The UK should import US scientists whose cancer research projects have been cut by Donald Trump, Ed Davey will argue at a Liberal Democrat conference that has focused heavily on how the party can respond to hard-right populism.
In his closing speech, Davey will also criticise Nigel Farage, saying the Reform UK conference applauded the Trump administration’s decision to slash funding for mRNA vaccines, which are being trialled as a way to offer personalised immunotherapy treatment for some cancers.
“It is hard to express the cruelty and stupidity of cutting off research into medicine that has the power to save so many lives,” Davey is expected to tell the gathering in Bournemouth on Tuesday, adding: “A decision, by the way, that was enthusiastically applauded by Farage’s party at their conference.”
Davey has long been the strongest critic of Trump among the three main Westminster leaders and has increasingly extended the criticism to Farage, reflecting the growing competition the Lib Dems face from Reform.
While the bulk of the new seats won by Davey’s party in last year’s election were taken from the Conservatives, with the Tories flagging further and Labour’s poll numbers diving, Lib Dem officials are preparing for contests in which Reform is expected to be their main competition, most immediately in local elections across England next May.
In his speech on Tuesday afternoon, Davey is expected to set out what he said was a direct link between the cuts to mRNA vaccine research announced by Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s health secretary, and Reform’s likely policies.
At the Reform conference last month, the main auditorium applauded Aseem Malhotra, a British cardiologist and vaccine sceptic now linked to Kennedy, when he set out the US plan to cut research into mRNA technology.
The General Medical Council is examining comments made by Malhotra in the speech, in which he also linked Covid vaccines to the prevalence of cancer in members of the royal family.
Davey is expected to add: “The UK should step up and say: if Trump won’t back this research, we will. We’ll boost funding for cancer research in the UK. We’ll rebuild a National Cancer Research Institute after it was closed under the Conservatives, to coordinate research and drive it forward.”
Calum Miller, the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, used his conference speech on Monday to make a similar attack on Farage – and on Trump – with a call for a new law outlawing ministers from lobbying on behalf of foreign governments.
Miller cited the example of Whitehall officials pushing golf bosses to hold the 2028 Open at Trump’s Turnberry course, saying the claims needed to be investigated.
“We must Trump-proof our politics – especially in light of people like Farage, already measuring the curtains in No 10, who care more about what that office could do for them, than what it can do for this country,” he said.
The Lib Dems have previously accused Farage of prioritising Trump’s interests over those of the UK, such as his recent appearance before a congressional hearing on censorship at which the Reform leader agreed with Republican members about what he called the “awful authoritarian” situation for free speech in the UK.
On Monday afternoon the conference held a session where delegates heard from the party’s “Reform watch” panel – councillors in seats with heavy Reform representation after May’s local elections – about how to respond to the threat.
Speaking to reporters after his speech, Miller said the Lib Dems appeared to be the one political party that could take on Farage.
“We’ve seen basically the collapse of the Conservative party as a serious proposition, both in terms of their policy platform and in terms of their ability to operate in lots of our communities, and we can see Reform are riding high in the polls,” he said.
“And I think we would like to think of ourselves, in our values and in the approach we take to policy, as an antidote to Reform.”
