Ed Davey Ready To Confront Nigel Farage "Head On" In Parliament

As a "proud-European" Ed Davey's politics are a world apart from those of Nigel Farage. But the Lib Dem leader says Farage winning a seat in the House of Commons would be the "best way" to confront him.

With the General Election less than a week away, Davey is hoping to lead the Liberal Democrats back into being the third largest party in Parliament. Opinion polls suggest he could succeed: various models predict the party could win anywhere between 40 and 70 seats, significantly up from only 11 seats they won at the 2019 election.

The party has heavily targeted a smaller number of constituencies in this election, particularly along the ‘A30 corridor’ stretching from London to the South West, in order to improve the efficiency of their vote under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. 

“We're not quite there to balance it out yet, but we're on the right track,” said Davey. PoliticsHome interviewed the Lib Dem leader on his battle bus on the way to North Norfolk — a target seat for his party.

“The party's strategy has been to recognise we're in the first-past-the-post system. We'd like to be in a PR [proportional representation] system, but we're not.”

While the Liberal Democrats and particularly Labour are expected to benefit from FPTP on Thursday, there are other parties that will likely feel aggrieved by how it works out for them.

Farage, leader of right-wing party Reform UK, has criticised the system as being “absolutely bankrupt” as it will make it much harder for Reform candidates to get elected. Most opinion polls put Reform in the mid teens for national vote share, and some have even put them close to or level with Rishi Sunak's Tories at around 20 per cent. 

Under FPTP, however, Reform will still struggle to win more