Davey starts by warning “something big and dangerous is happening in our country”.
He explains:
Hundreds of thugs, in black shirts and balaclavas, are marching on our streets.
First Dover. Then Portsmouth.
Their aim? To intimidate. To spread fear. To stoke racism.
They may call themselves patriots, but they would tear our country apart.
We must not let them.
He says there are precedents for what is happening now.
There has always been a small minority hellbent on destroying them.
Mosley’s fascists in the thirties. The National Front in the seventies. Nick Griffin and the BNP just two decades ago.
Each time, they tried to turn neighbour against neighbour, tried to pit community against community, tried to turn our streets into battlegrounds.
But we didn’t let them. The British people said no.
The East End stood firm on Cable Street. Lewisham and Wood Green turned them back. Voters shut the BNP out.
Every generation, we have these men, who pretend to be patriots. Who claim to speak for “real Britain”.
And every generation, the real Britain refuses to accept it.
But this time there is a difference, he says.
Because the blackshirts marching today aren’t doing it in isolation.
They are just the most visible part of a far-right threat that is extremely well-funded.
That extends well beyond the shores of our United Kingdom.
That is promoted by the world’s richest man – Elon Musk – with all the might of his social media platform.
Davey said politics is broken.
But Conference, there is a bigger, more fundamental change we need to talk about.
A change to the nature of politics itself.
Because the things that have gone wrong in our country, the crises we face – the maternity crisis, the housing shortage, the sewage scandal, the cost of living, the sense that nothing quite works the way it should –
These are not the failings of the British people. Not for one second.
These are the failings of governments. Labour governments. Conservative governments. SNP governments in Holyrood.
Davey says raising the tax allowance is a progressive policy.
[The Reform UK] tax cut is paid for through cruelty.
Ours is paid for by the growth of a stronger economy.
We did it before. We can do it again.
And we can go further, to tackle a second unfairness – one we didn’t deal with when we were in government.
Back then, we rightly focused on raising the personal allowance – but let more people fall into the 40p income tax band.
And the post-Brexit stealth taxes have pulled more and more people into paying that higher rate tax.
Thirty years ago, just 2 million people paid it. Now it’s 9 million.
A tax band designed for stockbrokers is now holding back teachers and nurses.
That’s not fair. It’s not right.
And tellingly, Reform have said they will do nothing about it.
But we will. Because our growth plan will mean we can raise the 40p threshold to £56,000.
Taking hundreds of thousands of ordinary people out of paying higher rate tax.
Growing our economy with Europe. Backing our great British businesses. Putting money back into people’s pockets.
Davey turns to tax.
Look what’s happened over the last few years – because of the lack of growth.
Desperate for another source of money, governments – both Conservative and Labour – have taken it out of people’s pockets.
How? By freezing the tax-free personal allowance.
Raising income tax by stealth.
Taking hundreds of pounds more out of the payslips of ordinary people, every year.
A stealth tax to pay the cost of the economic vandalism of Johnson and Farage.
When we were in government, our party did the opposite.
We raised the personal allowance by £4,000.
Taking more than 3 million people out of paying income tax altogether.
It was a profoundly liberal thing to do.
Rewarding hard work and aspiration. Helping the lowest paid the most.
Trusting people to spend their own money, not telling them the state knows best.
And here comes the big policy announcement.
So I’m announcing our plan to raise the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000.
Taking 2 million more people out of paying tax altogether, and giving most taxpayers a £680 tax cut.
Real money, back in people’s pockets.
Now – you might have heard Robert Jenrick say something similar at Reform’s conference. In between trying to defend Farage’s latest funding scandal.
But here’s the big difference.
Jenrick didn’t say this, but Reform’s figures show they’d pay for it by ripping £22 billion of crucial support away from disabled people.
Think about that. Reform say you can have a tax cut, but only if they get to punish disabled people at the same time.
We say no. We can cut taxes and support the most vulnerable people in our country.
Because we will pay for our tax cut fairly and honestly.
Not with more borrowing. Not with fantasy spending cuts that never materialise. Not by hiking your taxes by stealth elsewhere.
