBT+ Lib Dems had a witch hunt against him.
The MP announced his resignation as party leader on Wednesday, saying he had become “the subject of suspicion because of what I believe and who my faith is in”.
“The consequences of the focus on my faith is that I have found myself torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader”, he added.
His resignation came just hours after that of the party's openly gay Home Affairs spokesman, Lord Brian Paddick, citing "concerns about the leader's views on various issues".
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tim-farron-resigns-liberal-democrat-gay-rights-lgbt-chris-cooke-tension-lord-paddick-a7796321.html
Now Brian Paddock is an interesting character at this point. He's openly gay and was being heavily influenced by the LGBT+ Lib Dems at the time.
Now the Radical Association were just getting to a point of significant influence at the time. They were effectively the LDs answer to Momentum and seen as 'the future of the party's and were heavily dominated by a clique - that largely centred on the LGBT+ LDs and their mates.
Hey look at this from the above article about Tim Farron
Former head of the LGBT+ Liberal Democrats, Chris Cooke, made unsubstantiated complaints to the party about Farron's personal conduct when "drunk", and admitted that he "made up a story to cause trouble" following his suspension over Twitter comments directed at Conservative MP Anna Soubry.
The student nurse tweeted that the Broxtowe MP he hoped she would not “escape the noose” over her expenses claims after it was revealed she was one of several Conservative MPs embroiled in the scandal over the party’s expense claims during the 2015 election
She screen-grabbed the tweet and her local constituency party complained to the local Lib Dems.
He later tweeted his Twitter account and friends said he had not meant to threaten her – he was just expressing a hope she would be arrested or lose her seat.
Mr Cooke, from Bramcote in Nottingham, admitted that he had sent an email to party bosses with a complaint about Mr Farron's personal conduct while “drunk” and has since retracted.
He told the Mail on Sunday: “I felt betrayed by the party and was drunk at the time.
“It is an email I regretted sending and have retracted.
“I was just p*ed off with my suspension over a non-issue and made up a story to cause trouble.”
The contents of the complaint have not been revealed but senior Lib Dems told the Mail that, although they knew them to be untrue, it compounded their alarm about Mr Farron’s inability to breakthrough during the election campaign which they blamed on the ongoing row over his religion.
Hmmm. Doesnt this all hit a bit of a nerve, when repeated back in September 2025 and the context of certain vexatious TRAs and rising concerns about the rhetoric of killing politicians?
AND
“Many people thought Farron was not only a liability in terms of his anti-gay views but not liberal or Left-wing enough”, he said. “‘There was a section of the party that were simply out to get him."
By any means necessary. It was a witch-hunt.
Let's go back to Paddick.
Paddick, a former Police officer at the MET, subsequently got heavily involved early on with the row over GC voices in the party and bullying in the party which was going on at the end of 2017/ start of 2018. He was very much involved at the time of Natalie Bird's election as co-chair of the Radical Association and subsequent treatment within the party. He apparently tried to smooth things over between 'both sides' but I don't actually believe much of this. He was far too heavily sat on and influenced by the LGBT+ Lid Dems in the end. My feeling was he was a useful idiot for TRAs because he could be manipulated by the whole 'its just like being gay' stuff and trying to be down with the kids he didn't ask the right questions at the right time.
I must admit to thinking, I wonder what he thinks of everything now in the context of all the subsequent developments. He left the LDs in 2023 to take on a non partisan roll but still sits in the Lords.
This is basically all about the Radical Association and the LGBT+ Lib Dems who at the time were all mates and all pretty much full on TRA and their dominance in the party and the degree of influence they had. At the time members of the LGBT+ LD pretty much had members on most of the LD federal groups which manage the party. These were almost all men and those who weren't were trans / non-binary (one notable exception to this). It always struck me, that they were the people with the most time on their hands to volunteer to the party - women with children just didn't have a chance. They had a strangle hold on it. Farron, ironically, was pointing out at the time that the LDs had a 'stale, pale and male' problem. Which this absolutely echoed.
I don't believe Farron was targeted purely because of his views on homosexuality. It was just easier to openly oust him on this basis rather than on the wider TWAW thing. In hindsight, he probably wasn't MRA enough either. He just wasn't authoritarian enough for them, they couldn't control him as he wasn't 'one of theirs' and he was seen as an issue precisely because he was liberal and tried to enable debate within the party. It wasn't just how he came across in 2017 to the electorate. The LD were always going to get squeezed out because of the dynamics of that particular election and them making themselves a single issue party who were looking increasingly detached from the electorate and increasing inflexible and undemocratic.
It's interesting that Natalie Bird's harassment came not long after Farron's departure and just as we entered the height of no debate. There were many LDs who believed in leaving the EU or thought that the LDs were becoming too 'liberal identity' - you all must believe the tick box of right think - who left the party at that time after a massive upsurge in members in the immediate aftermath of Brexit.
So if you understand this, you understand perhaps why Farron has towed the line. If I'm honest, I'm surprised he ever stayed in the party after the way he was treated. Most others would have walked in his shoes.
I am more forgiving of him than most I think as a result, because I think he's already been a victim of the anti liberal bullshit in the party and was actively targeted by the LGBT+ Lib Dems, including at least one who actively told straight up lies about him to cause shit. And admitted to it.