Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has launched a scathing attack on Reform UK and Nigel Farage, warning delegates at his party’s Spring Conference in Harrogate that Britain faces a choice between “real change” and becoming a “Trump tribute act” under a potential Reform government.
Speaking to a packed auditorium at the Harrogate Convention Centre on Sunday, 23 March, Davey painted a dystopian picture of what he claimed Britain would look like under Reform UK leadership, warning of privatised healthcare, environmental destruction, weakened gun control laws, and the trampling of basic rights and freedoms.
“Trump’s America. Don’t let it become Farage’s Britain,” Davey declared to applause from delegates at the conference, which marked the party’s first gathering since securing a historic 72 seats at the 2024 general election.
The Lib Dem leader’s comments come as his party seeks to position itself as the primary opposition to both Labour and Reform UK, with recent polling showing Reform UK consistently leading both Labour and the Conservatives by around ten points. Despite this, Davey’s Liberal Democrats hold 72 parliamentary seats compared to Reform’s five MPs.
In his most controversial claim, Davey suggested that gun control laws would be “rolled back” under Reform UK and that schools would “have to teach our children what to do in case of a mass shooting.” Reform UK has strongly denied this is one of their policies, with the party never having advocated for relaxing Britain’s strict gun laws, which were tightened following the 1996 Dunblane massacre.
Britain has not experienced a school shooting since the Dunblane tragedy, which led to the near-total ban on private handgun ownership. The UK sees approximately 30 gun deaths annually across England, Scotland and Wales combined, compared to more than 19,000 firearm murders in the United States in 2020.
Davey also claimed a Farage government would see healthcare privatised, leaving people with “crippling insurance bills” or completely untreated. The Reform UK leader has previously expressed support for insurance-based healthcare models and stated he is “open to anything” regarding the NHS’s future, including privatisation, though these views have been less prominent in recent years.
The Liberal Democrat leader accused Farage of wanting to turn Britain into “little more than a Donald Trump tribute act,” highlighting the Reform UK leader’s self-declared admiration for the US President. He has said it himself: he sees Trump as his inspiration,” Davey told the conference.
Turning his fire on the Labour government, Davey declared that Keir Starmer’s administration had become “Continuity Sunak,” claiming they had “no vision for our country’s future” and had “lurched from mistake to mistake, from U-turn to U-turn, crisis to crisis.
“I really hoped Labour would prove us wrong. But they haven’t,” Davey said, citing what he described as harm to “pensioners, farmers, carers, disabled people, and small businesses” under the current government.
The speech marked a significant shift in tone for the Liberal Democrats, who have traditionally focused on local issues, care, and the NHS. Conference attendees told reporters that whilst unusual, Davey’s international focus was appropriate given current global tensions.
In a direct appeal to Conservative voters, Davey invited them to “come and win with us,” claiming his party was now “the only party representing the views and values of Britain’s decent silent majority.” He expressed ambitions for the Liberal Democrats to win more seats than the Conservatives at the next general election, something not achieved since 1910.
The Conservative Party: No shame. No remorse. No wonder the country is saying: No thanks,” Davey declared, describing the Tories as “like a herd of bulls going back into the china shop with a camera crew, pointing at all the broken china everywhere and decrying the state of china shops in ‘woke, liberal’ Britain.
The Liberal Democrat leader also condemned Farage’s previous comments praising Vladimir Putin, calling such admiration “unpatriotic” and “deeply un-British.” When asked which world leader he most admired, Farage had previously named Putin, though this was before Donald Trump became President.
Davey accused Farage of having “nothing to say about the challenges facing our NHS” and claimed he had never mentioned the words “care” or “NHS” once in Parliament. He is not the least bit interested in solving them,” the Lib Dem leader asserted.
The speech also touched on environmental concerns, with Davey warning that under Reform UK, climate change would go unaddressed and Britain would “pay Putin for expensive fossil fuels and destroy our beautiful countryside with fracking.
He further claimed that social media “barons” would be “free to poison young minds with impunity” and that the government would leave the European Convention on Human Rights, trampling on “basic rights and freedoms.
Political analysts noted the aggressive tone marked a departure from the Liberal Democrats’ typically moderate approach. The party appears to be positioning itself as the defender of liberal values against what it sees as rising populist threats from both the right and an underwhelming Labour government.
The Spring Conference, held from 21-23 March, saw the party in confident mood following their best electoral performance in over a century. Members overwhelmingly endorsed proposals to improve parliamentary candidate selection procedures, with 80 per cent voting in favour.
Davey concluded his speech with a rallying cry: “Our precious liberal values are the only antidote to their destructive nationalism. Our trademark community politics is the only way to defeat their cynical populism.
The Liberal Democrats’ strategy appears focused on maintaining their position as the third-largest party in Parliament whilst targeting further Conservative seats at the next election. With Reform UK rising in the polls but lacking parliamentary representation, and Labour facing criticism just months into government, Davey clearly sees an opportunity for his party to present itself as the sensible alternative.
As British politics continues to fragment, with traditional two-party dominance increasingly challenged, the Liberal Democrats are betting that their brand of internationalist liberalism and community politics will resonate with voters concerned about the direction of both major parties and the rise of populist alternatives.
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Image Credit:
Sir Ed Davey at the Liberal Democrat Conference, Bournemouth 2017 — photo by Keith Edkins, CC BY-SA 3.0
