The Liberal Democrats experienced a remarkable election result in July, winning 72 seats, the highest tally since 1920. Once the party of the Celtic fringe, it gained 60 seats from the Tories in the predominantly wealthy, anti-Brexit “blue wall” of southern England. At the party’s annual conference, its leader, Sir Ed Davey, told delegates he wants to “finish the job” and “consign the Conservatives to the history books”. Before the summer, the Lib Dems had just 11 MPs. If its leader had suggested then that the party might be on the verge of becoming the official opposition, it would have been laughed off as delusional hubris. That is not the case today.
Sir Ed’s speech was rapturously received by the party faithful. The Lib Dems, he said, would be a critical friend to Labour, holding the government’s feet to the fire over its promises on the NHS and social care in particular. He repeatedly attacked the Conservatives, who had shown “themselves to be totally unfit to govern our country”. This makes electoral sense. Of the 27 seats in which the Lib Dems were in second place in July, 21 are held by the Tories.
The election result was partly due to voters thinking the Lib Dems are more relevant to the future than to the recent past. This impression is largely down to Sir Ed’s leadership. Having served as a cabinet minister under David Cameron, he knows how the policy U-turns and support for austerity reinforced a sense of duplicity from which the Lib Dems have only just recovered. Sir Ed sees the realignment of politics as establishing a party system based on two main blocs: one conservative and suspicious of change; the other progressive and innovative. He wants the Lib Dems firmly in the latter camp.
At the election, Sir Ed’s strategy focused on geographically concentrating votes rather than increasing national share. His party’s success vindicated that approach. But it also fundamentally changed the voters the Lib Dem represents. Sir Ed’s party now speaks for five of the 10 richest constituencies in Britain. Almost half of all Lib Dem seats – 33 – are in the UK’s most prosperous decile. Among the 325 least prosperous constituencies, it has just seven MPs. Sir Ed’s focus on the NHS appeals to voters on both left and right, especially former Tories who might switch back in protest over a Labour government.
The Lib Dems were founded not on class or sectional interest but on political values. Sir Ed thinks big ideas remain significant to the party and could give it an advantage over its rivals in the crisis-ridden and polarising conditions of the current era. He is not standing still, putting Sir Keir Starmer on notice that in next May’s local elections, the Lib Dems would be seeking to rebuild in Labour’s urban strongholds in the “big cities like Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle”. Council representation has historically been a platform from which the Lib Dems position themselves as the viable alternative to the incumbent.
Running through his speech was Sir Ed’s idea of a “Liberal Britain”. This is a country where the banks and the wealthy are taxed to pay to fix the NHS, racism is abhorred, not weaponised, the EU single market rejoined and a cordon sanitaire erected around a Donald Trump presidency. The Lib Dem leader is gambling that this is territory that will become politically significant in the coming years and which other parties might struggle to seize. Given the election results, few may be willing to bet against Sir Ed.
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