Sir Ed Davey challenges Lib Dems to ‘tear down’ Tory ‘blue wall’ to help oust PM
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has challenged his party to “tear down” the Conservatives’ “blue wall” in order to help oust Boris Johnson from Downing Street.
In his keynote address at the Liberal Democrat conference on Sunday, Sir Ed said the Tories would only lose power at the next election if his party took seats off them.
“Make no mistake: the electoral arithmetic is clear,” he said. “These Conservatives can’t be defeated next time unless we Liberal Democrats win Tory seats.”
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Chesham and Amersham: Tories lose seat for first time in 47 years
Sir Ed pointed to his party’s recent victory at June’s by-election in Chesham and Amersham – when they took the constituency from the Conservatives – as showing how “even in deepest, bluest Buckinghamshire the Tories can be beaten”.
“In Chesham and Amersham, we knocked out one blue brick; now it’s up to us to tear it down,” he added.
In a series of attacks on Mr Johnson and his government, Sir Ed claimed that many in traditionally Conservative-supporting areas “just don’t feel that Boris Johnson represents them, or shares their values”.
“They’re not convinced the prime minister is competent – or worse still, decent,” he added.
And he said people who had voted Tory all their lives “now feel completely let down” and “betrayed”.
The Lib Dem leader launched a series of attacks on Boris Johnson and his government
Sir Ed said part of the reason for Lib Dem success in Chesham and Amersham was a “groundswell of frustration and discontent from people who feel ignored and taken for granted by this Conservative government”.
He appeared in front of around 150 people in London’s Canary Wharf in his first leader’s speech in front of a live audience, although most of the Lib Dem conference has been held online.
Sir Ed attacked the Tories’ cuts to Universal Credit, the reduction in the UK’s foreign aid budget, Conservative immigration policies and the government’s handling of the Afghanistan crisis.
And he also took aim at new Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, whose Esher and Walton constituency is one of the Lib Dems’ key targets ahead of the next election.
Sir Ed joked that the former foreign secretary – who was widely criticised for being in Greece as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban – only accepted his three new jobs at last week’s cabinet reshuffle “on the basis that three jobs would come with three times the holiday entitlement”.
The Lib Dem leader accused Mr Johnson of “steering us all into another terrible crisis” – after Brexit and COVID-19 – as UK businesses suffer supply issues and labour shortages.
He claimed ministers had “ignored all the warnings” about the government’s Brexit deal and new immigration rules.
And Sir Ed quipped: “To be fair, this is one time Boris Johnson has actually delivered; he said he wanted to ‘f*** business’, and he has well and truly f***** them.”
He called on his party to think back to 1992, when the Tories last won a fourth term in office, to remember how then Lib Dem leader, the late Paddy Ashdown, called for the party to “be the catalyst, the gathering point for a broader movement dedicated to winning the battle of ideas which will give Britain an electable alternative to Conservative government”.
Lib Dems were urged to heed the past call of their former leader Paddy Ashdown
“That was the role of the Liberal Democrats then and it is the role of the Liberal Democrats today,” Sir Ed said.
“Boris Johnson is not a prime Minister worthy of our great United Kingdom. His Conservatives are not a government worthy of the British people.
“This prime minister and these Conservatives have got to go.”
Although the Lib Dems and Labour discussed a coalition of their parties prior to the 1997 general election, Sir Ed has recently said he is “very sceptical” of a possible deal between current opposition parties.
Outlining his “fair deal” offer to British voters ahead of the next election in his speech, Sir Ed outlined commitments on climate change – such as banning new oil, gas and coal companies from the London Stock Exchange – as well as plans to replace business rates with a land tax and a proposal to allow unpaid carers and those they care for to have their own care budget.
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In the major policy announcement of his speech, Sir Ed called for the government to match what their own education adviser, Sir Kevan Collins, urged ministers to do and put at least £15bn into a post-pandemic catch-up fund for pupils.
He said schools should be able to spend the cash “as they see best”, while the Lib Dems have proposed that £5bn of the money over a three-year programme should be handed to parents in the form of catch-up vouchers.
“Parents could choose to spend it with their child’s own school – on an after-school homework club, on one-to-one tuition, on special extra-curricular activities from sports to music lessons, provided for that child by their school,” he said.
“Or parents could choose to spend it on tuition they organise. Or with a music teacher they find. Or on therapy and counselling.
“As long as it was supporting the education and well-being of their child, it would be the parents’ choice.”
British voters are in for a relatively untroubled 2025, after the “Year of Elections” which saw a new government in the UK and major upheavals around the world, including the victory of Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated as US president for the second time on 20 January.
In all likelihood, Sir Keir Starmer needs not go to the polls for some four and a half years, thanks to the huge Commons majority Labour won last July.
August 2029 is the deadline for the next UK general election, by which time the second Trump administration will have been and gone.
The next elections for the Scottish parliament and the assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland are not due until 27 May 2026.
