"If the legislation is passed I will lead a grassroots campaign of civil disobedience to thwart the identity cards programme ... I, and I expect thousands of people like me, will simply refuse ever to register."

“Years of uncertainty caused by a future EU referendum would hit jobs and growth and this is not in the national interest”

“What people have dubbed the snooper's charter - I have to be clear with you, that's not going to happen.”

“Whether we like it or not the single market, the biggest destination of our goods and services, is a market place of rules,”

“In politics, you live by the sword, and you die by the sword.”

“If I was a Brexit voter, I would feel increasingly betrayed that I voted in the belief that all these Brexiteers knew what they were doing”

“In 2007 after a night of disappointing election results for our party in Edinburgh, Alex Cole Hamilton said this: if his defeat was part-payment for the ending of child detention, then he accepted it with all his heart. Those words revealed a selfless dignity which is very rare in politics but common amongst Liberal Democrats. If our losses today are part payment for every family that is more secure because of a job we helped to create, every person with depression who is treated with a compassion they deserve, every child who does a little better in school, every apprentice with a long and rewarding career to look forward to, every gay couple who know that their love is worth no less than anyone else’s and every pensioner with a little more freedom and dignity in retirement then I hope at least our losses can be endured with a little selfless dignity too.”