The roller coaster ride that has been British politics in 2016 continued this week, as the Liberal Democrat party won a shock by-election victory against Zac Goldsmith, the former Conservative mayoral candidate in the West London constituency of Richmond Park. Though Mr. Goldsmith stood as an independent — he stood down as a Conservative MP after the government gave the go-ahead to the expansion of Heathrow airport in October — the vote is seen as a verdict on Brexit, the issue that the Liberal Democrats put at the heart of their campaign.
“We have said no. We will stand up for the united tolerant Britain we believe in,” said Liberal Democrat MP-elect Sarah Olney, who overturned Mr. Goldsmith’s 23,000-strong majority to win by just over 1,800 votes. “Our message is clear we do not want a hard Brexit. We do not want to be pulled out of the single market.”
Stood as a Conservative MP
The by-election took place after Mr. Goldsmith, who also lost to Sadiq Khan in the mayoral election in May, stood down as a Conservative MP, following through on a pledge that he had made to his constituents previously regarding the decision on Heathrow. While both he and Ms. Olney oppose Heathrow expansion, Mr. Goldsmith supported the Leave campaign, while Olney has said she will vote against triggering Article 50.
Speaking on the BBC Today Programme Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that while a slim majority of the country had voted in favour of Brexit in June, they hadn’t voted for the “destination.” “All this to-ing and fro-ing over whether we are in or out of the single market is just a reminder that whatever result we get probably 80 per cent will feel they didn’t vote the for the outcome. People will feel betrayed.”
Impact on Conservative bastions
While the anti Brexit sentiment of Richmond Park may be no surprise — over 70 per cent of the constituency voted to remain in the June referendum — the result highlighted the strength of feeling and its potential impact on Conservative strongholds. “It reminds us yet again as to how disruptive the issue of Europe is in UK party politics,” Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University and one of the country’s leading experts on polling told The Hindu . He added that it was, however, unlikely to impact the Brexit process directly.
Most significantly, he said, it thrust the Liberal Democrats back into the electoral process following their humiliating performance in the 2010 general election.
‘Liberal Democrats proving it’
“The party is demonstrating that it can win the protest vote. The Liberal Democrats are back on the first rung of the ladder to electoral credibility and when there is a by-election in propitious circumstances they are able to exploit that.”
The election was also bad news for Labour, which saw its share of the vote fall from over 12 per cent to just under 4 per cent (the party’s performance was so bad that the candidate, Christian Wolmar, lost the deposit that candidates are required to pay). Prof. Curtice said the performance of Labour highlighted the party’s difficulty in contesting as the main alternative to the Conservative while the Liberal Democrats presented a stronger front on the Brexit issue, and at the same time campaigned against the cuts to public services and the Conservatives’ line on immigration and social issues in the same way that Labour was.
