Liberal Democrats leadership candidate Tim Farron regrets abstaining from gay marriage vote

Tim Farron has said that he regrets abstaining in a gay marriage vote during the last parliament.

Now frontrunner to succeed Nick Clegg as leader of the Liberal Democrats, Farron told The Observer that his decision not to take part in the third reading of the bill was not because he was against same-sex marriage, as he had previously voted in favour.

“It is important to be very, very clear that I voted for the legalisation of equal marriage and support it, and will fight very hard against any attempts to water it down – which there might be,” he explained.

“Put simply, there were a couple of amendments that were about the protection of essentially religious minorities, conscience protections, and I kind of voted for those. Me doing something like that, which is about protecting people’s right to conscience, I definitely regret it, if people have misread that and think that means I’m lukewarm on equal marriage.

Farron, who is now one of eight Liberal Democrats MPs, added that he would not make the same decision again, stating that he “would vote for equal marriage”.

On his bid to replace Clegg, Farron said that he would not sit back and watch “this party die on my watch”, declaring: “So we are going to build the mother of all fightbacks.”

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