Lib Dem leader Ed Davey with party president Josh Babarinde and deputy leader Daisy Cooper at the party conference in Brighton (Alamy)

11 min read3 min

As Lib Dem parliamentarians and activists arrived on the south coast at the weekend, they were encouraged to write on a board why they support the party.

“I want to live in a country where every voice and every vote matters.” “Fairness and equality of opportunity.” “I didn’t want to stand by and see our country overtaken by malign actors.” “Honesty, decency, integrity and progressivism.” “Because it doesn’t need to be this shit.”

The range of answers reflected a growing debate within the Lib Dems that was the biggest talking point in Brighton: what, and who, are they for?

The question was putting pressure on leader Ed Davey in the weeks, even months, leading up to the weekend.

On the eve of conference, South Cotswolds MP Roz Savage said publicly what many Lib Dems had been complaining about in private: that their party is “struggling for relevance”. In an essay shared exclusively with PoliticsHome, Savage argued that liberals must “rediscover” their “insurgent spirit”, rather than being “the polite custodians of a system that leaves people feeling powerless”.

Indeed, as Lib Dem direction comes under growing scrutiny, senior party figures told PoliticsHome they had noticed more media attention than they would normally expect at this stage of a Parliament.

Davey has made no secret of his desire to see the Liberal Democrats enter government after the next general election, telling The House in a recent interview that he would be “the most experienced leader” in the event of a hung parliament. 

Faced with criticism, he has pointed to the party’s electoral gains at local level as evidence of success. “We’re winning where it matters: at the ballot box,” he declared in Brighton.

Having won a record 72 MPs in the 2024 general election, the Lib Dems transformed their presence in Westminster. However, in recent months, multiple party figures have expressed frustration with what they describe as failure to capitalise on this success and stagnant polling, and fear that the Lib Dems are failing to cut through in a fragmented political climate. 

Speaking to PoliticsHome at conference, one MP blamed “growing pains”: a Lib Dem central operation that had taken time to catch up with the size of the parliamentary party.

Another MP described this year’s conference as “edgier” than previous years, adding that restlessness with Davey’s leadership was leading to conversations about possible successors: “This one feels edgier about the leadership… The three who would go for it are Lisa Smart, Daisy Cooper and Max Wilkinson. Whether they’d do any better, I don’t know.”

Cooper, the party’s deputy leader, is generally seen as the most obvious potential successor to Davey. She was once widely seen as the natural heir, although that assumption has faded somewhat over the past two years as 2024-intake MPs like Wilkinson, Calum Miller and Josh Babarinde have risen through the ranks.

Babarinde has recently taken on the presidency of the Liberal Democrats for a three-year term, and the expectation among colleagues is that he will see that role through before considering a leadership bid – following a path similar to that taken by former leader Tim Farron.

Smart, who is a close ally of Davey, is seen as a potential continuity candidate, while Miller and Wilkinson are widely viewed as highly competent spokespeople for the party. However, MPs worry that if a leadership change were to happen now, any potential successor would struggle to achieve the same name recognition with the public that Davey has earned through years of campaigning and media stunts. 

Furthermore, while there was chat about Davey’s successor in Brighton, few party figures believe a change in leadership anytime soon is a serious possibility.

While some Lib Dem MPs privately acknowledge frustrations with the party’s progress since the election, many remain relatively comfortable when looking at polling in their own constituencies, which are largely based in former-Conservative voting parts of southern England. An MRP poll carried out by Electoral Calculus in June this year shows the Lib Dems holding steady with 72 seats.

“It’s just not that deep,” one Lib Dem MP joked, arguing that some of the Lib Dem MPs most critical of Davey also “do not have an alternative” to offer.

there is an absence of underlying understanding publicly as to what the party’s purpose is

Advertisement

For now, the party is attempting to project unity and purpose rather than succession politics. Victoria Collins, the MP for Harrow West, described the mood of conference as one of preparation for government.

“The general tone is that we are ambitious, we are going for government, whatever that looks like, and we’re preparing for it,” she said. 

That said, while Davey’s position is still regarded as secure, he is undoubtedly under pressure to clarify the party’s message beyond the so-called “blue wall” seats won at the last election.

In his conference speech on Tuesday, he made a moral case for the Lib Dems, telling the party that it is in a fight for the country’s future against the modern-day far right.

At a panel organised by the Social Liberal Forum (SLF), the SLF chair John Shreeve argued that the Liberal Democrats had become effective campaigners in areas where they already possessed capacity, but struggled to expand that model elsewhere.

“The conclusion that we reach is that there is an absence of underlying understanding publicly as to what the party’s purpose is,” he said. 