We will pay for it from the dividends of growth. The growth that comes from our bold new partnership with Europe.
Here is Peter Walker and Alexandra Topping’s story on this.
And here is an extract from the story, with some of the detail not set out in the speech.
Addressing the party’s annual conference in Brighton, the Lib Dem leader said the proposal, which would eventually increase the threshold for paying income tax to £15,000 and raise the level at which people pay the 40p higher rate by about £6,000, would be paid for entirely by increased growth.
This growth, the Lib Dems argue, would be created through rejoining the EU’s single market and customs union.
As making a deal with the EU would take time, the actual tax cuts would only happen in the final year of a parliament, potentially as late as 2034, costing £17bn. In the interim years, thresholds would be raised by inflation, thus keeping levels effectively stable.
There would also be a smaller increase to the 45p additional rate of tax, currently payable above £125,000.
Davey says people are struggling with the cost of living.
He goes on:
And we know what has brought us to this point, don’t we Conference?
The terrible economic damage of the Conservatives’ Brexit deal – backed, let’s never forget, by Nigel Farage.
A deal that put up barriers to trade, that tied up British businesses in costs and red tape, that pushed up prices on our supermarket shelves.
A deal that took opportunities away from our young people.
The botched Brexit deal. All the Conservative chaos that followed.
And then Labour – instead of fixing it – have only added to the pain with damaging tax hikes and their own chaos and their own infighting.
And even now, Andy Burnham refuses to open the door to the European single market.
We are the only ones with the courage to say it, aren’t we Conference?
Fixing our relationship with Europe is the only way to get our economy back on track.
And we are fighting to do just that.
To put Britain back where it belongs. Back at the heart of Europe.
This, too, is the fight of our lives.
Davey says the Lib Dems want, not just a customs union with the EU, but to rejoin the EU single market.
Last year, I set out our plan for a new customs union, to slash the Brexit red tape.
Now I’m going further, because this moment demands it.
Not just a customs union, but joining the single market too.
Bringing down those barriers to trade. Breathing new life into our economy. And bolstering our collective security too.
Not just a growth plan. A defence plan.
Davey says the same should apply to women giving birth. But maternity services are a scandal, he says.
Inquiry after inquiry has found the same horrifying pattern.
Mothers and babies left with life-changing injuries – or worse – because of a maternity system stretched far beyond its limits.
Midwives doing their best, but exhausted, and in buildings that aren’t fit for purpose.
That shames our country. And we won’t accept it.
We will give mothers the one-to-one care they need, make every maternity unit safe, and end this scandal once and for all.
Davey turns to special needs, and his disabled son, John. He says he and his wife were told John would need a wheelchair all his life. But they worked themselves on his mobility, with support from therapists, and now he can ride a tricycle.
I’m an MP. Emily is a councillor and a lawyer. We’ve had a lot of support from family and friends.
But even so, we have had to fight for John, every step of the way.
And I know that, for most people who aren’t so lucky, the fight is much harder.
I see them every week in my constituency surgery. Like the parents fighting for their kids with special educational needs.
Battling a system that’s supposed to be there for them and their child. But instead it beats them down and makes them feel hopeless. Trapped. Powerless.
Ask any parent in that position – and I know there are lots of you here in this hall – and they’ll tell you.
We don’t want charity. We don’t want a system that does everything for us.
We know our children best, and we love them like no one else can ever love them.
What we want is a system that empowers us and our children, so we can help them thrive.
That’s what real care is all about. It doesn’t just manage people – it unlocks their potential.
That’s what I’m fighting for. A liberal country. A caring country.
Davey says liberalism is about giving people more power.
We must also pay attention to the other half of our liberal equation.
Giving people more power.
Not just doing things for them, because “the state knows best”, as I fear Andy Burnham may be inclined to do.
Or leaving them to sink or swim – as Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage are already promising to do.
But empowering people by helping everyone to be the best they can be – for themselves.
That is the liberal mission.
Davey is now talking about AI. This passage from the speech was briefed overnight.
Davey says:
Can we leave it to Trump to save us all? No!
Can we leave it to Mark Zuckerberg? To Sam Altman? To Elon Musk? No!
