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Ed Davey gave a speech at the York Spring Conference that received two standing ovations: one, as you’d expect, at the end; the other when he spoke about the “elephant in the room” – how our entire political establishment continues to ignore Brexit. However, after briefly mentioning red tape and improving relations, the speech rushed away from the topic and into the safe hands of president Putin.

It was a missed opportunity, as the standing ovation made plain. A previous article argued that far from being a liability, the issue of Europe and Brexit could be our party’s election thunderbolt.

It’s all very well to say that, but how do you navigate a topic as toxic as Brexit? What would Ed’s speech have looked like if we decided on a bolder approach?

Brave New World

It’s worth watching the speech to get a feel for where it was going – you can see it on YouTube in its entirety. Europe kicks at the 40-minute mark. But if you want to get closer to the action, start at 37-38 mins, where Ed Davey talks about a bolder approach to our economy.

Wait for the ovation to die down and then imagine for a second.

Because here is the rest of the speech Ed Davey should have given at Spring Conference.

It’s been three years since we’ve met up in person, so Spring Conference was a joyous event. It was also a chance to get fired up about the future: something the party’s leadership was keen to make the most of.

And so for the closing speech, Ed Davey’s team pulled out all the stops. There were not one but two emails from top brass in the hours before, one from CEO Mike Dixon offering an “exclusive preview” of the text and another from national campaign chief Dave McCobb telling us how much a draft of the speech had inspired him. Both encouraged us to spread a live video link far and wide. It was clear this was a big push.

And it worked. Those of us in York packed the hall to hear the party leader speak and we were ready to be inspired. Ed Davey came out to rapturous applause, and we were off.

It was a carefully crafted and moving speech – especially when Ed spoke to the struggles he has faced from the loss of his father and mother when young and the challenges he continues to experience with his son. He spelt out clearly what it is to be a Liberal, and was unflinching in his criticism of the current government and their policies.

But it was another member of the party’s top team, president Mark Pack, that highlighted the speech’s most unusual aspect: it peaked in the middle.

Think only two @libdems leaders have ever had mid-speech standing ovations for their conference speeches – Tim on refugees and today Ed on Europe #ldconf

— Mark Pack 🔶 (@markpack) March 19, 2023

The standing ovation was indeed remarkable. Coming after a long series of complaints about the Tories, Ed Davey paused and seized on an issue most dear to Liberals’ hearts…

There’s another historic, longstanding difference between the Liberal Democrat economic vision – and those of others. More relevant today than ever. I call it the elephant in the room of British politics. An elephant we always point to, even though other parties daren’t even whisper its name.

And then the kicker, that ended with Ed in full power stance:

So let me shout it, yet again: if you want to boost our economy, you have to repair our broken relationship with Europe.

Boom

The room uprooted itself in approval. Rafters swayed and seats shook as the audience leapt to its feet and roared. Our leader was finally calling out the disaster that has been Brexit. After years of excuses and gaslighting from the political establishment and the press, there was no way out of it.

We as Lib Dems had warned and bellowed and fought and been proven right. Only we had a clean record on Europe and finally we were going to acknowledge that reality and, better, use it to blow away shameless political rivals.

The decision to called out this “elephant in the room” was rewarded with a minute-long standing ovation given with such conviction that even the man that delivered it was surprised. And as it began to die down, we waited with bated breath to hear how the party’s best and smartest had figured out how to navigate the difficult realities of Brexit with what we know to be true. We waited to be given our marching orders, receive our rallying cry…

…And then it became clear that the sentence that had forced us to our feet was not a headline but just part of a paragraph.