Liberal Democrats' chances of winning Yorkshire seats at next election 'increasingly good'

“We did incredibly well at the local elections last time,” he said, particularly in the North Yorkshire town, adding that the local party seems “pretty buoyant”.

“Lifelong Conservatives keep saying that they can never vote Conservative again. They just think they have completely lost their way and don’t represent many traditional Tory voters.

“Something’s happening there, we’re very excited about it.”

The Lib Dems finished second in two of the 44 seats in the region in 2019, despite holding seats in Sheffield, York, Leeds, Bradford and Harrogate in previous elections.

Sir Ed said that areas around Hull and the East Riding could also see the party pick up other seats in the region, following the party’s success in winning Hull Council last year.

“With the boundary changes, this could create some interesting new seats for us there,” he said.

Despite the enthusiasm for winning seats in Yorkshire, mayoral races are not high on the party’s agenda, according to Sir Ed.

He said that if local members think a mayor is a good idea then it would be something “they would have a go at” and it would “almost certainly be between us and the Tories”.

Sir Ed’s conference speech in York will be his first as party leader, despite leading the Liberal Democrats since 2020, with the city set to be of vital importance, with the party keen to win the council outright after running it in coalition with the reens.

Despite constant questions for both himself and Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer over any pacts or deals between the two parties, Sir Ed is clear that he has ruled them out unequivocally, and will “not do what some of my predecessors did” and simply focus on what happens after the election.

“I have a job to do and that is to beat as many Tory MPs as possible, and in Scotland to beat as many S NP MPs as possible and I think we’ve shown in by-elections that we can do that.

“We’re getting better and better at beating Conservatives.

Later today the party will call on the Chancellor to scrap planned tax cuts for banks to fund a pay rise for carers.

In a speech to the party’s spring conference in York, Treasury spokeswoman Sarah Olney will say Ministers could “comfortably” afford a £2-an-hour pay rise for social care workers commissioned by local authorities if they took back money from the banks.