The Liberal Democrats gathered this weekend for their last spring conference before the general election. Perhaps you will be forgiven for not knowing this.
The fourth-largest party has rarely featured in current political discussions lately, and its poll numbers remain unchanged even as the government continues to lose ground. Only one in three voters have an opinion about party leader Ed Davey, and even fewer have any idea what his party offers. The costs of Brexit are rising and its most ardent opponents are struggling.
Instead, it is the most pro-Brexit party of all, Reform UK, that is creating the political weather: making headlines, gaining in the polls and last week gaining its first MP after Lee Anderson's defection. It is tempting to write off the Lib Dems as irrelevant to the big Tory-Labour contest to come.
Resist the temptation. National polls and nationwide coverage are inappropriate indicators when assessing a party whose electoral fate depends on local organizations and local support. The Lib Dem picture is much rosier when viewed through this lens. Their disappointing 2019 election left a valuable legacy – dozens of target seats in home ridings where the Lib Dems are the strongest local challenger to the Tory incumbents.
Three rounds of strong local election results, the fourth of which is likely to take place in May, build on this legacy. Libyan Democrats are once again a force in local government, with many of the biggest gains being made on the battlefields of their home districts. They now often control local governments in their target seats. This is the kind of starter that has propelled Lib Dem MPs into parliament in the past.
Several of them have already been triggered there by the by-elections to this parliament, which saw four Lib Dem victories over the Conservatives, the most in a single parliament since 1992-97. Huge seat swings such as North Shropshire highlighted the return of the Liberal Democrats as a powerful campaigning force and provided new strongholds to defend in the general election. The Conservative Party, facing an electoral collapse on a broad front, may well consider these seats lost.
National ambiguity is also useful for a party whose strongly local approach to politics works best when it can function as political chameleons, adapting its colors to local conditions. The Liberal Democrats struggled most when their national position was highest, first in the coalition and then as a radical Remain party during the Brexit years.
A lower national profile helps Lib Dem activists tailor their local campaigns. The party is becoming an acceptable outlet for dissatisfied moderate conservatives who are no longer deterred by the specter of Jeremy Corbyn. The Lib Dems are also benefiting from a surge in tactical voting among Labor partisans, who make defeating the Tories their top priority.
The rise of Reform UK is also, paradoxically, beneficial to its antithesis party, as Reform is sucking Tory votes out of the reach of the Lib Dems. It was the risk that a split vote to leave would help elect the remaining Lib Dems that convinced Nigel Farage to concede his Brexit party's Tory seats in 2019. This risk does not appear to have bothered Farage's successor, Richard Tice, who announced that he would remain as a candidate for every Conservative Party seat. Ed Davey will be the biggest beneficiary if Tice sticks around.
The Liberal Democrats are entering the election season stronger than they appear. The hunger for change that is fueling Labour's current lead in national polls will also fuel local Lib Dem campaigns in Tory seats, where they represent the only real alternative. But if the winds of change blow too strongly, they become a problem. The prospect of a Labor landslide will alarm moderate Tories who want their party punished but not destroyed. This will reassure Labor partisans that second-class tactical voting is not needed. Conversely, Lib Dem MPs will have more influence in the narrowly divided House of Commons. Willingness to change, but not very strong. A victory for Labor, but not by much. For the Lib Dems, moderation in all things is the path to success.
Rob Ferry is a professor of political science science at the University of Manchester
