The Liberal Democrats are the only remaining block against “the forces of darkness” led by Nigel Farage, Ed Davey has told his party’s annual conference in a speech that repeatedly and at times personally took aim at the Reform UK leader.
With Lib Dem strategists increasingly believing that Reform has become the party’s main opponent, Davey sought to yoke Farage directly to Donald Trump, arguing that if Farage won power, Reform would implement many of the same policies – including a relaxation of gun laws.
In a section of the speech likely to annoy Farage, this included the prediction that a Reform government would dismantle the NHS, enable racism and misogyny, and roll back gun laws so British schools would have to teach children what to do in a mass shooting.
The latter element comes from comments Farage made in 2014, when he was the UKip leader and called for a ban on handguns to be relaxed. A Reform source denied it was party policy, calling the Lib Dems “an irrelevant laughing stock”.
“Trump’s America. Don’t let it become Farage’s Britain,” Davey said in a refrain he repeated several times.
The speech included passing condemnation of the Conservatives, with Davey saying his party aimed to win more seats than them at the next election, and at Labour and Keir Starmer, who he again called “continuity Sunak”.
But a large section was focused on Farage, with Davey arguing it was the Lib Dems’ responsibility to stop what he called “the forces of darkness” of Reform and Trump.
“Imagine living in the Trump-inspired country Farage wants us to become,” he said. “Where there’s no NHS, so patients are hit with crippling insurance bills. Or denied healthcare altogether.
“Where we pay Putin for expensive fossil fuels and destroy our beautiful countryside with fracking, while climate change rages on. Where gun laws are rolled back, so schools have to teach our children what to do in case of a mass shooting. Where social media barons are free to poison young minds with impunity.
“Where the government tramples on our basic rights and freedoms, unconstrained by the European convention on human rights. Where Andrew Tate is held up as an example to young men. Where racism and misogyny get the tacit support of people in power. Where everything is in a constant state of chaos.”
He concluded: “We are in a battle for the very future of our country. And it’s not a battle we can afford to lose.”
The emotive language, particularly the imagery of schoolchildren being prepared for possible mass shootings, marks a notable ratcheting up of the party’s rhetoric against Reform. It arguably also mimics Reform’s media tactics in making an accusation that seems unlikely to be true.
More widely, Davey’s speech included no new policies, but instead sought to present the Lib Dems as the party of choice for voters who want to block Reform and feel let down by the Labour and Conservatives’ response to Farage.
In a particular appeal to more liberal-minded Conservative voters put off by the party’s shift towards the populist right, Davey said: “My message to you is this – come and talk to us.”
Echoing a rally at the start of the conference at which party members waved union flags in a riposte to the huge far-right rally in London a week before, Davey condemned Reform’s plans to effectively end the asylum system.
“Sending men, women and children who have fled the Taliban back to Afghanistan to be murdered by them, and even paying the Taliban to do it – that isn’t patriotic. That isn’t British. That isn’t who we are,” he said.
He added: “There’s a question Nigel Farage is fond of asking. He likes to ask, ‘Whose side are you on?’ Well we know the answer, don’t we? Nigel Farage is on the side of Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
“Liberal Democrats are on the side of the British people. Because unlike Farage, I actually love Britain. I’m proud of our country.”
