I write this with sadness, not anger.

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Ed Davey is a good man. A decent man. Liberal to his fingertips.

And he led the Liberal Democrats to one of the greatest electoral achievements in our modern history. Taking the party from just eleven seats to 72 MPs at the 2024 general election was remarkable, a greater number of seats for the British Liberal tradition than in more than a Century and even more than that achieved by the late, great Charles Kennedy who was, in my opinion, the best ever leader of our party. After the devastation of the very near wipeout of 2015, few believed such a recovery was possible.

Ed led the 2024 campaign. He deserves credit for that. He deserves gratitude for that. And, whatever happens next, he will always be able to say that he helped to rebuild our party and our movement.

But politics moves on. And so must we.

Because here is the uncomfortable reality: despite our parliamentary success, we are still too easy to ignore. Too easy to sideline. Too easy for Labour and the Conservatives (never mind Reform and the Greens) to dismiss as a political sideshow rather than a serious national force.

That should worry every Liberal Democrat, from the humblest activist all the way through to our party leadership.

The truth is the approach that helped us survive is not the approach that will help us lead. The stunts, the dancing, the light-hearted attempts to grab-attention, they may have been understandable when we had 11 or 15 MPs and were fighting for relevance.

But we are not that party anymore.

We are a 72-MP party. We should be acting like a government-in-waiting, a viable potential progressive Coalition partner, not a protest movement grateful just to be noticed. Voters need to see seriousness, credibility, and authority. They need to see a party that looks ready not just to oppose, but to govern.

Right now, we risk looking like the party of the status quo when we should be the party of radical liberal change.

Where is the fire that once defined us? Where is the boldness on constitutional reform? Where is the urgency on civil liberties? Where is the sense that we are challenging the political settlement rather than quietly fitting in to it?

Liberalism should never be comfortable with drift.

I say this not as a critic from the sidelines, but as someone who believes deeply in what this party can be. We are at our best when we are courageous. When we are distinctive. When we sound like the future.

Which is why I believe Ed Davey now faces a simple but profound test.

Can he make the transition from the leader who rebuilt the party to the leader who can prepare it for power?

If he can, he deserves the opportunity to prove it. But if he cannot-or simply refuses to change direction-then however painful it may be, he must seriously consider whether the moment has now come to pass on the baton of leadership to the next generation. Because no leader is bigger than the cause they serve.

We thank Ed Davey for his service. We respect what he has achieved, in opposition and in government.

But the Liberal Democrats, and those we serve, cannot afford for us to drift into political irrelevance just as we have fought our way back to relevance.

Serious times demand serious leadership.

And the question now is whether our party is prepared to show it.

Mathew Hulbert is a Liberal Democrat activist and former Councillor in Leicestershire

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