Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has made a pitch for opponents of the Conservatives to vote tactically for his party as he refused to rule out entering into a coalition with Labour.
He said it was his job to “beat the Conservatives” as he seeks Labour votes to win commuter seats that have previously been solidly Tory.
Davey said his focus was winning over blue wall seats whose voters felt “taken for granted” by the Conservatives, adding that the “vast majority” of Lib Dem target seats were Tory-held.
The party is campaigning hard in areas such as Surrey for next month’s local elections, in preparation for targeting up to 80 seats in the next general election.
“The Liberal Democrats’ job is to beat Conservatives at the next election,” he told Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Sky News.
But asked five times whether he would go into coalition with Labour, Davey did not answer, saying his priority was “getting rid of this shocking government”.
“My job, as I’ve said throughout my leadership, is to beat Conservative MPs,” he said. “When I go round the country and talk to voters, they feel the Conservatives have taken them for granted.”
Citing Sir Nick Clegg’s former seat of Sheffield Hallam as one of only “one or two” seats where the party was targeting Labour, Davey said: “The vast majority of seats that we can win at the next election in my judgment are against the Conservatives and I want to focus relentlessly on that.”
Dominic Raab’s seat of Esher & Walton is one of those in Surrey being targeted by the Lib Dems and Davey predicted “big gains” in the area’s local elections. He urged the former deputy prime minister to stand down as an MP after he was found to have bullied officials, saying: “When it comes to the local elections, there is the Elmbridge district council elections in his constituency and I think we will make big gains from the Conservatives in those council elections and at the next general election we will defeat Dominic Raab.”
Pointing to by election victories in which his party overturned big Tory majorities in Chesham & Amersham, Tiverton & Honiton and North Shropshire, Davey said: “In vast swathes of the country, both in the council elections in May and the general election whenever it comes, presumably next year, it’s the Liberal Democrats who are the ones who are best placed to beat the Conservatives and we will get that cut through and beat those Conservatives.”
