The Liberal Democrats will put a campaign for Britain to rejoin the EU single market at the heart of their efforts to capture public attention in a crowded political market as the party meets for a crucial conference.
Daisy Cooper, the party’s deputy leader, decried Labour’s failure to “get off first base” in its attempt to repair the economic damage of Brexit and said the Lib Dems would take the UK into the single market and a customs union.
The Lib Dem Treasury spokesperson admitted her party had sometimes been drowned out by “noisier” opponents and that the conference in Brighton would see the party attempt to build on solid foundations laid at the last election.
The Lib Dems have appeared becalmed in recent months, stuck at about 10 per cent and in fifth place in national opinion polls, with Reform UK and the Greens often generating more political energy and media coverage.
Some Lib Dem MPs have become restive. One said the party was failing to adequately capitalise on its rivals’ weaknesses. “We need to be a little less cautious, a little less triangulating,” the MP said.
But in an interview with the FT, Cooper said: “This conference is a springboard to what comes next. I would describe it as a gloves-off conference.”
At the heart of the Lib Dem pitch is an assertion that only a radical reversal of Brexit trade barriers can transform the UK’s growth prospects, while the party also wants to deepen defence ties with Europe.
“It seems utterly absurd that we’re leaving in place these barriers between ourselves and our closest trading partners,” she said, arguing that Britain was like “flotsam on the sea”, battered by trade storms coming from the US and China.
“Our growth and defence partnership would involve joining a single market, joining a new customs union, creating a new European defence alliance as well,” she added.
Cooper argued that Labour had failed to deliver on an ambitious “reset” of relations with the EU. “They haven’t even got as far as agreeing on a youth mobility scheme,” she said. The EU and UK have yet to set a date for a summit to try to agree a closer partnership.
It is an issue most Lib Dems feel strongly about, although privately some MPs fear it could alienate some voters who are bored by Brexit or do not want to reopen the EU debate.
The Lib Dem policy would require the EU to agree to admitting Britain into the single market and negotiating a new customs pact, something which is by no means assured. But Cooper insists it could be negotiated quickly.
She said the UK should try to negotiate having some kind of say in shaping EU single market rules but added in reality “we’re already a rule-taker from Brussels”. In the past, the EU has rejected any suggestion that the UK, as a non-member, should have any role in writing single market rules.
Cooper had no qualms about having to give up the post-Brexit trade deals struck by the Labour government with the US and other countries to join a customs union with the EU. She said they generated only “a tiny fraction” of the economic benefits of deeper integration with Europe.
Some Lib Dem MPs have been frustrated that the Lib Dems, under Sir Ed Davey’s leadership, have not fully capitalised on the record 72 seats the party won at the last election, many at the expense of the Tories in southern England.
Cooper said the party had spent the past two years trying to “consolidate” its position in those seats, adding that the Lib Dems had “slightly overshot” by winning seats they had never expected to gain.
After making net gains in May’s council elections — the eighth successive local government advance — she said the party was feeling “pretty bullish” but wanted to sharpen its message on the economy, immigration and defence. The party’s recent campaigns have focused on health, social care and water pollution.
Danny Chambers, another MP, said the polling was “nothing to panic about, but there should be absolutely no complacency”, adding: “We’re polling at the same level we were when we had the best result in 100 years.”
“We’ve got a really good foundation,” he said. “The problem we have is communicating things in an engaging way.” He said the party’s pitch to voters, exhausted by years of political turmoil, should be “change without chaos”.
Cooper said: “I think people will be nicely surprised that we are ready to step up and fill that distinctive political space that has opened up in British politics.”
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Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats wish to make another push for Britain to rejoin the EU single market, following their decline to fifth place in the polls and trailing behind the Green Party. They argue that the Labour government is currently failing to live up to the promise of a reset with Brussels.
Cooper says that the UK should negotiate a way to have rule making power within the single market. However, the EU has explicitly ruled this out in the past. In private, some Lib Dem MPs are also fearful that reopening the Brexit debate could alienate many potential voters who wish to move on.
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