“So, are we the best administrators? Well, that’s not going to exactly put us in power. It’s the scale of our delivery which is inadequate. We’re very good at delivering where we have the capacity to do so, but we are very poor at being able to stimulate and lead and inspire.”

Graham Neale, chair of the Green Liberals, agreed. 

“We end up, unfortunately, being sort of just populist bureaucrats,” he said at the panel event.

“‘We can get more for your council tax than this group can, or we would spend it better than that group can…’ We just end up competing to see who can be the best bureaucrats. We’ve really got a series of disconnected ideas here.”

He accused the party of being “timid” on environmental policy, taxation, and its international stance, especially around Gaza.

“We didn’t reap any benefit from our international stance in the way that the Green Party did in Southwark and other places in London.”

Other urban Lib Dems continue to feel that the party remains disproportionately focused on former Conservative territory rather than trying to make progress in some of England’s biggest cities.

Northern Lib Dems in particular are dissatisfied that the party has not done enough to address what they see as a north-south imbalance. One Manchester councillor told PoliticsHome that they had recently invited Davey to an event in the city, but that the leader declined to attend: “He doesn’t care about Manchester.”

The acknowledgement that the lack of cut-through was an issue was probably the most significant first step

Advertisement

Other groups have gripes with the party’s approach. Young Liberals chair Will Tennison argued that the party’s focus on the European Union was misplaced when it comes to winning over younger voters. 

“They’re bored of it,” he said. “It went on too long. We’re ready to move on… The job market almost always comes out on top.”

Tennison, who sits on the party’s federal board, said the party is “aware that the messaging is not up to scratch”. 

“I don’t think they’ve come up with a solution to how to fix it, but I do think it’s really good that we’ve seen an increase in the number of people at HQ that are working in the digital space. So we’ve got more social media admins, we’ve got more people doing influencer stuff. Politics isn’t won on the BBC News anymore, and in the not too distant future, it might very well be won on TikTok.”

One MP said that the party’s problem lies less in the core policies themselves – fixing the social care system, repairing the UK’s relationship with Europe and electoral reform – but more in the communication of how they would actually directly improve people’s lives.

Earlier this year, PoliticsHome reported on a “strategy rethink” inside the party, amid frustration from some MPs about the lack of progress since the general election in breaking into new ground. 

The party has responded to criticisms by overhauling its communications operation, including the appointment of James Holt as political director. Holt previously served as the Liberal Democrats’ director of communications more than 10 years ago, and has returned to the UK in the last few months after working for Prince Harry and Meghan in the US.

“The acknowledgement that the lack of cut-through was an issue was probably the most significant first step,” one MP said.

“Now we’ve got people in place who should be able to help communicate and structure our vision. They won’t be able to do it overnight, but a year ago, there wasn’t even anyone working on it.”

The party has also hired content creators, reflecting a recognition that political communication is increasingly taking place away from traditional media.

There is also a new effort to develop the intellectual infrastructure behind the party.

The Britain Project, a new think tank aiming to “convene and catalyse liberal thinking”, was launched at the conference. Davey welcomed its arrival, arguing that liberalism had lacked a dedicated Westminster think tank for too long.

“There’s been a gap in the market. There hasn’t been a liberal think tank for a long time,” he said.

“You look around Westminster and Whitehall, and there are lots of think tanks there that are supplying ideas for Labour, ideas for the Conservatives, ideas that they try to promote so that they can get policies for government. The fact that we haven’t had a think tank focused on liberalism, sharing our values, has been a real gap.”

But Davey also insisted that the organisation should not simply become a policy arm of the party.

“While we share those values, we need you to come up with ideas that I occasionally disagree with, because we need you to challenge not just me, but challenge the whole party.

“When you do come up with ideas – whether we agree with them or not – the fact that we can add them to our debate, that they can challenge us, challenge the party, is a really good thing, because that challenge, as we know, as liberals, makes those ideas better.”

If you are as close to power as we may be, you need to be serious about it

The think tank’s policy director, Lib Dem peer Lord Leunig, went further, saying his ambition was to become unpopular within his own party if that was what was required to improve its policymaking.

“My ambition is to be the least popular person in our party,” he said.

“But to be a good minister you actually have to have policies that work, and I can tell you that our party, just like all other parties… can be guilty of ‘convenientism’ – believing that what can be convenient is true – and I tell you that is not always the case.”

He later added: “We are not soft people. This is serious stuff. Because you know what? If you are as close to power as we may be, you need to be serious about it.”

