Sir Ed Davey will today try to woo unhappy moderate Tories to join the Lib Dems as he seeks to position his party as the main opposition to Reform.
Sir Ed will reportedly use his keynote speech closing the party conference today to reach out to Conservatives unhappy with the party’s move to the right under Kemi Badenoch.
As the Tories equalled their worst ever vote share in another poll today, putting them just two points ahead of the Lib Dems, he will urge them to walk out in protest at her ‘divisive politics’.
Mrs Badenoch has sought to warn off the threat from Nigel Farage‘s Reform by moving the party to the right, with no real effect.
Last week Tory shadow minister Danny Kruger became the first sitting MP to defect to Reform, saying the party ‘is over’.
The Times reported that he will use his speech to address ‘millions of One Nation conservatives who reject the divisive politics of Badenoch and Farage’ and say: ‘Come and talk to us. About our ideas to grow the economy. Cut crime. Defend our nation.
‘Come and join us. To oppose this failing Labour government and offer our great country real change. Come, Conservative friends. Help us save our country. Come and win with us.’
However polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice told the paper the party had ‘maxed out’ the strategy of targeting Tories and should focus on disenfranchised Labour voters instead.
Sir Ed will reportedly use his keynote speech closing the party conference today to reach out to Conservatives unhappy with the party’s move to the right under Kemi Badenoch.
As the Tories equalled their worst ever vote share in another poll today, putting them just two points ahead of the Lib Dems, he will urge them to walk out in protest at her ‘divisive politics’.
Mrs Badenoch has sought to warn off the threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform by moving the party to the right, with no real effect.
Privately the Lib Dems are bullish about their chances of overtaking the flatlining Tories at the next election, having won 72 seats last year.
They believe they can use their 2024 methodology of combining a skillful ground game and tactical voting to become a home for people from both the left and right of politics who want to keep Farage from power.
‘There is a significant chunk of the British population that does not want Reform in government,’ one party strategist said.
‘We can offer people change without going to the Reform extreme.’
He will also say US cancer researchers fleeing an ‘anti-science agenda’ should be welcomed to the UK with a dedicated fellowship scheme.
The Liberal Democrat leader will call for the arrangement as part of a plan to make cancer a ‘top priority’ on the NHS.
Sir Ed is expected describe ‘what’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic’ as the ‘biggest threat to the fight against cancer’.
He will also criticise Reform’s conference earlier this month, where attendees ‘enthusiastically applauded’ cutting off ‘research into medicine that has the power to save so many lives’.
The UK should ‘step up and say: if Trump won’t back this research, we will’, Sir Ed will add.
His party would pledge to build a national cancer research centre, and pass a cancer survival research Act to this end.
In a message to the scientists in America who have had their research halted, he will say: ‘Come here, and finish it in the UK. We’ll set up a dedicated fellowship scheme for you, and we won’t let extortionate Home Office fees stand in your way.’
