It could have been slightly unnerving for the Liberal Democrats that their conference this week wasn’t the first in the traditional series. If it was it didn’t show as Ed Davey sought to affirm his Party’s principled position as the antidote to Reform UK’s right-wing populism. In many ways, the fact that Reform’s conference immediately preceded them served only to make the contrast more stark, and lodged more firmly in the minds of media and members as they arrived in Bournemouth.
Of course, the conference wasn’t without its traditional detailed policy debates and announcements covering everything from a Windfall Tax on bank profits paying for a new National Energy Security Bank to age-related ‘health warnings’ on social media, tackling the asylum backlog, and a feisty debate on whether to embrace large new nuclear generation as a key tool to achieve net zero (a close vote against). The truly observant will also have clocked a subtle rebrand moving from gold to orange.
But the conference offered a perpetual contrast with Reform UK: Opening with a rally reclaiming from the far right the UKs flags for the progressive centre-left with former Leader Tim Farron literally wrapping himself in the flag and telling his Party ‘Patriots love their country. Nationalists hate their neighbours’: and concluding with Ed Davey warning the country ‘Don’t let Trump’s America become Farage’s Britain’.
And it’s here that the communications success is clear. For all the (sometimes manufactured) concern about his penchant for stunts of late, Ed Davey has found a platform and approach that is clearly cutting through with the public in a manner that Starmer’s Labour seems to be reticent to even try to do.
Actively seeking to reclaim patriotism has an emotional lure to those around the progressive centre, offering a more muscular liberal left approach to the intractable issues the UK faces without compromising deeply held beliefs.
Analysis by MHP Group partner agency DeepSeer reveals an interesting trend. The Liberal Democrat conference is the highest impact moment of their year to date. Perhaps not surprising. But it is higher even than the coverage received during the whole of May’s local elections. And it is part of longer trend including Ed Davey’s call for renegotiation of the EU deal, calls for seized Russian assets to be given to Ukraine, attacks on the BBC for giving Reform UK unfair airtime, sanctions on Israel and boycotting the State banquet for Trump.
Within the conference period itself our Senior Advisor Atul Hatwal identifies the key peaks of on-line resonance for the Party: Reclaiming patriotism, proposals to clear the asylum backlog, the call for Elon Musk to be arrested, and the all-out attack on Nigel Farage’s vision of Britain.
With more businesses rightly taking the time to understand the tectonic plates within each Party, perhaps we are beginning to witness a revival in the value of conferences as a whole.
Today’s poll by ‘Find Out Now’ places the Liberal Democrats (16%) ahead of the Conservatives (14%) nationally and only just behind Labour (17%). It certainly validates the strategic positioning taken. Whether it survives the impact of the forthcoming Labour and Conservative conferences is yet to be seen. But in the post conference season round-up, this will certainly be one of the Lib Dems most positive outcome in recent years and quite possibly part of a continuing trend.