Lib Dems in 2024: on cusp of electoral breakthrough?

Rishi Sunak appears to have all but ruled out a May general election but the Liberal Democrats could attempt to force the prime minister's hand. 

Speaking at a rally in the Surrey town of Guildford, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said his party would put forward legislation to reinstate the Fixed-term Parliaments Act – introduced by the coalition government in 2011 but repealed by Boris Johnson in 2022 – which would force a general election on 2 May.

"Britain can't wait for the change we need. People are fed up of waiting," he told supporters on Wednesday. But Davey also conceded the plan was a "long shot given it was unlikely to receive the backing of the ruling Conservatives", said the Financial Times (FT). 

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And Rishi Sunak later appeared to rule out a snap spring poll, telling journalists that his "working assumption" was that the next election would be in "the second half of this year". 

Davey's party grows 'more ambitious' 

Whenever the election comes – and it appears now to be at least 10 months away – the Liberal Democrats will be hoping to overtake the Scottish National Party (SNP) to regain their position as the third largest party in the House of Commons. 

The party has "long been confident" of its ability to oust the Conservative Party from its traditional strongholds in the southeast of England. But Davey is becoming "more ambitious", said the FT, as polling shows growing support for the party in western England, with the party further buoyed by four recent by-election wins.

Although it is not yet clear exactly how many seats the Lib Dems will be targeting in the next election, Davey told the paper that there was a "real movement against the Conservatives like we haven't seen for quite some time" in large parts of the southeast, southwest and London, as well as the suburbs of Manchester, Sheffield and Harrogate. 

A YouGov pollster reportedly predicted the party "could win between 30 and 40 seats at the next election". 

'Life-long Tories' and 'Surrey shufflers' key targets

The party is still "trying to rebuild momentum" after its opposition to Brexit "delivered a sugar hit to its finances and membership" that quickly fizzled out, said Freddie Hayward in The New Statesman. In the 2019 general election, the Lib Dems lost one seat, leaving them with just 11 MPs in the Commons. The party's election strategy has now firmly shifted from "opposing Brexit to "opposing the Tories". 

Lib Dem strategists are targeting two key demographics. First, "lifelong Tories" who are now so disillusioned with the government they are willing to switch allegiance. Second, the so-called "Surrey shufflers": young Londoners who have moved out of the city to the home counties, but refuse to vote for the Tories. 

Its strategy is proving successful, with the party winning by-elections in Chesham and Amersham, North Shropshire and Tiverton and Honiton. But the party's prospects "shouldn't be overstated", said Hayward. Its electoral fortunes are "inevitably bound up with the performance of the other parties" and "ultimately, as the party leadership recognises, their chances may depend less on Lib Dem success than on continual Tory failure". 

With Reform UK now polling at close to 10%, some Tory MPs fear that the pro-Brexit party could prove to be a disruptor at the next election. But it is Davey's party that "could inflict even more Tory damage", said Paul Waugh writing for the i news site.

The "biggest threat" to the Conservatives, the factor that risks turning a small Labour majority into a Labour landslide, "is tactical voting", said Waugh.

Evidence from recent by-elections "suggests an electorate seeking out the best possible route to routing the Tories from office – and voting accordingly", he continued. Labour supporters are "ready to back Lib Dems where necessary, and Lib Dem supporters [will] return the favour in key Tory-Labour battlegrounds".  

And Reform UK's decision to stand in every Conservative constituency could deliver "an extra dozen" seats to the Lib Dems and to the Labour Party.