Davey has hinted at a willingness to work with Labour. He has refused to completely rule out a coalition with the Conservatives, but suggested that a coalition with the Tory party in its current form under the leadership of Kemi Badenoch would be highly unlikely. One senior Lib Dem told PoliticsHome the party would never consider joining a government that wanted to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

The MP suggested that, if coalition negotiations did eventually arise, the party should publicly identify three issues on which it would refuse to compromise: energy policy, Europe and electoral reform.

The Lib Dems feel confident that they will be a significant player come the next general election – whether it happens at the expected time or if Burnham calls an election early. 

However, their own activists and MPs are still embroiled in debates about what the party’s broader purpose should be, who it should speak to, and how it can translate a collection of familiar liberal causes into a proposition that voters across the country can understand.

The SLF panellists were asked to sum up what the Lib Dems were for in just a few words. Chris Bowers, coordinator of the Yorkists group, was the only panellist to offer an answer, which placed the Lib Dems in contrast with the other political parties on the ballot box.

“We’re better than this.”

Reviewers say it’s helped them stay focused and boosts energy

Why do some researchers no longer see dementia as untreatable?

1) New drugs have been shown to slow dementia

2) Dementia research is booming

3) Scientists are looking at new ways to diagnose dementia

4) We’re learning more about how to prevent dementia through lifestyle choices

5) Trials are trying out new uses for old, approved medications

6) Experts are learning to attack dementia from multiple angles at once

Wes Streeting has said the government’s deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is not good enough unless it wins the backing of the United States.

Streeting, who sat in the cabinet that signed off on the agreement, said he stood by the decision but acknowledged that the United States had withdrawn its support for the deal. 

The defence secretary, speaking to Sky News on Wednesday morning, said: “I was a member of the cabinet that agreed the deal with the government of Mauritius, and I stand by the decision that was taken, I’m not going to try to absolve myself of it now.

“But at the same time, the principle we followed all the way through is that it needs to have the support of the Americans. So objectively, in the absence of support from the Americans, is this deal good enough? No. It needs to have the support of the Americans.”

He said talks would continue until all three governments were aligned. “We will work together to get to a point where both the governments of Mauritius and the UK, but also the Americans, can sign up to this – because Diego Garcia is extremely important to the Americans as well as to us and our collective security. 

“So the objective here is to safeguard that base and its capability, not just now, but for the long term, because it’s that important to us.”

Under the deal, first agreed during Keir Starmer’s tenure as prime minister in 2025, Britain would cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius while retaining control of the Diego Garcia military base – jointly run with the US – under a 99-year lease. 

Since the deal was confirmed, ministers have consistently argued that the arrangement was designed to secure the base’s long-term future.

But the support of the United States, a crucial component of the arrangement, has proved difficult to secure. US president Donald Trump initially backed the agreement has now reversed course. 

Trump was asked about the deal during his first face-to-face meeting with Andy Burnham on Tuesday. Speaking in the margins of the UN General Assembly, Trump described the deal as “terrible” and said the UK was “going to be looking” at it.

Streeting has now confirmed that the UK government will review the deal. 

He told BBC Breakfast: “What President Trump said yesterday wasn’t new but I think it does provide absolute clarity that his position on this Chagos deal as currently drafted is not changing.

“So we have to do more work with our American allies, with President Trump and his administration, to get the deal to a place where he can support it.”

The comments come after Labour MP Dan Carden told Politics.co.uk that the Chagos deal was “disastrous”. 

He said: “I’m still amazed that so few Labour MPs have had anything to say about it. I just say to any of them, go meet one of your constituents, try and explain the Chagos deal to them, and see how it goes down.

“For me, that’s what politics is – to see whether people understand what you’re doing and why you’re there.”

Carden, the former chair of the influential Blue Labour group, added: “We need to look at how we actually give the territories a stake in parliament and a stake in government. 

“So I hope Andy is capable of doing that, and I have some hope that he will look at the disastrous Chagos deal and drop it, and look to do something different – because he’s got the ability and the capacity to do that.”

A poll can tell us a great deal about public opinion. It can also tell us a great deal about the person paying for it. When polling makes the news, the first question should not be what it says, but who commissioned it.

Earlier this month we saw just how easily that rule bends. Three polls commissioned for Reform UK ran on the front pages of the Times and the Telegraph, and readers of neither paper were told who was behind them. The British Polling Council, which set the rule, says it was clearly broken.

We have since seen how the bending of the rules goes beyond one firm and one party. In one example in 2023 the Liberal Democrats had Savanta ask voters who was to blame for the state of the country, with six answers on offer: three Conservative prime ministers, the Conservative Party, the pandemic or the war in Ukraine. The results were briefed to the Observer although Savanta did not publish the tables confirming the client, the sample and the full wording until they were asked this month.

