The Lib Dems Are Eyeing Labour Seats To Target At The Next Election, Says Party President
3 min read
The Liberal Democrats are already thinking about seats they can take from Labour at the next general election, according to the party president.
The party led by Ed Davey secured its best ever election result on 4 July, returning 72 MPs to the House of Commons and becoming the official third party. Most Lib Dems wins were in the south of England's so-called 'blue wall' at the expense of Conservative candidates.
In some seats, Lib Dem supporters voted Labour, and vice versa, in order to keep out Tory candidates. This tactical voting is widely seen to have played a significant part in compounding the Conservative defeat.
However, Mark Pack, re-elected as the Liberal Democrats’ President in 2022, said certain Labour-held areas around the country have become “much more electorally interesting” for the party, “now there is a Labour government”.
Speaking to PoliticsHome, he said the “obvious starting places” would be seats where the Liberal Democrats came second to Labour in early July, such as Bermondsey and Old Southwark in London. Labour's Neil Coyle won the seat with nearly 45 per cent of the vote on 4 July.
"It's always been significantly easier to win seats off a party that's in government than often a rival opposition party”, the party president said, adding that the Lib Dems will have to see “how the Labour government performs” to decide which seats the party targets.
While the Lib Dems dealt major blows to Rishi Sunak's Conservatives at the General Election, unseating former Cabinet ministers Gillian Keegan and Michelle Donelan and picking up seats in major Tory strongholds, the party is confident it can inflict more pain on the Tories at next year's local elections, said Pack.
“A lot of Tory held council seats [are] up for elections in areas that now have a Liberal Democrat MP”, said Pack, adding there is “a lot of scope still to make progress against the Conservatives”.
Andrew George, Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, told PoliticsHome that while the Lib Dems “should promote the benefits of liberal democracy in every community throughout the kingdom”, including in Labour-held areas, the “promised demolition of the blue wall remains unfinished business, and a priority”.
Earlier this month, senior Tory figures told PoliticsHome podcast The Rundown that things could get worse for their bruised party at the May 2025 local elections.
Mark Spencer, a former Cabinet minister, said “we must not accept that we are at our lowest point right now, as a party," while Andrew Bowie MP said "we cannot and we should not accept that this is as low as it gets, it could get worse".
The Lib Dems won four by-elections in the last parliament, helping the party build a sense of momentum heading into the General Election, and Pack said work was underway to make sure the party is in a strong position to fight contests that arise during this new parliament.
He told PoliticsHome there will be “a very significant investment right from the beginning of the Parliament in the field campaign team all across the country”.
“We saw the benefit in the last Parliament of being able to make progress in local elections all the way through the Parliament, of having the team in place from early on for any parliamentary by-election opportunities that came up, and having the advantage of that team in place for the long run up into a general election”, Pack said.
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