Watch Jo Swinson lie through her teeth

The new Lib-Dem leader Jo Swinson has been getting a staggeringly easy ride from the mainstream media, and from smug blue tick Twitter "centrists" over her disgusting track record in government.

One of the commonest excuses that Lib-Dem tribalists wheel out is that the Lib-Dems somehow "moderated" the Tories by ... errr ... voting through all of their malice in order to avoid resigning as ministers in the 2010-15 austerity coalition.

Even when Swinson does receive a light grilling over her votes in favour of monstrous stuff like Bedroom Tax, rip-off tuition fees, and disability benefits cuts, the mainstream media hacks who are supposed to be holding her to account just let her lie through her teeth about other stuff.

One of Swinson's favourite lies is that she supposedly opposed imposing upfront £1,200 Tribunal Fees on workers seeking compensation from bad bosses who had exploited or abused them.

Jo Swinson VOTED IN FAVOUR of unlawful Tribunal Fees designed to protect bad bosses by pricing their exploited & abused workers out of the justice system.

If she actually opposed them she could have resigned as [checks notes] Employment Minister (!!!) in the Austerity Coalition. pic.twitter.com/eAOexqiIXI

— Another Angry Voice (@Angry_Voice) July 28, 2019

Swinson repeatedly claims that she opposed these fees, and even opportunistically joined in the celebrations when they were declared unlawful by the Supreme Court and scrapped in 2017.

But the reality is that Swinson actively voted in favour of this unlawful Tory assault on UK workers' right to seek justice against abusive and exploitative bosses.

Not only did she vote in favour of the policy, she also promoted the policy in press interviews and press releases.

If she knew that this policy was a despicable assault on workers' rights, yet she publicly promoted it and wilfully voted in favour of it, instead of resigning as Employment Minister over this scandalous policy, there's only one sensible explanation.

She decided against taking a stand because to do so would have meant giving up on her six figure ministerial salary, giving up her ministerial car and other perks, and giving up on her ambition to one day lead the Lib-Dem party.

She put her own personal enrichment and career prospects above the legal right to access the UK justice system for millions of British workers.

Yet instead of apologising for this disgusting decision, she resorts to revisionist lies that she opposed it all along.

And this Tribunal Fees situation perfectly illustrates what's so wrong with the Lib-Dem excuse that they somehow "moderated Tory excesses" during the austerity coalition.

The reality is that their new party leader had an absolutely golden opportunity as Employment Minister to stand up for British workers by resigning from her post in protest, but she chose not to for the benefit of her own career prospects.

And just like Swinson's revisionist lie that she opposed the unlawful tribunal Fees that she actually voted in favour of, the general Lib-Dem excuse that they "moderated the Tories" is also a revisionist fabrication. 

Choosing to govern with the Tories gave them the opportunity to moderate their malicious tendencies, but more often than not Swinson and her Lib-Dem colleagues wilfully rubber stamped the absolute worst of it, because to actually rebel would have cost them personally.

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