{"id":4636,"date":"2026-10-14T10:36:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T10:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/14\/politics-home-ed-davey-under-pressure-to-raise-game-as-mps-signal-leadership-tensions-arent-over\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T10:36:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T10:36:28","slug":"politics-home-ed-davey-under-pressure-to-raise-game-as-mps-signal-leadership-tensions-arent-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/14\/politics-home-ed-davey-under-pressure-to-raise-game-as-mps-signal-leadership-tensions-arent-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics Home | Ed Davey Under Pressure To Raise Game As MPs Signal Leadership Tensions Aren\u2019t Over"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ed Davey is safe as Liberal Democrat leader for now, but some MPs still believe that a leadership challenge is inevitable (Alamy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


\n 5 min read<\/span>1 hr<\/span>
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Ed Davey is fighting on as leader of the Liberal Democrats after a rumoured\u00a0challenge fell flat. However, some of his MPs think a\u00a0move against him has been delayed, not defeated for good.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

A routine meeting of Lib Dems parliamentarians\u00a0on Tuesday evening attracted unusual levels of attention amid\u00a0speculation that\u00a0Davey\u2019s leadership was under threat due to two frontbench MPs resigning from their positions in the last few weeks.<\/p>\n

However, the meeting largely went without any conflict and was widely described by MPs in attendance to PoliticsHome as a \u201cdamp squib\u201d which did not result in a leadership vote.<\/p>\n

Lib Dem MPs who want a change of leadership\u00a0aimed\u00a0to get a quarter of MPs to sign a letter \u2013 equivalent to 18 signatories \u2013 and then a majority of MPs would need to vote against Davey in a confidence motion to pass and trigger a leadership contest.<\/p>\n

Last week, Charlie Maynard resigned as Liberal Democrat Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Alison Bennett resigned as party spokesperson for care and carers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is believed among Lib Dems\u00a0that\u00a0their resignations were primarily about disagreements with the party\u2019s policy direction: for Bennett, feeling that the party was not\u00a0going far enough in its commitments to properly fund social care, and for Maynard, who has a background in business, disappointment with what he perceived as the party\u2019s incoherence on the economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, many Lib Dem MPs told PoliticsHome the attempted coup had been badly organised.<\/p>\n

Referring to Maynard, one MP said it was \u201cone MP going over the top\u201d and that \u201che\u2019s misread the mood of the party\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A senior MP said \u201cCharlie has done a bit of a James Purnell of old,\u201d referring to when Purnell, who is now Andy Burnham’s Chief of Staff, resigned from the Labour government in 2009 and called upon then prime minister Gordon Brown to resign, but did not coordinate with other Blairite ministers.<\/p>\n

\"Charlie
Charles Maynard was elected Lib Dem MP for Witney in 2024 (Alamy)<\/figcaption>
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Another senior Lib Dem MP who attended the meeting in Westminster on Tuesday\u00a0said that \u201cMP after MP stood up to support Ed\u201d.<\/p>\n

Many Lib Dem MPs cite the fact that there is no single obvious successor to Davey as one of the main reasons why a more significant leadership coup has not already been attempted. Josh Babarinde, Daisy Cooper and Layla Moran are names frequently mentioned as potential future leaders, but so far they have all\u00a0consistently rowed in behind their leader.<\/p>\n

Another senior Lib Dem said: \u201c[Davey] changed his top team earlier in the year and the results will take time to filter through.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see the case for changing the leader, not least because no other candidate is lining up to do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prospect of Burnham calling an early general election also complicates things. Many Lib Dems believe it is likely that an election will be called this autumn, despite the PM’s claims to the contrary,\u00a0and the party is scrambling to sort candidate selections, localised polling and campaign material.<\/p>\n

Some MPs\u00a0told PoliticsHome they believe Davey\u2019s authority is waning and they expect that a leadership challenge could be imminent, but more likely\u00a0after a general election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWatch this space,\u201d said one MP who believes a challenge is more likely after an election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt all depends on how we do, of course. I remain unpersuaded (as do the vast majority of the parliamentary party) that any one else in our team could do a better job.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been growing restlessness within the Lib Dems in recent months, with frustrated MPs pointing to\u00a0their stagnant polling and complaining that the party has failed to capitalise on its record gains at the last general election.<\/p>\n

After taking swathes of seats in former Tory territory in the south of England in 2024, Davey is now under pressure to spell out more clearly his\u00a0vision and direction for the party in a fragmented political landscape. One senior party figure\u00a0recently\u00a0complained to\u00a0The House magazine that Davey wasn’t being bold enough: “It is as if sometimes we are scared of our own voters.”<\/p>\n

In an interview with The House\u00a0ahead of the recent Lib Dem conference,\u00a0Davey said\u00a0local election results showed that the party was \u201cexpanding\u201d across the country under his leadership and in \u201cits\u00a0strongest position in over a century\u201d.<\/p>\n

Davey has other critics in the party, including MPs Tom Gordon and Vikki Slade, who have criticised his decision to support the continuation of the pensions triple lock.<\/p>\n

Roz Savage is another MP who has criticised the leadership, saying last month that the party was \u201cstruggling for relevance\u201d and failing to paint a \u201ccoherent picture of the country we are trying to create\u201d. However, having just been appointed as chair of the parliamentary party, Savage chaired the meeting on Tuesday and was therefore unable to contribute herself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Supportive MPs described Davey as having been \u201cin listening mode\u201d at the meeting, with most MPs keen to join in a discussion on how the party can grow ahead of the next general election and build on its record number of MPs.<\/p>\n

PoliticsHome understands that only three MPs spoke out with criticisms of Davey\u2019s leadership approach in the meeting, and the party has not sent out any communication to party members about the internal rows.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Matilda Martin<\/p>\n

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Ed Davey is safe as Liberal Democrat leader for now, but some MPs still believe that a leadership challenge is inevitable (Alamy) 5 min read1 hr Ed Davey is fighting on as leader of the Liberal Democrats after a rumoured\u00a0challenge fell flat. However, some of his MPs think a\u00a0move against him has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}