The public evenly are divided on how positively they view the party, and see it as lacking influence
Party conferences can be many things, but as the Liberal Democrats gather in Brighton this weekend, it seems unlikely that their conference will be anything other than a celebration of their substantial gains in this year’s general election, with Ed Davey having won more seats than any Liberal leader for 100 years.
But the party’s handsome constituency tally is only based on a national vote share roughly half of what they were achieving in the few years before entering government in 2010. Their electoral coalition is thus more efficient, but less broad than it once was.
In part, this is because the Lib Dems now divide Britons far more than they once did. Ahead of the 2010 election, two-thirds of Britons (66%) said they would be either delighted or would not mind a Lib Dem government. Today, four in ten (39%) have a favourable view of the Lib Dems, against another four in ten (38%) who hold an unfavourable opinion of the party.
Beyond the Lib Dems’ own voters, the vast majority of whom (88%) unsurprisingly have a favourable view of the party, Labour voters also look at Ed Davey’s party positively, with 56% having a favourable opinion.
It’s among those on the right where the party is seen more negatively. Twice as many Conservatives view their former coalition partners unfavourably (59%) as favourably (27%), while more than two-thirds of Reform UK voters (69%) have a negative opinion of the Liberals, against only one in eight (12%) seeing them in a good light.
Where the public are less split is when it comes to whether the Lib Dems are powerful players in British politics. Only one in six Britons (18%) feel the party holds even a little influence, with nearly half (45%) feeling they wield ‘not much’ influence and 22% saying the party has no influence ‘at all’ over the direction of the country.
Lib Dem voters tend to be most bullish about their party’s impact, with 43% feeling the party holds a lot or a little influence in British politics, but even then, half of Lib Dems (52%) concede the party’s sway is limited at best.
Nonetheless, four in ten Britons (38%) would like the Lib Dems to have more influence over British politics, while only one in six (16%) want to see the Lib Dems’ powers diminish. Labour voters tend to want the Lib Dems to have more impact in politics, with half (51%) favouring more influence for the party and just 8% wanting them to have less.
On the other hand, just one in seven Reform UK voters (15%) would like to see more power for the Lib Dems in British politics, with four in ten (42%) wanting to reduce the party’s impact, even if eight in ten (80%) already feel the party has little to no influence. Conservatives are more divided, with 31% wanting more influence for the Lib Dems, 25% favouring less and 33% keen for their impact to remain at current levels.
How do Britons see the Lib Dems?
This sense that the Lib Dems are a little powerless can also be seen when looking at their overall party image. When asked which of a set of common political descriptors apply to the party, the one Britons choose most often is ‘weak’, which a quarter of the public (24%) view as an apt description of the party. The least chosen of the options provided is ‘powerful’, a term a statistical 0% of Britons would associate with the Lib Dems.
The public are at least more likely to describe the party as ‘seeming like normal people’ (21%) than ‘weird’ (7%), while more see the Lib Dems as ‘moderate’ (20%) than feel they are ‘extreme’ (2%).
Similarly, those who perceive the Lib Dems as ‘likeable’ clearly outnumber those who see them as ‘nasty’ (16% vs 2%), while the one in six Britons (17%) who see the party as interested in public service are more numerous than the one in ten (10%) who feel Ed Davey’s party are out for themselves.
What stands out most about the Lib Dems to their voters are that the party ‘has sensible policies’, is ‘likeable’, are ‘interested in public service’ and ‘seem like normal people’, with 45-50% of Lib Dem voters feeling these terms apply to their party of choice.
Labour voters are most likely to describe the Lib Dems as ‘moderate’ and ‘seem like normal people’, with three in ten (30%) feeling those terms apply, while it is those on the right who are most likely to feel the word ‘weak’ is appropriate, it being the choice of 35% of Conservative and 43% Reform UK voters.
Who do Britons think the Lib Dems care about?
The other potential limit on a party’s popularity can be who it is seen to care about, particularly whether voters perceive it as being invested in social groups to which they belong.
This is possibly a handicap to the Lib Dems, with no more than four in ten Britons (41%) associating them with particularly caring for any social group we asked about. In part, this is a consequence of an average of four in ten (40%) answering ‘don’t know’ to each option, though so many Britons being unsure of who or what the party stands for is arguably another cause for concern for the party.
Regardless, the groups that Britons perceive the Lib Dems as caring most about are immigrants, ethnic minorities, women, the middle class, people with families and people in the south of England, with four in ten Britons (40-41%) saying the party cares about those groups.
Those least associated with the party are trade unions and people who don’t vote for them, whom only around one in five Britons (20-22%) believe the Lib Dems are interested in, while only a quarter of the public (25%) see them as being bothered by people outside the South.
Fewer than three in ten Britons (28%) feel that the Lib Dems care about people like them, against nearly four in ten (38%) who feel Ed Davey’s party is indifferent to their interests; another possible reason that the party’s electoral coalition is no longer as broad as it once was.
Lib Dem voters most associate the party with caring for people with families (83% saying they cared about them), older people (79%) and young people (76%), with the only groups fewer than half of Lib Dem voters saw the party as caring about being trade unions (38%) and rich people (30%).
There are also some distinctions about the Lib Dems’ attitudes to social groups to which respondents themselves belong. Among 18-24 year olds, there is little perceived difference in the party caring for younger people (37%) and older people (39%), while over 65s are more likely to see the Lib Dems as standing for the young (42%) than the elderly (31%).
Similarly, northerners are less likely than southerners (21% vs 30%) to believe the Lib Dems care about those outside the South of England.
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