Sir Ed took aim at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and billionaire Elon Musk during his speech at his party’s annual conference.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said his party “won’t give up the fight” to defeat “nasty populism” as he issued a rallying call to members on the first day of the party’s annual conference.
Speaking from the main stage, he took aim at Nigel Farage’s Reform and billionaire X owner Elon Musk as he pointed back to his first ever political campaign, to successfully press for his college to boycott Barclays Bank because they invested in Apartheid-era South Africa.
“Today – we are back. Fighting again the fight that fired me up at university.
“The fight to end injustices. In our country and around the world.
“The fight to defeat the nasty populism of (Donald) Trump, (Marine) Le Pen, the AfD and the rest.
“The fight to stop the world’s richest man who learned racism in apartheid South Africa from funding racism around the world.”
He also said he would fight Reform UK and their “£72 million arsenal of hate and lies” after they received the sum in donations from two crypto billionaires.
And he pointed to the “fight to defend the Royal National Lifeboat Institution after volunteers for the coastal rescue charity were recently targeted online amid anti-migrant protests.
He said Reform UK “don’t speak for the real United Kingdom” and are “banking on” people not caring enough to keep fighting and hoping they will “get tired, depressed”.
“That the anger and the hatred and the lies will grind us down until eventually we just give up.”
But he said he hoped they were watching and would see “a party that won’t be ground down. That won’t be deterred. That won’t give up the fight”.
He then led the audience in a chant of “we care, we fight” and then played the song Golden from KPop Demon Hunters.
Sir Ed earlier said his party would be ready if Prime Minister Andy Burnham calls a general election in a bid to consolidate his position.
He said his party has a “distinctive position” in British politics with their goals to take the UK back into the single market and the customs union, which they believe is key to growing the economy and bringing down taxes, as well as focus on the NHS.
Also on the first day of the conference, Lib Dem health spokesperson Helen Morgan set out a £600 million plan to improve maternity care – including proposals to bring in one-to-one midwifery for every woman in labour backed by a round-the-clock senior consultant.
The party said the measures will pay for themselves by reducing how much the NHS has to spend on compensation for maternity negligence claims every year – totalling £1.3 billion in 2024-25.
And education spokesperson Munira Wilson said the party would bring in a guarantee to provide 100 hours of work experience for students from GCSE age to age 18 to tackle the crisis of young people not in education, employment or training.
