What is the Liberal Democrats’ masterplan?

The party’s political fortunes are a strange conundrum – everything from electoral disappointment to becoming the next opposition party could be on the cards, writes Sean O’Grady

Slippery politician? Ed Davey paddleboarding on Windermere during a campaign visit in May (Getty)

The Liberal Democrats look forward to general elections more than most parties, even in bad times. Their manifesto, a programme for a Lib Dem government that will not be formed this time round, contains lots of ideas, is rather bolder than their main rivals, and is enjoying some publicity.

Thanks to the Representation of the People Act, the party gets much more broadcast coverage at election time, and even the press, still dominated by Tory-supporting interests, gives them some glancing attention.

This time they also seem to be enjoying themselves, with leader Ed Davey’s unprecedented programme of attention-grabbing stunts. Davey says each has a message attached – paddleboarding to highlight water pollution, tennis to promote new national parks, and so on.

Still, their political fortunes are a strange conundrum; at about 10 per cent in the polls, they’re set to win a lower share of the vote than in 2019, but many more seats.

There’s even an outside chance that Davey could be the next leader of the opposition. So what exactly is going on, and what do the Lib Dems want?

Do the Lib Dems still want to rejoin the European Union?

Not quite. A commitment to join, remain in, or (post the 2016 referendum) rejoin the EU and the euro single currency zone has been a feature of every Liberal (and SDP) manifesto since 1955 – a distinctive stance. It is no longer there but they are prepared to go as far as rejoining the EU single market.

This would bring substantial economic benefits but also require a return to the principle of free movement of labour (as well as goods, capital and services). As a non-member state, the UK would also have no formal say over the single market’s rules – a rule-taker, not a rule-maker, rather like Norway, for example. On the other hand, there’s no commitment to join the EU customs union, so some obstacles to trade would remain, as would Britain’s ability to pursue those elusive trade deals with America and India, among others. 

Is that a vote-winner?

It does no harm. Not many Brexiteers vote Liberal Democrat and being a bit bolder than Labour might attract some useful extra support – particularly among pro-EU Labour supporters in Tory Remain constituencies inclined to vote tactically to remove a Conservative incumbent.

Generally speaking, Brexit has lost support since the reality of the new arrangements was (mostly) implemented in 2020 and 2021. On balance, the Lib Dem stance is balanced and electorally shrewd, albeit most party members want to sign up for the whole EU package. 

Are they still a tax-and-spend party?

But of course. To be fair, the Lib Dems and their predecessors always used to submit their manifestos to the Institute for Fiscal Studies for an audit, so even if they were ambitious, the figures all added up. So, it is now with commitments to free social care at home, boosting cancer survival rates, improving access to GPs and NHS dentistry. These improvements to our standard of living will be paid for by hiking capital gains tax, reimposing levies on the banks, a levy on share buybacks, and higher tax on air passengers. So, not cost-free exactly, but at least accounted for.

Proportional representation?

Of course. The single transferable vote, to be more precise, plus votes for 16- and 17-year-olds, and a vague commitment to reform of the House of Lords. Ironically, the Lib Dem vote is now so efficiently targeted and distributed that they may actually end up overrepresented in the next House of Commons. Nowadays, Reform and the Greens do much worse out of the first-past-the-post system. 

How about some radicalism?

Well, there is some of that, such as:

• A two-state solution based on 1967 borders with security and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians
• Scrap the two-child limit, the benefit cap and the bedroom tax
• Reverse cuts to bereavement support
• Restore the full rate of universal credit for all parents regardless of age
• Make misogyny a hate crime

Can we trust the Lib Dems’ promises?

The unkind will point to their dramatic, and disastrous, U-turn on abolishing student tuition fees when they joined the Tory-led coalition in 2010. It haunts them still. In the unlikely event of a hung parliament and some kind of a Lib-Lab pact having to be organised, the two parties would have much more compatible programmes, and dramatic betrayal is far less likely, in the current circumstances.

What about working with Labour?

There’s nothing about it in the manifesto but it is obvious they are closer to the current opposition than the current government. What happens if Reform UK splits the Tory vote so badly that the Liberal Democrats have to form the official opposition to a Labour government, usually attacking it from the progressive liberal left, is hard to predict. Thanks to Nigel Farage, of all people, Davey could be at the dispatch box lobbing questions at Starmer every week, with 60-plus Lib Dem MPs behind him, the biggest parliamentary group since the days of David Lloyd George – all on about a tenth of the vote. Who needs electoral reform?