LIB Dem leader Tim Farron has made his most high profile appeal to Labour supporters to abandon Jeremy Corbyn and join his party.

In his key note Brighton conference speech, the Westmorland and Lonsdale MP accepted joining his party could be seen as a risk, but he declared a new kind of opposition was required to hold the Conservatives account - with the Liberal Democrats at its heart.

“Whichever party you supported at the last election, we all know that Britain needs a decent, united opposition,” said Mr Farron.

“So if Corbyn’s Labour has left the stage, then we will take the stage.

“People say to me, ‘this is a great opportunity for the Liberal Democrats’. But this is more than opportunity - it is duty.

“Britain needs a strong opposition. The Liberal Democrats will be that strong opposition.”

In a clear message intended to be heard by a Labour audience beyond the conference hall, Mr Farron admitted that “joining the Lib Dems today is a risk. It’s a big ask”.

But he claimed “the “hopelessly divided” Labour Party had “forgotten the people it is there to stand up for”.

He claimed Mr Corbyn was “re-fighting the battles of the past and ignoring the damage the Government is doing to our future”.

“To people who support Labour who look at the last election result and say, can I really take the risk of backing the Liberal Democrats?

“Let me blunt with you: the risk is for you to do nothing. In 20 years’ time we’re all going to be asked by our kids, when our NHS, our schools system, our unity as a country has been impoverished by 20-odd years of Tory rule, and when our economy has been relegated, our green industries trashed, and our status diminished after two decades of isolation from Europe. We’re going be asked, why did you let that happen? What did you do try and stop it?”

“You might explain, well we lost the referendum so we had to move on and live with it.

“Or you might explain, well I was in the Labour Party, Momentum destroyed it but I couldn’t bring myself to leave and back someone else.

“And they’ll look at you and say, why didn’t you even try?

“Why did you let us limp out of Europe? Why did you stick with a party that handed the Conservatives unlimited power?

“And you’ll know that you could have done something different. You could have joined us. You could have fought back. You could have taken a risk."

Mr Farron re-iterated his call for a referendum on any EU Brexit deal.