Liberal Democrats have been looking forward all summer to Sir Ed Davey’s party conference speech. For months, Nigel Farage’s Cheshire cat grin has been a fixture of British politics, as his bunch of merry men have run rings around the Labour government. In No. 10, Keir Starmer and his aides appear baffled and bemused, unable to stop the boats or fix this country’s ails. Reform’s polling has soared to record levels as the public mood hardens on migration, asylum and security. Much of the Westminster elite have been in despair, enraged by what they see as Starmer’s cowardly unwillingness to check the rise of Reform UK. Today, it was a different knight who answered their prayers and delivered a full-frontal attack on Farage that will have the progressive pundits cheering.
Davey’s speech was the most no-holds-barred assault on Reform since the general election. The word ‘Farage’ featured 30 times in Davey’s speech, compared to just three references to the party which he leads. For all his fabled stunts and affable image, Sir Ed showed why his party is often regarded by rivals as the hardest campaigners of all. The vision he painted of ‘Farage’s Britain’ had echoes of Ted Kennedy’s speech on ‘Robert Bork’s America’ – a retrograde dystopia of antediluvian attitudes and imported American evils. ‘The Trump-inspired country Farage wants us to become’ said Davey, would have no ‘NHS’ and ‘gun laws rolled back – so schools have to teach our children what to do in case of a mass shooting.’ In ‘Farage’s Britain’, ‘racism and misogyny’ would ‘get the tacit support of people in power’ and the ‘unconstrained’ government ‘tramples on our basic rights and freedoms.’
It was personal, punchy and, at times, puerile. But for a party that is looking for relevance, the rise of Reform offers a new raison d’être. With Labour seemingly paralysed on how best to attack Reform, Davey has decided that aggressive attack – sometimes below the belt – offers a way of rallying former Starmer voters to his cause. The conference hall loved it: a reflection of the chatter in the bars of Bournemouth these past four days.
Last year, all the talk was about the respective merits, or lack thereof, of Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick. As the Tories have receded in public prominence, so too have the Liberals now directed their focus elsewhere.
It is far too soon to declare with confidence what issues on which the next general election is likely to be fought. But if it is to be around Nigel Farage, Ed Davey has drawn his line in the sand early on.
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