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The Liberal Democrats have re-branded themselves as the antidote to Reform UK – but now they have to prove it.

Day Four of their party conference in Bournemouth was dominated by Sir Ed Davey’s keynote speech, in which he named Nigel Farage 31 times and accused Reform UK of plotting to turn the United Kingdom into “Trump’s America”.

The Lib Dem leader worked hard to define his party as the natural home for voters worried about Reform’s advance.

He claimed Farage’s agenda would saddle families with private health insurance costs, open the countryside to shale fracking, weaken rights by pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights, and even risk gun law changes that could force schools to drill children for mass shootings.

It is a deliberately sharp contrast with the other main political parties.

Labour has kept largely silent on Reform, concentrating its fire on the Conservatives, while the Tories under Kemi Badenoch cannot afford to alienate Farage’s supporters.

By putting Reform front and centre, the Liberal Democrats hope to rally activists and donors while positioning themselves as the guardians of “tolerance, decency and respect” – what Davey described as the country’s “silent majority”.

The party has also leant heavily on patriotic imagery: former leader Tim Farron urged members to reclaim the flag from the far right, while Davey invoked cricket pavilions, county shows and fish and chips in a deliberate echo of John Major’s brand of One Nation conservatism.

The aim was clear: to win over disillusioned Conservative voters who do not see themselves reflected in either Badenoch’s harder-right stance or Farage’s Trump-style populism.

Alongside this identity pitch came policy shifts.

Davey called for discounted visas and fellowships to attract cancer scientists leaving the United States after President Trump’s cuts to research funding.

He criticised Reform for applauding the end of mRNA vaccine projects, calling it “cruel and stupid”.

The party also reaffirmed its support for higher capital gains taxes and inheritance taxes, while pressure is growing from campaigners such as the “Patriotic Millionaires” to go further with a dedicated wealth tax – about which the Lib Dems have been cautious, given their increasingly affluent base.

On foreign policy, Davey welcomed Labour’s recent recognition of Palestine but went further, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza and calling for it to be “named as such”.

He also proposed a new customs union with the European Union, marking another difference with Labour’s more cautious stance.

The message of Bournemouth, then, is that the Liberal Democrats want to be seen as both patriotic and pro-science, the moderate alternative to Reform, and more open than Labour to tackling inequality and resetting relations with Europe.

The risk is whether voters see this as a convincing package, or a series of signals aimed at too many audiences at once.

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