The Lib Dems and Brexit

The Lib Dem conference is getting very little coverage in the press, and what it is getting is pretty negative.  But everything is relative. Compared to being totally ignored as they have been most of the year this probably feels pretty good to the sandal wearers themselves.  They are the most fervent pro-European party in the mainstream and Tim Farron devoted a large chunk of his leader's speech to saying that Britain should be back in Europe.  He finished with -

just when liberals in other parties are desperate for a home where they can make a difference, the Liberal Democrats are back and we matter more than ever.
Keep Britain in Europe. Save Britain from the Tories. What an opportunity, what a mission.
We are ready.

Stirring stuff in theory, but I can't help thinking that not many people seem all that stirred.

I think the problem is a simple one.  The leavers won the referendum, and it looks very much like public opinion has stayed pretty much where it was on the day of the vote.  In the days immediately afterwards this wasn't at all obvious.   Pro-leave numbers had been declining in the week leading up to the poll.  So it felt like support for Brexit - especially those who were using it as a protest - would slide down as the reality hit.  So opposing Brexit seemed like a huge opportunity for the EU's strongest defenders in the Lib Dems.

But as the months draw on support for Brexit remains doggedly where it was in June.  The idea of crusading against doesn't really feel all that exciting.  Now it isn't that impossible that support for the EU will grow slightly in the near future, but slowly drifting up doesn't really work for the Lib Dems.  They are, to be frank, in something of a hole.  They need something dramatic to get them out of it.  They needed a lot more pro-EU sentiment out there for it to work emotionally.

So my feeling is that Tim is going through the motions.  No doubt he believes in the EU, and would halt Brexit if he could.  But what he really needs is to be speaking for the majority of the nation.  Just under half isn't enough.  Just over a half wouldn't be enough either.