All of which means slim pickings for those trying to glean the political mood of the UK and a much greater focus than usual this year on what little voting is due to take place: English councils on 1 May. Making detailed sense of the picture will be a tough task for two vital reasons.
Comparisons with the last local elections in the same places in May 2021 will be tricky because the government’s English Devolution Bill has given some areas the chance to opt out of elections this year if they are likely to become part of the proposed combined single-tier “Strategic Authorities”.
Secondly, in 2021 the state of the parties in contention was very different. There was no Reform UK party, and none of its predecessor Brexit or UKIP parties to speak of. Boris Johnson’s Conservatives were riding high. The Tories made big gains at council level, while Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens stalled.
The political map has been transformed since then. Today there are five Reform UK MPs at Westminster, four Greens and a record 72 Liberal Democrats.
The standard question in opinion polls is: “How would you vote if there were to be a general election tomorrow?”.
We all know there is not going to be one for years.
Besides, as beleaguered politicians always like to point out when the news is bad, even when one was imminent in 2024, the polls did not precisely reflect what happened with “real votes in real ballot boxes”.
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Picture is not cheering for established parties
What the polls do give is a broad indication of the trend in opinion, and the picture is not cheering for the established parties.
Labour and the Conservatives are neck-and-neck in the mid-20% range, an astonishingly low level of support for either of them.
Reform UK is only about five points behind, clearly the current third force in British politics and well up on their 14% at the general election.
The Liberal Democrats, at around 12% and the Greens at 6% are more or less holding their vote share.
Sir Keir Starmer. Pic: PA
Can Reform and Farage keep up momentum?
The big question in the 2025 local elections is whether Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage can keep up their momentum.
On the face of it the party seems well placed to make a splash. Because it is starting from zero – any council seats it wins will count as gains.
Reform UK has reorganised since the general election and is now trying to establish a competitive grassroots operation.
Nigel Farage speaking at a Donald Trump campaign event in Arizona in 2020. Pic: Reuters
Funding does not seem to be a problem. Zia Yusuf, a multi-millionaire former Goldman Sachs banker, has taken over as party chairman.
The property magnate Nick Candy, Reform UK’s new treasurer, was in the group that met Elon Musk at Mr Trump’s Mar-e-Largo headquarters. Afterwards Mr Farage downplayed reports Mr Musk might be prepared to donate as much as $100m (£79m) to his party.
Nigel Farage and Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy with Elon Musk. Pic: PA
Reform is splitting the right-of-centre vote
Reform UK claimed last week to have several thousand more members registered than the Conservative Party’s official figure of 131,680 – a ticker on their official website is keeping count.
The party is currently splitting the vote on the right of centre with the Conservative Party as its prime target. The strong Tory performance in these areas last time leaves them looking highly vulnerable.
In 2021, the Conservatives won control of 19 out of 21 county councils and seven of 13 unitary authorities. In subsequent local elections in other areas the Conservatives suffered heavy losses, meaning overall they are now behind Labour for the total number of councillors. This year the Tories are defending their last remaining electoral high point.
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Tories don’t know whether to fight or accommodate Reform
Mr Farage is the outstanding communicator active in British politics, who has frequently exploited non-Westminster elections to exert pressure on the UK government, most notably in the 2014 and 2019 European elections, when strong performances drove the Conservatives first to the EU membership referendum and then to a hard Brexit.
The Conservatives do not know whether to fight or try to accommodate Reform UK.
Should Reform hammer them in this year’s council elections, it could be the end for Kemi Badenoch’s leadership. In the longer run it is conceivable Reform could supplant the Conservatives – or take them over by merger – as the main political force on the right of British politics.
Kemi Badenoch. Pic: PA
Reform also targeting Labour voters
There is also a Reform UK threat to Labour as well.
So far Labour has dominated the new strategic mayoralities and combined authorities in England. They currently hold all four of those up for election in May 2025: West of England, Cambridgeshire, Doncaster and North Tyneside. Two more mayors are being voted for this year in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire.
While socially right-wing, Reform UK is tailoring its economic message to the less well-off, including to populations in the so-called “Red Wall”, de-industrialised areas of the country which were once safe Labour constituencies. For example, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the former Conservative MP and minister, is now Reform’s candidate to be the new mayor of Greater Lincolnshire.
Unlike the two main parties, Reform has a straightforward policy on the threatened Scunthorpe steelworks – nationalise it. It has obvious appeal even though there is no chance Dame Andrea could enact it.
A disappointment for Farage would not be the end of the insurgency
Voters are more inclined to vote with their hearts when the national government is not at issue. One of Sir Keir’s nightmares must be that the devolution this government is spreading across England starts to light up in colours other than red.
It is certainly possible this year’s council election results could be a major disappointment for Mr Farage’s party. If so it will not be the end of the insurgency. Reform UK is already also making plans to inflict damage on Conservatives, Labour and SNP alike in the next set of non-Westminster elections, in 2027, in Scotland and Wales.
2025’s comparatively minor elections are set to have major political consequences at the very least for Mr Farage, Ms Badenoch and the Conservative Party.
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