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Sir Keir Starmer has “boxed himself in” over ties with the EU by drawing red lines over Britain’s future relationship with the bloc, the leader of the Liberal Democrats has warned.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Lib Dem conference in Brighton, Sir Ed Davey warned that the prime minister had made a “mistake” in outlining non-negotiable positions.
Starmer has vowed to rebuild the UK’s relationship with its largest trading partner, but has ruled out rejoining either the EU single market or customs union, as well as resisting any deal on youth mobility.
“We think he needs to be much bolder on things like the single market — ruling that out is a mistake,” said Davey, whose party promotes signing a much-coveted youth mobility deal with the EU and rejoining the bloc wholesale over time.
Rebuilding EU relations is “a really obvious thing to focus on . . . if we’re going to get out public finances right, if we’re going to grow the economy,” Davey added.
The party’s position “is not because we’re left or right, it’s because we really believe in the trade deals that are going to help our farmers trade”, he said.
Davey has spent the weekend swerving accusations that his party is tacking to the left of Labour as he seeks to solidify the support that led to the Lib Dems winning 72 MPs in July’s general election.
Several new MPs who fought hard to win seats in historically staunchly conservative areas of the country are jittery about the extent to which the Lib Dems are attacking the ruling Labour party from the left on issues ranging from investment in public services to welfare payments and wealth taxation.
One new MP said that if the Lib Dems’ strategy continued in this vein in the years ahead, it would spell “electoral suicide”.
Davey insists that the party has not become the leftwing “conscience” of the Labour party, arguing that it has a distinctive platform on issues from social care to reintegration with Europe that will help it win many more seats in future elections.
“I’m not sure the NHS or care is classically left or right . . . it’s what most conservatives want,” said Davey. Greater investment in the health service has taken centre stage at the Brighton event.
Ahead of the first Budget by Starmer’s government on October 30, Davey told the FT that he would be pushing Labour to consider the Lib Dems’ tax proposals — including most notably reversing Conservative tax cuts given to big banks, which they claim would raise £4.3bn a year by 2028-29, and increasing capital gains tax paid by the highest earners.
Davey argued that there were many former Tory voters across the country who “look at the Conservative party now” and believe “that doesn’t represent us”. Those people had undergone a “change in values”, he added.
The key moment in this parliament will be the local elections coming up in May, where the party hopes to kick the Tories out of councils won by former prime minister Boris Johnson in 2021, including East Sussex, West Sussex, Devon and Hampshire.
“It’s the big opportunity for us to finish off the job,” he said referring to the party’s electoral coup in July, where it ousted four cabinet ministers and more than 50 Tory MPs.
Davey is bullish that there are dozens more parliamentary seats his party could take from the Tories at the next general election in five years’ time, including urban constituencies in Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle and Gateshead.
There were only 27 seats where the party came second in July — 20 were won by the Tories, while six were taken by Labour and one by Plaid Cymru. Yet Davey claimed that the Lib Dems did not face an electoral ceiling of 99 seats.
Retaining the party’s existing seats, and even gaining dozens more, would require a sharp increase in the party’s vote share. Many of its gains at the election were because of tactical voting by people who had previously backed Labour. Polling guru Sir John Curtice has also pointed out that the Lib Dems obtained an average 6 per cent of the popular vote in seats won by Labour.
Davey — known for eye-catching stunts that have included paddleboarding and playing beach volleyball — also criticised Starmer’s “doom and gloom” messaging ahead of the autumn Budget.
“The way this government has been going about that conversation is ‘it’s all so difficult, it’s all so painful’ when actually when you roll your sleeves up . . . you can really offer people the prospect of the health service improving, of our relationship with Europe improving,” he said.
“People need to be convinced that this journey has a happy ending.”
