Triumphant Lib Dems look forward at Brighton conference

19/09/2024
Luca Pavoni, Consultant

Are the Liberal Democrats relevant once more?

For the euphoric members who descended in number to sunny Brighton for their party conference this weekend, the answer is a resounding yes.

After a decade in political exile, confined to a handful of seats and reduced to little more than a pressure group, the Liberal Democrats took the nation by storm at the general election and won 72 seats, primarily from the grasp of ailing Conservative MPs.

It was the best result in the Lib Dems’ history and the most MPs won by any liberal party in the U.K. for more than a century. Even its overjoyed leader, Sir Ed Davey, confessed that it exceeded his highest expectations.

The result was delivered by a combination of targeted and determined local campaigns by the Lib Dems, and an even more driven effort by voters across the country to eject the Tories at any cost. The campaign also benefited from unprecedented airtime in the media thanks to a series of self-deprecating stunts by Davey to garner attention for issues high on his party’s agenda.

Now that they are at heights never seen before, the question for the Lib Dems this conference is: what’s next?

Lib Dems are acutely aware that ‘booting the Tories out’ will no longer work as a winning appeal and they are shifting their lines of attack to the new Labour government. The  Party’s campaign machine was already holding fringe events on how members can take the fight to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

In many ways the Lib Dems’ platform approaching the election was to the left of the Labour Party, particularly on issues such as health and cost-of-living support, and they are continuing this approach into Parliament.

They are already holding the Government’s feet to the fire over its decisions to keep the two-child benefit cap and remove the winter fuel allowance from around 10 million pensioners through a means-tested system. They have also called out Labour for failing to make any mention of carers in both in their manifesto and the King’s Speech, which Davey has been a passionate campaigner about for several years.

The hope at conference was that disillusioned voters who hoped the “change” promised by Labour would be somewhat more positive will start to see the Lib Dems as champions of their causes.

With more parliamentary heft behind them, the Lib Dems agreed at conference that they want to serve as an effective opposition, holding Starmer to account while the Conservatives are too busy embroiled in an internal blame-game. In his leader’s speech, Davey argued that Labour’s doom and gloom politics won’t solve Britain’s problems, and he compared relying on the Conservatives to hold Labour to account as leaving the ‘bull in charge of repairing the china shop’.

Indeed, with more MPs comes more parliamentary levers for the Lib Dems to pull. Now that they are again the third largest party, they gain an extra question at Prime Minister’s Question Time. They will also be heading up two Commons Select Committees – Health and Environment. Finally, they bagged four Private Members’ Bill (PMB) ballots – a lottery for backbenchers to have a chance to put forward their own legislation, in which the Conservatives failed to secure a single ballot.

All this, however, must be put into perspective of the current Parliament. After all, the Lib Dems were not the biggest winners in this election: the Labour landslide means that the Government still outnumbers Lib Dem MPs more than five to one and enjoys a working majority of 167 in the Commons. Cross-party collaboration, therefore, is essential.

The Lib Dems have shown willingness in this sphere, offering to back Labour and offer useful suggestions where their priorities align (e.g. healthcare reform, investment in renewables, tackling sewage). Health Secretary Wes Streeting has already referred to Lib Dem MPs as his ‘72 pen pals’ in the Commons.

The Lib Dems also appreciate that the Government needs to take some tough financial decisions in the upcoming Budget, although they would rather see money raised through alternative policies like reforming the capital gains tax. This is indeed one of the few taxes Labour could raise without breaking its manifesto commitments, indicating the Lib Dems’ readiness to make proposals palatable to the Labour mindset to get things done in Parliament.

As they evaluate whether Labour proposals deserve their support, Lib Dems should also beware that more presence means more scrutiny on their own policies. There are still tripwires in the way of the party’s continued electoral success. For example, how the Lib Dems will square off supporting much-needed development projects on a national scale, while continuing to serve as ‘local champions’ (or, to critics, NIMBYs) to their constituents is yet to be seen. This was a source of some divide at conference between those wishing to back Labour with its planning reforms, and those more wary about defending their slim majorities at the next election.

Europe is also a policy minefield and it remains the Lib Dems’ objectives to re-join the single market and eventually the European Union. Davey has been wise enough not to re-open the Brexit wound, but there is the question of how long party members will allow him to keep delaying this talk.

Moreover, even with 72 MPs the Lib Dems will still need to fight to maintain their place on the airwaves. The consistent coverage of the Tory leadership race, versus the near radio silence on Davey’s leadership speech (bar his rendition of ABBA’s ‘Take a Chance on Me’ picked up by microphones) demonstrate as much.

Despite these challenges, little could take away from the jubilance seen at Brighton over the past few days as the party looks forward to a new era of political relevance. The Lib Dems are clear-eyed in their vision to serve as a capable but constructive opposition to the Government in lieu of the Conservatives. And in doing so, they hope to drive enough of a wedge between themselves and Labour so that they may hold onto voters that may have only lent their votes to oust Rishi Sunak. Whether they are successful, only time will tell.