Sir Ed Davey has refused to rule out striking a deal with Sir Keir Starmer in order to stop Nigel Farage from entering Number 10.
Speaking to Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby, the Lib Dem leader said he would “wait to see the result of the next election” before deciding on any agreement with Labour.
Asked whether he would ever do a deal with Sir Keir, the party chief said: “Look, when it comes to deals with other parties beyond Reform, let’s wait to see the result of the next election.”
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Sir Ed, who was speaking during the party’s conference in Bournemouth, categorically ruled out doing any kind of deal with Nigel Farage’s party, despite its current lead in the polls.
He said: “That’s not going to happen. The truth is with the Reform Party, they represent values which are the complete polar opposite.”
The Lib Dem leader said he believed Mr Farage was seeking to mimic the politics of US President Donald Trump.
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“I think people are worried about the direction of our country, because often in the past, sometimes we have seen a bit of American influence in our country,” he said.
“We’re seeing a lot more of it. And people look at Trump’s America and what he’s doing to it and are really fearful for democracy.”
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‘If we win the right seats, it stops Reform getting a majority’
Asked whether he felt he had a “moral responsibility” to keep Reform out of power by forming an alliance with other progressive parties, Sir Ed suggested it was not necessary because “we can stop Reform by ourselves”.
“If Liberal Democrats keep winning seats and build on our best result for 100 years, at the last general election, we can stop Reform by ourselves,” he said.
“We can deprive them of the seats that they would need to form a majority. And then the arithmetic of them getting to power falls to pieces.
“If we win the right seats, it stops them getting a majority and I am determined to target our resources to stop them winning the seats that will put them into power. And that’s because in our elections, it’s seat by seat, so many seats we took off the Tories last time, if we hadn’t done, Reform might have done.”
He added: “We didn’t have pacts last time. We’re not going to have pacts in the future.”
Sir Ed has been the only English party leader to explicitly criticise Mr Trump, and even refused an invitation to the state banquet with the King at Windsor Castle as part of the US president’s state visit last week.
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He has also criticised on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips the president’s former ally Elon Musk, branding the billionaire tech tycoon a “criminal” for “allowing online harm to children” on his social media platform X.
The Lib Dem leader refused to apologise for the remark and denied it was “irresponsible” to call Mr Musk a criminal when no charges had been laid against him.
He said he was not concerned about being sued by Mr Musk – who has previously called Sir Ed a “snivelling cretin”.
Will Davey continue with his stunts?
Elsewhere in the interview, Sir Ed was challenged about his leadership style and whether the publicity stunts he famously relied on in the election were “appropriate” when the country was going through profound political and economic challenges.
Beth Rigby highlighted reports showing that his own MPs had expressed a desire for their leader to “drop bullshit stunts and raise your game”.
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In response, Sir Ed said he didn’t think politics was “a joke” and that he was able to make “serious points” while engaging in stunts to attract attention.
“What happened was the cameras came there and they interviewed me and allowed me to give my serious points,” he said.
“And, in previous elections, we haven’t been able to do that. And when I was able to give the serious points on behalf of Liberal Democrats, we got our best result for 100 years.”
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He added: “The huge number of MPs who want to be part of my stunt suggests that they want to be part of it.
“We’re not just stuffy old politicians, we’re ordinary people like them”.
On the question of whether he would lead the Liberal Democrats into the next election, Sir Ed replied: “Yes.”
