Ed Davey: I am a candidate to be prime minister

Ed Davey is a candidate to be prime minister. That's his own description of himself now, after he insisted he isn't simply auditioning for a junior role in a future coalition, and he's pushing back hard at critics inside his own party who argue he lacks the ambition to cut through a crowded political field. "I am a candidate to be prime minister," he said. And he means it.

The declaration came as Sir Ed confronted a question that has shadowed his leadership: whether his real goal is simply to play kingmaker in a hung parliament, propping up a larger party that falls short of the 326 MPs needed for a majority. He rejected that framing outright. "I've got no ceiling on our ambitions," he said, adding that the party must build on its election success "area by area, constituency by constituency."

A record haul, then a polling slide

Nobody can dispute the scale of it. The Lib Dems didn't just win at the 2024 election, they surged, and Sir Ed led the party to a record 72 MPs, with big gains carved out of Conservative territory across southern England, a result that gave the party its strongest parliamentary presence in generations. And that's the story.

Since then, the picture has darkened. The party has slipped to fourth or fifth in national opinion polls, trailing Labour, the Tories, the Greens and Reform UK. That gap between parliamentary strength and national polling is precisely the frustration some of his own MPs have voiced, and Sir Ed acknowledged it directly, conceding the "frustration" felt by colleagues who believe the party is not making a bigger impact.

His answer is a promise of boldness. He vowed to set out bold policies in his conference speech on Tuesday, a moment that will now carry added weight given the stakes he has just set for himself.

The arithmetic that has the right split

Sir Ed's case for optimism rests on a simple observation. British politics is split. Because the right wing is divided, he said, and fragmented like it's never happened before in over 200 years of British parliamentary elections, that fragmentation, in his telling, hands the Lib Dems an historic opportunity to do far better than anyone imagines at the moment at the next general election.

He was explicit about what that opportunity could yield. "If we take that opportunity, and I believe we're showing how we can, we'll be a massive force in the next parliament," he said.

"We've got a moral responsibility to stop Nigel Farage, and to stop Kemi Badenoch handing the keys to No 10 to Nigel Farage. I think there could be that sort of coalition on the right and we've got to stop that."

That quote does two things at once. It rules out any accommodation with Reform UK, and it dismisses the idea of a deal with the Conservatives by framing the Tory leadership as a potential enabler of Farage rather than a barrier to him. Asked directly about a coalition with Labour, Sir Ed declined to engage, saying he did not deal in "hypotheticals."

The party's public ambition runs nationwide. But the BBC has been told its strategy is focused on the 27 seats where the Lib Dems finished second in 2024, a targeted map that sits awkwardly beside all that talk of being a candidate to be prime minister. Of those 27, twenty are held by the Conservatives. It's a targeted map. It isn't a national surge. And they're saying two different things at once.

Jackdaw, Rosebank, and the gas question

Before heading out to visit a wind farm off the coast of Brighton, Sir Ed waded into one of the more contentious energy debates of the moment: the Jackdaw gas field, which the government is expected to green light later this month.

He backed it. "We're going to need gas for a long, long time as part of our transition, and when I was secretary of state for climate change, I always thought that we were going to need gas, and [Jackdaw] has passed the climate change test," he said. He noted that he had signed off on the wind farm he was about to visit when he served as energy secretary in the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government a decade ago.

The alternative, as he described it, is importing liquified natural gas from across the globe. And it's a long way to bring it. "There's a lot of energy produced in both putting the gas into liquid and then taking it out into gas," he said. "The carbon footprint of that is far bigger, a lot more damaging for our climate, so this way, not only is it better for the climate, but also tax revenues come to the Exchequer." The field sits about 150 miles northeast of Aberdeen.

Rosebank is a different story. On that oil field, he told the BBC "the jury is very much out," not least because it may not pass the same test on reducing carbon emissions.

Why bills keep coming up on the doorstep

The Lib Dem leader didn't tie the transition away from oil and gas to climate targets. He tied it to household energy bills. That's more immediate. And he made his case by pointing to what people are paying right now, thanks to President Trump's mad war in Iran, which he said has driven those costs far higher for families who never asked for any of this. "Thanks to President Trump's mad war in Iran, people are paying far higher," he said. "We are paying far higher for that fossil fuel energy, and you've seen over the years how fossil fuels, oil and gas, can be extremely expensive.

His conclusion was blunt. "So, the way to get energy bills down, get the economy growing, is to be less dependent on fossil fuels and we want to be."

• The Lib Dems hold a record 72 MPs after the 2024 election.
• The party has since fallen to fourth or fifth in national polling.
• Strategy centres on 27 second-place seats, 20 of them Conservative-held.
• Sir Ed rules out coalitions with Reform UK and the Conservatives.
• He backs Jackdaw but says "the jury is very much out" on Rosebank.

What Tuesday has to deliver

All of this now funnels into a single speech. Sir Ed has promised bold policies on Tuesday, and the gap between his stated ambition and his party's polling position means the address carries more than the usual conference weight.

He has called himself a candidate to be prime minister. The coming days will test whether his own MPs and the wider electorate see the same thing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Ed Davey say about his own political ambition?

Ed Davey said, "I am a candidate to be prime minister," and insisted he isn't simply auditioning for a junior role in a future coalition. He also said, "I've got no ceiling on our ambitions," adding that the party must build on its election success "area by area, constituency by constituency."

Why have some of Ed Davey's own MPs expressed frustration?

Some of his own MPs have voiced frustration because the party has slipped to fourth or fifth in national opinion polls, trailing Labour, the Tories, the Greens and Reform UK. Sir Ed acknowledged this directly, conceding the "frustration" felt by colleagues who believe the party is not making a bigger impact.

How does Ed Davey explain the opportunity for the Lib Dems at the next general election?

He said British politics is split because the right wing is divided and fragmented like it's never happened before in over 200 years of British parliamentary elections. In his telling, that fragmentation hands the Lib Dems an historic opportunity to do far better than anyone imagines at the moment at the next general election.

What does the article say about the Lib Dems' strategy for the 27 seats where they finished second in 2024?

The BBC has been told the party's strategy is focused on the 27 seats where the Lib Dems finished second in 2024, and of those 27, twenty are held by the Conservatives. The article notes that this targeted map sits awkwardly beside all that talk of being a candidate to be prime minister.

What did Ed Davey say about the Jackdaw gas field and Rosebank oil field?

He backed the Jackdaw gas field, saying, "We're going to need gas for a long, long time as part of our transition," and that Jackdaw "has passed the climate change test." On Rosebank, he told the BBC "the jury is very much out," not least because it may not pass the same test on reducing carbon emissions.