But I’m afraid the plan Andy Burnham has set out – a partnership with Trump’s Department of War – doesn’t come close to meeting the scale of this threat.
It only risks making us more dependent on a Trump administration in the pocket of the tech bros.
So it’s up to us to rise to this challenge, friends.
We need a global treaty to press pause on super-intelligent AI now, before it’s too late.
We need a new International AI Safety Agency – like we have for nuclear – to stop anyone from developing this technology recklessly.
A liberal solution – because the problem is fundamentally one about power. It’s too concentrated, and we must break it up.
And this is how the Lib Dems campaign, Davey says.
Conference, if this all sounds eerily familiar – it should!
Because this is exactly what our party has always been about.
The community politics we practise day-in, day-out. Real community politics. That’s the answer.
He gives an example – the work done by his wife, Emily, as the councillor in charge of housing on Kingston council.
When Emily took over, there was already a plan to regenerate the borough’s biggest council estate.
But it was a plan drawn up by the old Conservative council – who’d given no say at all to the people who actually live there.
It was something being done to them, not with them.
So Emily said no. It’s their home. They should have a say.
And she insisted on an estate-wide ballot.
That decision was transformative.
It forced council officers and the developer to visit the estate. It forced them to actually talk to the tenants – and listen to them.
And guess what? It resulted in better homes, better designed.
And the residents voted for them in big numbers. But just as important – they felt good about it.
They could hardly believe someone had asked their opinion. Gave them a say. Took power and put it in their hands.
Families have started moving into the first new homes, and Emily’s been to see some of them.
One told her something that still chokes both of us up.
They said about their new flat, “We don’t deserve this.”
“We don’t deserve this.”
That’s how hopeless the old system had made them feel.
But now they’re hopeful again.
That, my friends, is real community politics. Real Liberalism.
Davey says it is important to understand why people are attracted by far-right politics.
People are fed up.
They see a politics that promises change and fails to deliver.
Their bills keep rising. Their kids still can’t afford a home of their own. Their loved ones still wait too long for a GP appointment.
When people stop believing politics can change their lives, they get cynical. Angry. And they’re not wrong.
When our young people can’t see a future for themselves in our communities, they stop looking. And they turn to their screens instead.
Screens that offer the illusion of excitement. The illusion of connection. The illusion of belonging.
But screens that only deepen the sense of emptiness and loneliness that no amount of scrolling can ever fill.
Is it any wonder the populists have found something to exploit?
Their whole agenda is to tear everything down. And when people are desperate for change, “tear it all down” starts to sound like the only honest thing left.
Davey critcises Kemi Badenoch for excluding from the Conservative party anyone “who cares about human rights or climate action”.
And he says liberalism can take on populism because it means appreciating the worth of every individual.
Real Liberalism is rooted in seeing the value of every human being – not just the ones who share our appearance or our beliefs.
A free society is messy. It’s full of disagreement.
And as Liberals, we don’t erase our differences. We confront them.
The way people across our country overcome their differences every day.
Not by shouting past each other, but by building real human connections.
Person to person. Neighbour to neighbour. Street by street.
Because when that person you disagree with stops being just another little box on your social media feed, and becomes a human being with a face, a home and a life –
That’s when we make progress.
Davey says the Lib Dems are in “the fight of our lives”.
But they are “already winning”, he says.
I look around this hall and I see so many councillors, so many council leaders, so many Members of parliament – in Westminster, Holyrood and Cardiff Bay.
And all of you who’ve helped get them elected.
We’re even winning in Devon – whatever you might have heard!
That is a joke about the Lib Dem leader of Devon county council slagging him off at conference.
Davey says Nigel Farage must be stopped from making Britain like Donald Trump’s America.
This is a far-right movement that is given oxygen, and heat, and fuel by politicians and parties who claim to be serious contenders to lead our country.
Cynical politicians like Nigel Farage.
Not just willing, but eager to fan the flames of hatred and intolerance to make himself richer. To get himself into power.
Trying to create a nation of division and fear – because that’s what keeps him going.
Well Conference, that is not our country. That is not who we are.
It is the worst of Trump’s America.
We must not let it become Farage’s Britain.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
