Can the Liberal Democrats become relevant again?

With neither the Conservatives nor the Labour party keen to talk publicly at least about softening Brexit, is there a gap in the market for an unashamedly pro-EU party? This is – once again – the hope of the Liberal Democrats. Speaking in York on Sunday at their first in-person party conference since the pandemic, Ed Davey played to the Europhile base – describing Brexit as ‘the elephant in the room of British politics’.

‘Let me shout it, yet again,’ Davey said, ‘if you want to boost our economy, you have to repair our broken relationship with Europe.’ He had barely finished his sentence before the crowd was on its feet in a standing ovation, clapping, cheering and stamping their feet for over a minute. The EU clearly still sits firmly in the mind of members: among the merchandise available in the conference gift shop was Christopher Bartram’s tome Brexit: What the Hell Happened.

Davey – who came onto the conference stage to the song ‘High Hopes’ by Panic! At the Disco – argued that his party would say things the two main parties are too scared to when it comes to the effect of leaving the EU on trade. However, even he stopped short of actually calling for the UK to rejoin the EU, instead saying his party would pursue a closer relationship with Brussels. In 2019, his party included a pledge to ‘stop Brexit’.

The atmosphere at the first in-person conference since the Liberal Democrats hit an all time low when then leader Jo Swinson lost her own seat in the 2019 election was unmistakably optimistic and chipper. The membership was buoyed by the party’s success at recent by-elections: in the past two years, the party has claimed three seats from the Conservatives in Chesham and Amersham, North Shropshire and Tiverton and Honiton. The Chesham and Amersham by-election was the first time the Lib Dems had won the seat; Tiverton and Honiton represented the largest majority ever overturned by a by-election with the Tories’ nearly 25,000-strong majority trumped. One member I spoke to called this conference a ‘reset’ for the party. 

But with Labour currently expected to win big and the Tory Lib Dem bogeyman of Boris Johnson no longer in the picture, is the party struggling again to find relevance? In last year’s by-elections that saw the Lib Dems repeatedly turn Tory safe seats yellow, the party heavily attacked Johnson and later Liz Truss.

Keeping with tradition, a good portion of Davey’s speech was devoted to lambasting the Tories on their time in government. They were, Davey said, ‘pig-headed and pie-eyed’. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak all came into his firing line: ‘When we needed a gallant crew on the bridge to steer our great British ship through choppy waters, we’ve instead had a bunch of mutinous pirates, only interested in who got to wear the captain’s hat.’ He also included special mentions for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and deputy Tory party chairman Lee Anderson: the Conservatives were not just ‘out of touch – they are on another planet’. 

With Truss seemingly still in his head, Davey’s message was that the Lib Dems could successfully show Sunak and the Conservatives the door. So much so, that earlier in the weekend a bright blue door daubed with ‘It’s time to show Truss the door’ was wheeled onto the conference stage. Davey mounted the stage with a huge sticker bearing Sunak’s name and, to the sound of loud cheering, proceeded to slap it on top of Truss’s. The door was then proudly displayed in the conference exhibition room for the rest of the weekend. 

But with Sunak now in No. 10 and polling suggesting that he fares better than his predecessors with Blue Wall voters, could these messages now pack less punch? Richard Foord, the Liberal Democrat MP who overturned the Conservatives’ huge majority in the Devon constituency of Tiverton and Honiton at the height of the partygate scandal last year, insists that Sunak does not pose a threat to his voter base. ‘We can be fairly optimistic that those people who switched away from the Conservatives last June aren’t about to snap back to voting Tory again,’ he said.

There was also criticism at the conference for Labour. Branding them ambitionless, Davey claimed Labour’s ‘only goal seems to be: “Not as bad as the Conservatives”’. A best case scenario at the next election for Davey would be a situation whereby Labour fell short of an outright majority and had to be propped up by Lib Dem votes. That could suddenly give Davey’s party influence over the UK’s relationship with the EU and more.

But the biggest change the Liberal Democrats could bring in in such a scenario would be the voting system. Davey used his speech to confirm that his ambition to move the country away from a ‘first past the post electoral system to one of proportional representation remains. ‘We will make it happen,’ Davey insisted. It’s a prospect that worries Tory MPs – fearing it would make a Conservative majority in the future nigh on impossible. It’s why some Tories would prefer a small Labour majority to a hung parliament.