The last general election saw the strange rebirth of Liberal England. Ed Davey’s party won 72 seats – its best result since it was launched in its current form in 1988. Indeed, the Lib Dems now have more seats than any third party since 1923 (when the Liberals won 158). But how do they intend to use their enhanced status?
Strategists say the Lib Dems have two priorities for this parliament: the first is being a “better opposition” than the Tories. By this they mean focusing on issues of substance – such as social care reform – rather than ones of style or personality.
Second, the Lib Dems want to embed their new MPs as “local champions”. The hope is that by the end of this parliament even voters profoundly disillusioned with Westminster will welcome achievements in their community. This has echoes of the “pavement politics” pioneered by the former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown and of No 10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney’s “potholes strategy” (which helped Labour defeat the BNP when he was an electoral organiser in Barking and Dagenham).
“People vote for extremist parties – some of them the same people who vote Liberal Democrat or have been in our market – because they are angry with the system,” Tim Farron, the party’s former leader, who led the Lib Dems’ general election review, told me. “The best antidote to that is having MPs and councillors who you actually trust because you’ve earned their trust. Relationships are the answer to extremism.”
From an electoral perspective, the Lib Dems’ aim is to “finish the job” in the Blue Wall. Of their 30 notional target seats, all but four are held by the Tories. That Kemi Badenoch has displayed little interest in defending – or reclaiming – such territory has cheered (and baffled) the Lib Dems.
But Davey’s team also believe they have opportunities against Labour. “We want a Liberal voice back in the cities,” an aide told me. Early targets include Nick Clegg’s former seat of Sheffield Hallam (Labour majority: 8,189) and Simon Hughes’s former seat of Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Labour majority: 7,787).
“The strength of the party in some of our big cities is extremely healthy,” Farron said. “We’re looking at future local elections to build a platform from which we can potentially gain seats from Labour.”
Keir Starmer’s opening six months in government have left the Lib Dems with numerous points of differentiation against Labour. On Europe, the Prime Minister has reaffirmed his pledge not to rejoin the single market and customs union and ruled out free movement for young people. On social care, the government has established another inquiry that will not conclude until 2028. The Lib Dems expect both issues to rise in salience – Brexit as economic growth remains poor and social care as the long-running crisis deepens.
They also aim to position themselves as “the only party that will criticise Donald Trump”. Reform and the Tories, they say, don’t want to while Labour – for diplomatic reasons – can’t. That’s a stance supported by Lib Dem and Green voters, though it’s worth noting that the public at large believe Starmer should prioritise “working with” Trump rather than “standing up” to him (by 44 to 37 per cent).
Should the polls remain as tight as they are, speculation of a hung parliament after the next election will rise. The widespread assumption is that the Lib Dems would be open to a deal with Labour. “He’s quite a courteous man, he seems a decent guy,” Davey said of Starmer when I interviewed him last year and the mutual respect between the two is clear at Prime Minister’s Questions.
But don’t expect the Lib Dems to fixate on post-election scenarios. After becoming leader in 2020, Davey sat his ten fellow MPs down and told them that “previous leaders had spent so much time trying to answer that question that they didn’t focus on winning seats”.
Five years on – with seven times as many MPs – Davey has no intention of changing his winning formula.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here.
[See also: How damaging is the Tulip Siddiq affair for Labour?]
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