What next for the Liberal Democrats?
Something strange is happening in British politics. The Labour Government, which won its huge majority on a historically small share of the national vote, has found itself unpopular and so far unable to show signs of meaningful economic growth ahead. In ordinary circumstances, one would expect the largest opposition party to slowly creep out ahead, but at the time of writing, opinion polls would suggest that the Conservative Party is missing in action.
Where is Middle England? The Middle England demographic is one of sensible, usually economically secure, voters who often carry governments of steady consensus – the voters of both Blair and Cameron. With an incumbent Labour government failing to deliver for now, could they really be enticed by a Conservative Party which is completely occupied by Nigel Farage’s Reform Party reuniting the right wing vote? After the 2024 General Election, this is the demographic where the Liberal Democrats will see their fortunes made or broken, especially in the South.
For 2025, the biggest unresolved question for the Liberal Democrats is: where next? The party had a clear pathway to around 90 seats following the 2019 General Election, seats where it came second and could credibly claim to be the main opposition party, usually to an incumbent Conservative MP.
Far from slowly working through this list of targets over several elections as expected, the Liberal Democrats rocketed from 11 seats to 72, taking out four members of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet. This was particularly true in the Home Counties, where large parts of Surrey, Berkshire and Oxfordshire elected Liberal Democrat MPs. The result is that there are now only 27 constituencies where the Liberal Democrats came second, 20 to the Conservatives, six to Labour and one to Plaid Cymru. This will be the starting point for the party’s next General Election strategy.
There is a sense of very cautious optimism that the Liberal Democrats, now with 72 MPs, are within striking distance of pushing the Conservative Party into third place at the next General Election. Should such an opportunity materialise, the Liberal Democrats would not necessarily need to overtake the Conservatives in national opinion polling, with the party needing to win just 25 more seats from the Conservatives in order to overtake them. However, Liberal Democrat strategists recognise this is not entirely within their gift, it depends on the Conservative Party making some extremely poor strategic choices over the coming years.
More in Common’s post-election washup for the party showed that 26% of its voters voted tactically. These voters were crucial in overturning colossal Conservative majorities in the South of England, such as Horsham where Liberal Democrat John Milne was elected on 39% of the vote to the Conservative incumbent’s 34.4%. Tactical voting was crucial, with Labour falling back by 4.8% of the vote, and the Greens underperforming their national trend, suggesting that voters who prefer these two parties backed the Liberal Democrats to defeat their Conservative MP.
So the single greatest threat to an emerging Liberal Democrat strategy is the prospect of a Conservative revival, which does two things to damage this voter coalition. Firstly, a Conservative Party that is out of government and less repellent to those voters will be less of a motivation to vote tactically at all, they may feel comfortable going back to their first preference party. The second is that the Conservatives only need to appeal to a small number of voters to overturn seats like Horsham again.
For now, the prospect of becoming an Official Opposition remains distant and far from certain, particularly with Reform snappy around the fringes of both Labour and Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats will be focusing on a defensive strategy to set up their 72 MPs, secure them with a strong local government base and an active record on local issues. Together, those factors will give them the strongest personal vote to survive a revived Conservative Party.
The party will also be on the offensive in a small number of seats, starting with the extremely marginal ‘blue wall’ seats that remain, such as Godalming and Ash and Farnham and Bordon. As with the seats they secured in July 2024, their prospects will be brightest where there has already been success in local government, usually reflected by control of the council, but certainly with councillors elected within the constituency.
Some Liberal Democrat campaigns will also be warming up in what are currently Labour seats, some of which in the Home Counties and beyond are already extremely vulnerable. While having a secure second place is a real asset for the Liberal Democrats, the scarcity of these may force them to look elsewhere if they sense opportunity.
At the 2024 General Election, Liberal Democrat candidates who were chosen earlier fared better thanks to greater familiarity with their voters. This was recognised in the party’s review of the General Election, and the Liberal Democrat will now select candidates earlier wherever possible, meaning that the party will increasingly be looking to the next General Election, however far it may be.
In Parliament, the Liberal Democrats will be keen to differentiate themselves from the Labour government. The party made the NHS and social care a key part of its campaign and this will be a key metric by which their voters assess government performance (74% of Liberal Democrat voters said NHS waiting lists will be a key metric for judging Labour’s success). Therefore, we can expect Liberal Democrat parliamentarians to make this a priority, with Layla Moran’s election as Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee now an important platform the party can use.
While the party has a wide range of policy to promote, the NHS is likely to remain one of the Liberal Democrat staples alongside sewage dumping. As with Labour government’s proposed inheritance tax changes to farms and the increase in employers’ national insurance, other stances the party holds will take prominence with events.
While Liberal Democrat policy calls for 380,000 – 10,000 more than the target set in the new National Planning Policy Framework – it is unlikely that the Liberal Democrats will push Labour to raise the target or make a significant pitch on housebuilding. This may change towards the end of the Parliament if Labour fails to get close to its target of 1.5 million homes, but the Liberal Democrats will need to balance this approach against the political needs of their held seats around the Home Counties and South West, areas already feeling pressure from greenfield development.
There are also areas where the party will take more of a ‘wait and see’ approach, such as on English Devolution. Traditionally, the Liberal Democrats have been in favour of greater devolution for England but there are clearly reservations – at both the local and national level – on whether the mayoral model is the right one. This sits alongside increasing opposition to unitarisation, especially the associated delay in County Council elections, from Liberal Democrat councils. Local Liberal Democrat groupings argue that larger unitary councils may not produce better services, but that they will move power further away from residents. In December Vikki Slade, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on local government, pressed ministers in December on how they can make sure reorganisation is not a “top-down diktat” and for local people to get more of a say in the process.
Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey will be keen to present himself as the adult in the room while the Conservative Party indulge in their pursuit of Reform, but this may be at tension with the need to secure media attention which required elaborate stunts at the General Election. Davey will leverage his much-improved position as the leader of the third party in Parliament, taking on weekly questions at Prime Ministers Questions which were reserved for the SNP in the previous Parliament, with the hope that these earn him some crucial airtime to press Starmer. In the newly emerging political landscape, with Starmer struggling, Badenoch occupied by Reform, and Farage in a difficult relationship with Trump and Musk, there is a niche in the market for Davey. The biggest opportunity for him may be with Middle England, where he will be rewarded for being competent, normal and steady, though the challenge of being heard as the third party still remains.
