Ed Davey urged the Liberal Democrats to “wake up and smell the coffee” , as he was declared his party’s fourth leader in five years following a string of poor general election performances. Davey, who has been acting leader since last December, was a cabinet minister in the 2010-2015 coalition government. He beat his rival for the post, Layla Moran, by a wider-than-expected margin of 42,756 votes to 24,564. In a livestreamed acceptance speech on Thursday, Davey said: “My job, as from today, is to rebuild the Lib Dems to national relevance.” He said the Lib Dems were “powerful advocates locally”, but on the national stage “we have to face the facts of three disappointing general election results”. The Lib Dems have just 11 MPs, and recent opinion polls have put them on 5-10% of the vote, suggesting Davey faces a tough challenge in rebuilding electoral support. “Voters don’t believe the Lib Dems want to help ordinary people get on in life,” he told members who had tuned in to see his acceptance speech. “Voters don’t believe we share their values. And voters don’t believe we are on the side of people like them. Voters have been sending us a message, but we have not been listening. It is time for us to start listening,” he said. “I am listening now.” He promised to travel the UK in the coming weeks, adding: “I will face up to uncomfortable truths, and I will make your concerns my own.” But like the other party leaders, Davey will be denied the platform of a full annual conference to stamp his authority on the party in person. This year’s event, which was due to be held in Brighton, has been moved online.
Davey stressed his ministerial experience and commitment to tackling climate change during a drawn-out contest. He told the Guardian as he launched his campaign in June that he believed his experience as a young carer for his terminally ill mother had given him the compassion to help create a more caring society. “That would be a very big part of what I’d like to see the Liberal Democrats talking about: how we build a more caring society. And if we can make common cause with others for a caring agenda, I’d like to do that.” Davey described the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, as someone he could work with – in contrast to the Lib Dems’ frosty relationship with Jeremy Corbyn. Davey was energy and climate change secretary in the coalition government. He lost his Kingston and Surbiton seat at the 2015 general election when the Lib Dems, then led by Nick Clegg, were punished for forming a pact with the Conservatives. Davey won his seat back and returned to parliament in 2017. He went on to double his majority in 2019 when his Conservative rival was Aphra Brandreth, the daughter of the veteran broadcaster and former MP Gyles Brandreth. Clegg, who is now a senior executive at Facebook, made a rare intervention into UK politics by congratulating Davey, saying his “resilience, humanity and experience” would serve the party well.
The leadership contest was initially shelved for a year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, before being rescheduled for the summer. Davey’s predecessor, Jo Swinson, was leader for just five months after defeating Davey decisively in last year’s leadership contest. She expanded the parliamentary party with defections from Labour, and made stopping Brexit the Lib Dems’ overriding aim, echoing the tactics of Vince Cable who had raised eyebrows by posing with “bollocks to Brexit” leaflets before last May’s European elections. Swinson fought the 2019 general election claiming to be a potential prime minister, but ended up losing her own seat to the SNP. All of the former Labour MPs who joined the Lib Dems after forming the breakaway group Change UK, including Chuka Umunna and Luciana Berger, lost their seats. Davey was Swinson’s deputy during that general election campaign, which a damning internal report described as a “high-speed car crash”. Moran, 37, was a teacher before entering parliament in 2016. She is currently the Lib Dems’ education spokesperson, and had been expected to shift the party to the left if she won. In a video message to her supporters, Moran congratulated Davey on his victory and said she was ready to work with him to “change our party so that we can change the country,” adding, “I’m so excited now to just get cracking.”