Party leader says vote for Labour or Greens in closely run seats will result in Reform victory at local elections
Voters in the home counties will “regret it for a long time” if they do not back the Liberal Democrats and wake up to a Reform-led council, Ed Davey has said.
The Lib Dems leader has identified five councils – East Surrey, West Surrey, Hampshire, West Sussex and Huntingdonshire – where his party could win overall control, as well as swathes of the former “blue wall” where Davey said it was a “straight fight” between his party and Reform at the English local elections.
More than 5,000 councillors will be elected on Thursday, with more than half of these being in either London or the south-east. Some projections show the Lib Dems gaining 500 seats, with Labour losing as many as 1,800. The Greens are also expected to gain hundreds of seats, with top projections putting the figure at 1,700. The pollsters More In Common expect the Lib Dems to take the newly created East and West Surrey councils.
“If we are going to stop Reform, we are the party most capable of doing that, it is on a knife edge in some of these areas,” Davey said. “People could vote Labour or Green and then we will get narrowly beaten by Reform and people will regret it for a long time.”
