Ed Davey just gave a speech unlike anything you’d expect… but these are not normal times – analysis by Katherine Forster

“Stand up to Trump” was Sir Ed Davey’s central message from the Liberal Democrat conference in Harrogate today.

The Lib Dem boss labelled the US President a “bully”, called for the UK to respond to US tariffs with tariffs of our own, and urged Britain to “stand side-by-side with the EU and with our Commonwealth ally Canada”.

Davey also claimed Nigel Farage would turn “our great country into little more than a Trump tribute act”.

“Farage thinks Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are great. Not in a ‘look, we have to be pragmatic and work with them’ kind of way – more in a ‘teenager with a celebrity crush’ kind of way,” he said.

“Don’t forget, when Farage was asked which world leader he most admired, his answer was Vladimir Putin.”

Davey labelled that “unpatriotic” and “deeply un-British”.

This was not the sort of speech you’d normally expect from the Liberal Democrats. A party riding high with 72 seats, typically seen as focused on care and the NHS, clean water, local services, and the EU.

But these are not “normal” times – one well-known Lib Dem MP told me that “people on the doorstep are frightened”.

The tone was set even before Davey began to speak, with a video montage of Donald Trump threatening – among other things – to send troops into Greenland, a territory of Denmark which the President has said he wants for the US.

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His speech began with the words: “We meet at a time of great peril,” and ended with: “Let’s go to battle!”

He said Trump was “selling out the security of Europe and the security of our United Kingdom”. That, he added, is “unforgivable”.

And he attacked Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK over their response.

On Labour, he said their approach was: “Let’s be nice to him and hope he won’t hurt us.”

Davey told crowds: “Labour’s even talking about scrapping Britain’s tax on social media giants. Changing the UK’s tax policy to appease Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

“Appeasement never works with bullies, and it doesn’t work with Trump – as his tariffs on British steel already show.”

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Instead, he called on the UK to “deal with Trump from a position of strength” and to hit back with its own tariffs, starting with on Elon Musk’s Tesla cars, and to work with allies on a coordinated response.

He also slated Trump as “no leader of the free world”.

“I mean, this is a man who stands on the White House drive, flogging Teslas for Elon Musk like a particularly bad used car salesman,” Davey jabbed.

He also attacked the Tories, saying they’d do anything for a trade deal with the US, would “sell out British farmers to President Trump”, and would “let Trump’s billionaire mates carve up the NHS between them”.

Meanwhile, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch was branded “sneering” after she said a typical Liberal Democrat would be “somebody who is good at fixing their church roof”.

Davey retorted that the Lib Dems took 60 seats from the Tories last year, and that the Conservatives had “abandoned our communities”.

But he also turned his fire on Nigel Farage. The Reform UK boss was targeted repeatedly by Davey – and not just on his attitude toward Trump and Putin.

Davey said Farage “has never uttered the word ‘care’ once in Parliament”, and “hasn’t mentioned the NHS once either”.

Nor has Farage mentioned GPs, hospitals, ambulances, or dentists, Davey said. “Our country has big problems to solve. And Nigel Farage is not the least bit interested in solving them.”

So, just a few weeks out from local elections – where the Lib Dems hope to take swathes of council seats from the Conservatives – their leader gave a speech focused on threats from Russia, what he sees as the populist threat from Trump in the States, and from Reform in the UK.

It will seem strange to many, but Davey is proud that his party is saying things the others won’t.

And he believes that what’s at stake is “the very future of liberal democracy itself”.

Speaking to audience members afterwards, the verdict was that Davey’s was the right focus for the times.

We hear it all the time – but the world really has changed.