Nobody disputes the arithmetic. What was withheld, in each case, was vital information the reader needs to judge it.

Polling reaches the public with an authority other forms of communication – political or otherwise – lack. A poll is read as the voice of the public. That authority is why polling wins coverage and why the rules around it exist. A poll built to make a case, and published with its client hidden, puts an organisation’s – be it a political party, trade association, or business – argument in the public’s mouth.

The public deserves better because, at its best, polling can set the news agenda and inform public opinion in a timescale that few other forms of communication can. Its value is in its independence. Once that independence is compromised by hiding the workings behind it, it can become misleading.

Every such case teaches the public that something presented as a measure of their opinion can also be a vehicle for someone else’s argument. Once that distinction disappears, trust in the measurement goes along with it. The Reuters Institute’s 2026 Digital News Report puts trust in news in Britain at 30%, down five points in a year, while AI and industrial-scale disinformation have made it harder for the public to discern truth from fiction. A democracy runs on trust, and trust in Britain is already teetering under immense strain. It cannot afford to lose one of the few instruments that still earns it.

Polling belongs in the same conversation as lobbying, donations, and the revolving door between business and politics because while, when done ethically, each can positively contribute to society, they can also exert political influence while obscuring who is doing the influencing.

In July, the Ethics and Integrity Commission recommended a register of all lobbying activity, on the principle that influence should be visible to the people who will bear the brunt of its effects. Polling should be held to the same principle.

Transparency leaves every party free to make its case. A poll hiding its client is political advocacy with the workings concealed, and if polling is to keep the authority it has borrowed from the public, the public must be allowed to see who is doing the borrowing.

Credit: Adobe Stock

The Hunting Act is one of the landmark animal welfare measures of the last Labour government. Labour itself celebrated the achievement: at its 2006 conference, the party showed a film entitled “50 Reasons to be Proud of Labour”, which included the declaration, “We’ve banned fox hunting.”

Twenty years on, hunting has not disappeared. Foxes are still chased by packs of hounds; deer are still pursued to exhaustion; animals are still torn apart at the end of a chase. Trail hunting emerged after the act as a purported alternative in which hounds follow a pre-laid animal-based scent. Chief Superintendent Matt Longman, national lead on fox hunting crime, has described trail hunting as a “smokescreen for ille­gal fox hunting” and illegal hunting as “prolific”. Other exemptions and weaknesses in the law provide big loopholes and make enforcement difficult.

That is why banning trail hunting, while essential, cannot be the end of the job. The law also needs to address reckless or so-called accidental hunting, remove exploitable exemp­tions, strengthen responsibility for those organising hunts and controlling hounds, and provide penalties that deter offending.

There is a democratic mandate for action. Labour’s 2024 manifesto committed to banning trail hunting, a commit­ment subsequently reiterated in the government’s Animal Welfare Strategy. The government has now consulted on how to deliver it.

It is also popular. Polling found 62 per cent of people in England and Wales believe trail hunting should be illegal. In rural areas, 58 per cent support and only 28 per cent oppose a ban, challenging the familiar suggestion that this is a town-versus-country divide. For Labour politicians wondering how this plays beyond Westminster, there is another striking figure. Polling found that 76 per cent of the public backed strengthening hunting laws,3 suggesting the policy would pass the so-called ‘Makerfield test’.

For a charity that has campaigned against hunting for over a century, this is not about party politics. We work across polit­ical parties and want every government to protect animals from being chased and killed for sport. But Labour’s history on this issue is significant. In September 2004, 318 Labour MPs voted for the Hunting Bill with only three against; and, when resistance in the Lords threatened its passage, the Parliament Acts were ultimately used to secure it.

Now Labour has an opportunity to complete that work. Twenty years of experience have shown where the Hunting Act can be exploited, and its 2024 manifesto recognised unfin­ished business. The consultation has created a route towards reform; the next step must be legislation that deals with the weaknesses comprehensively.

There is good reason not to wait. Parliamentary time is finite and legislative programmes become more crowded as a parliament progresses. Strengthening the act still needs a legislative vehicle and enough time to complete its passage. Delay carries a real risk that an overwhelmingly popular manifesto commitment simply runs out of parliamentary road.

The consultation response hoped for this autumn must be followed by strong, comprehen­sive legislation at the earliest opportunity: legislation that bans trail hunting, closes the loopholes that enable hunting to continue and gives police and prosecutors a law they can enforce effectively.

Labour once proudly said it had banned hunting. The opportunity now is to finish the job.