The Lib Dems are Labour’s last best hope for staying in power after the next election

A friend of mine recalls attending a Conservative gathering in the 1970s with Lord Thorneycroft, who was the Conservative Party Chairman at the time. Lady Thorneycroft was also there and asked how it was going. My friend explained that he was from a part of Devon where the Liberal Party made a breakthrough and, once established, proved difficult to dislodge. Lady Thorneycroft replied:

“Yes. They are like ground elder, aren’t they?”

It is important to face up to the challenge.

The Lib Dems are Labour’s last best hope for staying in power after the next election. It is hard to envisage Labour winning the next election with an overall majority. Much more plausible is that the Lib Dems serve as a Labour-saving device.

The Lib Dems have 72 MPs – often in affluent areas, in such counties as Surrey, Wiltshire or Dorset. Constituencies which were traditionally safely Conservative but where the Conservatives were edged out last year, partly due to Labour supporters giving the Lib Dem candidates tactical votes. Some of these new Lib Dem MPs look and sound like Conservatives. Softly spoken, well-groomed. They might have served in the armed forces or run small businesses. Not like the “beards and sandals brigade” seen at Liberal conferences in previous decades.

The new breed still has left-wing views, of course, but there is discretion about expressing them. You can envisage them attending village fetes, stressing local issues and their role as “community champions.” There will be some ideological flexibility. If they represent farmers, then they will be keen to make clear they oppose Labour clobbering them with Inheritance Tax.

Perhaps the Lib Dems will gain even more seats. They got 12 per cent of the vote at the last election and most opinion polls show them having nudged up a bit with the Conservatives having slipped back. Would Jeremy Hunt be able to see them off again in Godalming and Ash? Or Damian Hinds manage to do so in Hampshire East? If we had 80 or 90 Lib Dem MPs in 2029 to help get Labour over the line, then that might be enough. A full “coalition of chaos” could help the Parliamentary arithmetic even more, with the Scottish Nationalists being offered some sort of deal.

It’s not as if the Lib Dems can pretend they would do otherwise. Before the last election, Sir Ed Davey told the New Statesman that the Conservatives are an “anathema” and ruled out any deal with them. But he was full of praise for Sir Keir Starmer, adding that “we’re not fighting each other.”

There is quite a bit of student union stuff from the Lib Dems. Sir Ed has said that “quite clearly a woman can have a penis.” Even after this year’s Supreme Court ruling that “sex” refers to biological sex, he stuck to the “trans women are women” mantra. He boycotted the banquet during the state visit for Donald Trump. As Robert Hardman noted in The Spectator:

“In recent years, Lib Dem leaders have gladly attended state banquets for, among others, Vladimir Putin, Robert Mugabe and three Chinese presidents. Most liberal-minded of all was David Steel, who not only dined with Nicolae Ceausescu in 1978 but presented the Romanian psychopath with a labrador puppy called Gladstone. Ceausescu renamed the dog Corbu and gave him the honorary rank of colonel.”

When Sir Robbie Gibb raised some concerns about lapses in the BBC editorial standards, Sir Ed decided the best response would be to sack Sir Robbie from the BBC board.

The Lib Dems like to position themselves as slightly to the Left of where Labour happen to be on any given issue at any given time. Gaza. Net zero. Whatever it is. Thus when Sir Ed was interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC yesterday, he made clear he would like to hand over more power to the EU than Labour had agreed to. For instance, he wanted us to rejoin the EU customs union, surrendering an independent trade policy. He also wants us to rejoin the Single Market. But he doesn’t want us to rejoin the EU itself. So we would be a colony – having laws imposed on us and paying billions a year for the privilege. Earlier in the interview Sir Ed said he had “some concerns” over Labour’s plans to take a tougher line on illegal immigration.

What about taxation? Kuenssberg listed some of sectors where tax increases were proposed by the Lib Dems, adding:

“Is there anything that you see and you don’t want to slap a tax on?”

Sir Ed replied:

“We are being very frank with people is, yes, we need to pay for our services, but let’s do it in a fair way.”

At least Rachel Reeves seems to regret yet further tax rises. Sir Ed regards it as a cause for celebration –  way of punishing any “sectors” that still have the temerity to make a profit.

The Lib Dems have escaped scrutiny by being modest about their electoral prospects. Sir Ed has avoided the “preparing for Government” boasts of some of his predecessors such as Jo Swinson or David Steel. I’m not going to suggest that Sir Ed’s funfair stunts represent strategic political genius. Yet the message that they should not be taken too seriously does give them certain advantages. The water slide is Sir Ed’s dead cat. He was able to get away with making endless demands for people to resign over all sorts of matters. But he refused to resign when his terrible failings as postal affairs minister in the Colaition Government over the Horizon scandal were exposed.

There is not much sign of the media dynamic changing for the Lib Dems. The public appetite for interrogating all the Lib Dem muddles and hypocrisies is decidedly limited. However, they are still vulnerable. They are in a trap. The mood of an increasingly angry electorate will be to throw Labour out. Yet, Lib Dem MPs are dependent on retaining tactical votes from Labour supporters.  So the Lib Dems can’t deny that they would side with Labour in a hung Parliament. Though they probably won’t want to talk about it much. Like the boy skulking at the back of the class avoiding eye contact hoping not to be called by the teacher.

So let the message go out from Norfolk North, to Newbury, to Newton Abbot. To throw Labour out of Government you must throw out your Lib Dem MP.

Let Sir Ed try and deny it.