What was striking about our interview with Sir Ed Davey on Monday is the extent to which Nigel Farage is living rent-free in the Liberal Democrat leader’s head.
He kicked off our interview warning of that in Donald Trump’s America, people are “really fearful for democracy” and that the Reform UK leader, Mr Farage, is intent on mimicking those politics here: “I think he wants Britain to be like Trump’s America”.
In some ways, Sir Ed’s attacks on Reform and Mr Farage make little sense, because as the leader of the Liberal Democrats, it is the Conservatives that would typically be where the competition lies. In the last general election, 58 of the Lib Dem’s 60 seat gains came from the Tories.
But in another way, the Lib Dem leader is giving an insight into how the battle in British politics is shaping up: Reform versus – in the words of Sir Ed – the “mainstream”, as he seeks to cast Mr Farage as a right-wing populist, importing Trump’s values to Britain.
The logic of this is clear: While Reform and the Lib Dems are not typically fishing in the same pool of voters, there are gains to be made for Sir Ed’s party by taking such a strong position against Reform, while also hooking Mr Farage to President Trump.
Lib Dem insiders tell me this strategy helps them kick on against the Tories in the Conservative heartlands that dislike Trump, while criticism of the US president and his sidekick Elon Musk also appeals to Labour voters who don’t much like Sir Keir Starmer’s kowtowing to Trump.
“It is obvious, is it not, that mainstream politicians of all the mainstream parties don’t want to undermine our democracy, don’t want to take it in the direction of Trump’s America like Nigel Farage,” Ed Davey told me in our interview on Sky News.
