If you were once a Conservative, you may soon be hearing from Ed Davey. The Liberal Democrat leader plans to write to more than two million former Tories imploring them to join his party. “The Conservatives under Kemi Badenoch are becoming more extreme and out of touch, chasing Nigel Farage instead of focusing on the issues that really matter to people,” he will say in a version seen by the New Statesman, adding that “Reform UK and the Conservatives want to turn our country into Donald Trump’s America”.
Davey, as he told me last week, is “obsessed” with “politically homeless” Tories who he believes the Lib Dems are best-placed to win over. Offended principally by the incompetence of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – they are less socially liberal than often imagined – these voters haven’t forgiven the Conservatives but are aggrieved by Labour and wary of Reform.
Targeting them has, by any measure, paid off for the Lib Dems: they hold 72 seats, making them the largest third party since the days of Herbert Asquith in 1923, having taken 60 off the Tories at the last election. For Davey, the electoral task ahead is clear: finishing the job. Of the Lib Dems’ 30 notional target seats, all but four are held by the Conservatives.
But this strategy, dissenters warn, is reaching its limits. John Curtice, the venerable psephologist, has declared it a “fundamental mistake” for the Lib Dems to focus on former Tories. “You do not have to win votes from your principal opponent in order to defeat them,” he commented, noting that the party had attracted tactical backing from Green and Labour supporters.
That’s advice that the Lib Dems won’t be taking. “John Curtice said the party’s strategy wouldn’t work before the election and we got our best result in 100 years,” ripostes one aide. Rather like Labour’s Morgan McSweeney, Davey’s Lib Dems are far more interested in winning seats than they are in piling up wasted votes from progressives.
Here’s one reason they have refused studiously to pitch themselves to Labour’s left: opposing higher taxes on private schools and large family farms and criticising Donald Trump but in a manner more reminiscent of Love Actually than the Stop the War Coalition. Past pledges to abolish university tuition fees and introduce a 50p income tax rate on those earning more than £100,000 will not be revived. As Davey focuses on the Blue Wall, it’s Zack Polanski’s “eco-populist” Greens and Your Party (if it can go a day without imploding) who will vie for the urban left.
Indeed, some contend that the Lib Dems should make a virtue of this and position themselves as an unashamedly centre-right party. “There is a bigger opportunity for them to pick up 2015 Cameron voters and make the Liberal Democrats their natural party,” David Gauke, the former Tory cabinet minister, told me earlier this year.
But this is a choice that the Lib Dems, for now, insist they don’t need to make. “Our success depends on having broad appeal with both moderate Conservative voters and Labour supporters,” says one strategist (noting that they have a “high ceiling”: almost half of voters say they are open to backing the Lib Dems).
Yet this big tent strategy will soon be tested. One underrated factor in the Lib Dems’ advance has been Keir Starmer. As I noted back in 2024, the Labour leader, unlike Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, did not frighten soft Tories, giving them permission to defect to the Lib Dems across the Blue Wall. But now, as Labour endures record unpopularity, such affluent voters will be looking for means of protest – not least if the next Budget is as painful as some economists anticipate. Can the Lib Dems reassure them or will they conclude that Britain needs a right turn?
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[See also: No one will escape Reform’s immigration plans]
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