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Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, will promise on Tuesday to “collapse” the blue wall of Conservative seats in southern England at the next election, in an optimistic closing speech at his party conference.
Privately, Davey’s allies are realistic about the prospects for the Lib Dem – doubling the party’s current number of seats from 15 to 30 would be seen as a good result – but the party could still play a key role in the election next years are expected.
Davey’s closing speech in Bournemouth will brand the Conservatives, with whom the Lib Dems formed a coalition between 2010 and 2015, as “more like a bad TV soap than a functioning government”.
He will focus on health, including “reversing cuts to the number of GPs and guaranteeing an appointment when needed, tackling life-threatening ambulance delays and improving access to NHS dentists”.
But at the conference in Bournemouth, Davey was accused by Lib Dem activists of weakening the party’s commitment to building new homes, a policy seen as unpopular in the Tory shires.
The leadership suffered a painful defeat after attempting to drop their national housing target following an uprising led by young liberals. The proposal, which was backed by Davey, was seen as the totemic of what some say is the party’s inability to adopt bold targets in a bid to appeal to anti-development voters in Tory seats.
![Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper](https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2F5d61fb63-f967-4653-af3c-ebf2ec1bc523.jpg?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=700&dpr=1)
“Young people do not support this move, we cannot afford to lose the youth vote again,” said Rep. Janey Little. Members voted to maintain the party’s target of 380,000 new homes per year.
However, Davey has abandoned the party’s plan to increase income tax by 1 percentage point to fund improvements to the NHS – another step back seen as crucial to winning over wavering Tory voters.
And the Lib Dem leader has continued to meander in interviews as he tries to avoid talking about the party’s long-term goal of bringing Britain back into the EU.
Like Labour, the Lib Dems need to attract former Leave supporters. Both parties have also concluded that although British voters have turned against Brexit, they currently have little appetite for reopening the EU psychodrama.
Pollster Sir John Curtice argued in an isolated incident that the Lib Dems were losing ground to Labor because they were not taking a strong position on their return to the EU.
But Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader, insisted the party was pragmatic and added that no one could doubt the Lib Dems’ motivation in politics: “We have internationalism running through our veins,” she said.
But many voters have been confused by the party’s position. Polls show they have no idea what the Lib Dems stand for, other than their determination to oust Rishi Sunak from 10 Downing Street.
“The most successful message for us, by a country mile, is that we are best placed to get rid of the Tories in your region,” said a Lib Dem official.
Tory bashing aside, the party will fight the next election on just two key national issues: improving the NHS and working to protect the environment. It has made significant headway with voters through its campaign against dumping sewage into rivers.
“It’s not true that we don’t have a policy,” one Davey ally joked. “We are the party of shit.”
An insider said the key voters the Lib Dems should target are older people who could be swayed away from the Conservatives. But the party will also run a highly localized campaign, focusing on the concerns and beliefs of local people in each of their target seats, which has prompted claims that Davey is pandering to ‘Nimbyism’ on issues housing.
With the exception of Sheffield Hallam, a Labor constituency, all Lib Dem target seats in England are held by Conservative MPs. The majority are in wealthy areas in the south or west of England. Cooper said Sunak’s decision to delay policies to tackle climate change had been “disastrous” for the Conservatives in those areas.
Party insiders confirmed that the targeted seats include London commuter towns such as Esher, Harpenden, Carshalton, the Sussex constituencies of Lewes and Eastbourne and Somerset towns such as Glastonbury and Frome.
Further north, the party hopes to win seats in the Manchester suburbs of Hazel Grove and Cheadle, as well as winning them back from the Scottish National Party in Mid Dunbartonshire and the Inverness area.
Meanwhile, the party is being buoyed by a £1million boost to its coffers, the biggest donation since 2019.
Two officials told the Financial Times that the money was an inheritance from a deceased lawyer. One said the funds would “transform” the party’s campaign efforts.