Climbing the party-branded stairs of the Brighton Centre with a Liberal Britain tote bag over his shoulder, Cody Butler looks quite at home at the Liberal Democrats’ annual jamboree.
But asked how he is finding it, the 21-year-old replied: “Odd.” The former Tory activist resigned as chair of the One Nation Conservative Network and left his old party in July, arguing that centrists, remainers and members worried about the climate crisis and conservation were no longer welcome in the party. A week ago, he joined the Lib Dems.
“There is no easy way to describe joining a new political party, because it’s like finding a new family,” he said. “I was brought up in a Conservative association. I was the local Tory boy. So it’s great, but odd.”
Butler is one of several youthful former Tories who have publicly defected to Britain’s third party and are in the process of setting up a new group: the One Nation Liberals. It’s a growing group, with other potential defectors believed to be waiting to see if they can survive in Kemi Badenoch’s increasingly rightwing party.
Butler has been joined by Josh Bancroft, a former Tory councillor on Cannock Chase council, who left the party to join the Lib Dems earlier this month. “Moderates like me have been forced out of the big tent over the past few years,” he said. “My politics haven’t changed, but the party has.”
The 26-year old said moderates looking for the exit have grown in number since Badenoch embarked on a purge of the Conservative parliamentary party.
In July, the Tory leader warned that anyone who supported net zero targets or Britain’s membership of the European convention on human rights would be blocked from standing as a candidate in the next election. The former minister Gavin Barwell lost the whip, and another former cabinet member, Grant Shapps, was blocked from standing again for the party.
“The Conservatives have taken leaps to the right and left me and millions of voters behind,” Bancroft added. “The Liberal Democrats can be and should be their new political home.”
Bancroft and Butler have been welcomed with open arms into the Liberal ranks, with one MP joking that Badenoch had become the Lib Dems’ most effective recruiter. During a Q&A on the first full day of the conference, party leader Ed Davey repeatedly mentioned Badenoch, referencing her decision to freeze out members and MPs who support net zero policies.
“Unlike Kemi Badenoch, who thinks there wasn’t a problem with this summer’s heatwaves, we actually realise you have to take action on climate change and we’re leading that debate,” he said.
Despite being stuck at around 11% in national polling, many Liberal Democrat activists and MPs in Brighton are talking with atypical swagger about cementing the foundations of the so-called orange wall. They point to the 72 seats they won in the last election, making them the largest third party in British politics for over a century. And of the 27 seats where the Lib Dems came second in 2024, 20 were taken by the Conservatives.
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When asked if reaching 100 seats by taking those targets was the aim, Davey insisted there was “no ceiling” to the Liberal Democrats’ ambitions. “If we have great local councillors, great local candidates and great local campaigners, we can beat Reform, the Tories, Labour, Green, the SNP, anyone. We can win anywhere where there’s a multi-party fight.”
On Sunday, Davey explicitly ruled out any future pact with the Tories. But when asked about an arrangement with Labour, he said maximising the number of Lib Dem MPs would give his party a stronger hand in any future negotiations. “That means you have to box really smartly,” he said.
While that prospect may have some pure-blood Tories running for the hills, it could lure others into the Liberal Democrat ranks, argued Butler.
“It used to be that if you wanted power you could only join the Conservatives or Labour, but that reality doesn’t exist anymore in a five-party system,” he said. “My message to other One Nation Conservatives is: you can be true to what you believe, and if you back the Liberal Democrats, you’re actually backing the future kingmakers of government. They will write the budget. The Conservatives won’t.”
