Sir Ed Davey is facing a growing revolt against his leadership of the Liberal Democrats after a senior frontbench MP resigned in what is reported to be an attempt to force him out.

Charlie Maynard, the party's Treasury spokesman and MP for Witney, quit his post on Friday. The Financial Times, which first reported the resignation, said it was intended to trigger a vote of no confidence in Sir Ed. Mr Maynard is understood to have asked colleagues in the parliamentary party to back such a move.

Mr Maynard declined to comment publicly on his departure. He is the second Liberal Democrat frontbencher to step down within a week, after Alison Bennett resigned as the party's spokesperson for care and carers on 5 October without giving a public explanation.

A party stalling in the polls

The resignations come amid mounting frustration among some Liberal Democrat MPs that the party has failed to build on its record performance at the 2024 general election, when it won 72 seats, its best result in more than a century. Despite that success, the party has made little further progress with voters, with one recent YouGov poll putting its support at 11%, slightly below its 2024 vote share.

Earlier this month, Tom Gordon, the MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, publicly criticised Sir Ed after the leader attacked Prime Minister Andy Burnham's speech to the Labour conference, telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Sir Ed had "missed the point" and urging him to "think again".

Davey's allies rally round

Daisy Cooper, the party's deputy leader, moved quickly to shore up support for Sir Ed, saying the "vast majority" of Liberal Democrat MPs backed him and wanted him to lead the party into the next general election. She described the resignation as a "distraction" that had left colleagues "furious".

"We Liberal Democrats are the last line of defence against a Reform UK government," she said, "and Ed is determined to lead a strong and united party into the next general election whenever it comes."

By Saturday morning, a string of other Liberal Democrat MPs had issued public statements of support for Sir Ed. Tim Farron, the party's environment spokesman and a former leader himself, was among those to back him, pointing to the scale of the party's 2024 breakthrough.

How a leadership contest could unfold

Under Liberal Democrat party rules, a leadership election is automatically triggered if a vote of no confidence in the leader is passed by a majority of the party's MPs. To stand in any subsequent contest, a candidate must secure nominations from at least 10% of the parliamentary party, excluding themselves, and the backing of 200 members spread across at least 20 local constituency parties.

Sir Ed has led the party for six years and was re-elected unopposed in 2024. The constitution requires a leadership election to be held at least once during the lifetime of each parliament, provided the leader is not part of the government, though a confidence vote could force the issue sooner.

What critics say

Those close to Sir Ed privately acknowledge that there is a small but vocal group of MPs unhappy with his direction, of which Mr Maynard is one. Critics within the party have pointed to its failure to dent Reform UK's rise in the polls, and to what they see as a lack of a clear, cutting-through message since the 2024 election.

Before entering Parliament, Mr Maynard ran an international mergers and acquisitions advisory firm. He won the traditionally Conservative seat of Witney, once held by former prime minister David Cameron, with a majority of more than 4,000 votes in 2024.

The wider political backdrop

The turmoil within the Liberal Democrats comes at a sensitive moment in British politics, with Labour under Mr Burnham, the Conservatives under Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK under Nigel Farage all jostling for position ahead of what is expected to be a tightly fought next general election.

Any sustained period of internal division could further complicate the Liberal Democrats' efforts to position themselves as the principal challenger to Reform in the dozens of seats where the two parties are in direct competition.

For now, Sir Ed's leadership appears to have survived the immediate threat, with the balance of public statements from MPs running heavily in his favour. But with Mr Maynard reportedly continuing to lobby colleagues behind the scenes, the question of whether a formal vote of no confidence will be called remains unresolved, and could yet resurface in the weeks ahead.