FTI Consulting Public Affairs Snapshot: The Bournemouth Identity: Who are Ed Davey’s Lib Dems?

Riding on their winning streak of by-election victories, the Lib Dem faithful flocked to the Bournemouth promenade with a spring in their step. Their optimism was met by a determination among Ed Davey’s team to harness his party’s resources to exploit the Conservative polling slump. But Davey knows that the sole measure of success in 2024 will be how many more seats they can capture after the next election.

But why should anyone outside of the orange bubble pay attention? While both the Conservatives and Labour seek only outright majorities, polling indicates that a hung Parliament is far from impossible. With Lib Dem strategists hopeful of doubling their 15 MPs, they may find themselves once again kingmakers in Westminster. Little wonder, then, as to the renewed presence of businesses and lobby groups at the conference to find out what policies Davey & Co have up their sleeves.  

Repeatedly ruling out any form of a post-election agreement with the Conservatives, Davey is keeping his options open on Labour. On Monday, he told the media that his party could “play a critical role” in removing the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, from power. It is a potential alliance that the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, will be doing everything to ignore.

Beneath the banners of ‘cost of living’, ‘accessible health care’, and ‘clean water’, the party’s 2024 campaign is set to be hyper-local in character, replicating the winning elements of their grassroots-driven by-election successes. Gone is the hubristic strategy of 2019, when limited resources were expended on a futile fight to wrest control of the national narrative from the Conservatives and Labour. Winning over disaffected home-counties voters willing to vote tactically to eject Sunak from Downing Street is the priority, and the policies announced this weekend are designed with that objective in mind.

Some of the pledges were predictable, from the commitment to the pensions triple lock and plans to prevent water companies from polluting rivers, to the guarantee of a GP appointment within seven days and calls for proportional representation electoral reform. But, in addition to this, the party dropped its long-standing pledge to add a penny on income tax, demonstrating a sharp focus on electoral success above ideology. There were even plans to commit to a 380,000 per year housing target before this was quashed by a vote of party members.

From the conference hall, Davey repeatedly drummed the party’s strategy to turn the Blue Wall into “former Tory heartlands”, even declaring the West Country a “second front”. Here, according to Davey, lies the economy of the future, built around green technologies, including tidal power, clean flight, and high-speed rail. However, it was on the NHS that Davey was his most scolding, stating that ballot papers should come with a printed warning that “voting Conservative is bad for your health”, while promising a new action plan on cancer, on top of a £5 billion social care plan.

One issue, however, continued to gnaw away. If the story of the Lib Dems since 2015 has been anything, it has been unashamedly pro-European. In 2019, they could even have stood accused of being a single-issue party. But Brexit, it seems, really is done. Davey was clear that the national conversation has, for now, moved on and that any call to re-join the EU at the moment is firmly “off the table”. Improving Britain’s relationship with Brussels now forms the party’s immediate ambition, with an eventual goal to re-join the single market.

And there lies the square that Davey must circle. Appealing to Conservative voters risks being at odds with the party’s base – the very people that Davey needs on the streets to take the fight to Sunak. Added to all of this was veteran pollster Sir John Curtice’s statement that reticence on the EU may be losing the Lib Dems votes to Labour, yet another factor that will make the party’s task to rebuild electorally even harder.

As the first of this year’s party conferences draws to a close, the Liberal Democrats are feeling more driven than ever to exploit the Government’s woes. However, the road to polling day will be long, which makes a return to the party’s natural position as a home for the protest vote a sensible one. And while Keir Starmer will do everything to exploit all of the benefits from anti-Conservative sentiment, there are plenty of Conservative seats that only the Lib Dems are well positioned to flip. So, beware the kingmaker; the Liberal Democrats could yet find themselves very relevant indeed.