Ed Davey accuses BBC of 'copying Reform press releases' and urges broadcaster to expose Nigel Farage

The Liberal Democrat leader slammed the corporation for its "outrageous" coverage of the party, which is currently leading polls with a 34 per cent share of the vote.

The BBC says it's committed to due impartiality.

Reform's surging popularity has led some analysts to believe that Farage will be the next Prime Minister, but Sir Ed felt the right-wing populist was "jumping the gun" and will be "exposed" when "people really hear him".

Speaking to LBC at the Lib Dem party conference in Bournemouth, Sir Ed said: "Nigel Farage may be so arrogant he's measuring up for curtains in Number 10. I'm afraid he's jumping the gun. When people really hear him, they'll expose you.

"I think the BBC need to do a lot better job exposing him for the snake oil salesman that he is. Sometimes I look at the BBC website and it's almost as if they've taken a Reform press release and copy-and-pasted it.

"It's quite outrageous. Let's show that this is a man who wants to frack across our countryside, who wants more gas - which is more expensive than renewables. He wants to put up people's energy bills.

"He wants to have American-style health insurance to make people pay for their health care. He wants to get rid of water down the laws on handguns - that would be more like America, wouldn't it? He wants to take us to Trump's America. I think that's shocking. I don't think it's patriotic. I don't think it's true to British values".

Reform have made gains at the expenses at both Labour and the Tories, with both major parties each plummeting to a 16 per cent share of the vote each in this week's poll.

The Liberal Democrats were on 13 per cent, up one point on the previous week, a year on from their most successful election ever - where they gained 72 MPs, a leap of 64 from the 2019 election.

But their leader is not resting on his laurels and is looking to capitalise on the likely end of two-party politics in Britain.

"The Liberal Democrats will say the next election, 'look, I can understand why people have given up on the two old parties and no longer trust them,'" he explained.

"They're looking for a party of change. Well, there's two parties of change. Nigel Farage's change, which is not true to British value and more like Trump's America, or Liberal Democrat change, which is focused on health and care, the cost of living, immigration, the environment and all the other things.

"And it is true to British values. We're the patriots offering change. Nigel Farage isn't".

A BBC spokesperson told us: “The BBC is committed to achieving due impartiality in all its output and gives appropriate levels of scrutiny to all political parties".

Sir Ed also hinted that he would be open to inviting Sir Nick Clegg back into the party, after the former Lib Dem leader returned to the UK recently after leaving Facebook parent company Meta.

He'd joined Mark Zuckerberg's tech giant after quitting politics in 2019, having led the party for eight years from 2007 and 2015 and served as Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government.

Asked if Sir Nick was going to have a role in the Lib Dems again, Sir Ed said: "We haven't talked about that. I haven't actually seen him for a while.

"Listen, I'm always open to talking to Nick. I don't think he ever left the Lib Dems. He was doing these other things. I think people like Nick can contribute to a really good debate on how we manage social media, how we push back and make sure that Britain does things in our interest, not in the interest of people like Trump and Musk.

"I'm not going to agree with Nick on everything, by the way. I never used to where we were good friends and worked together. But to have the insights of someone like Nick into how it actually works, I think is really valuable".