Maybe Richmond By Election Is Important After All

Richmond might turn out to be more important than I thought

I wasn't particularly interested in the Richmond by-election when I went to bed last night.  Based on the last one, it was predictable that the Lib Dems would pull in a fair few votes.  But they didn't win the last one and the majority they were seeking to overturn was much bigger this time.  So it didn't look like anything much was going to happen.  But in politics winning is a big deal.  And those extra few thousand votes that put the Lib Dem in parliament might turn out to be very significant.


Richmond is a very wealthy and well educated seat, and was very pro-EU in the referendum.  So the Lib Dems made Brexit the issue.  It is very hard to see how anything else could have motivated people to vote Lib Dem, so we have to take this election as a mini referendum on Europe.  Given that this was a place that was already pro-Europe that might at first sight not indicate very much.  A leaver can simply shrug his shoulders.  It doesn't mean that all the people in the rest of the country have changed their minds.  And that is quite right.

The trouble for leave is that this isn't how Conservative MPs will look at it.  A lot of them have seats that look a lot like Richmond.   There was a local council by election in Chichester at the same time as the Richmond one, and the result was a big Lib Dem majority over the Tories - who had previously held it.   If supporting Brexit means driving voters to the Lib Dems, there are a lot of Tories for whom that could be bad news.   I don't think Mrs May herself is in any danger of losing her own seat, but as it happens Maidenhead is a pretty pro-EU kind of place.

That Labour lost its deposit doesn't help much.  The weaker the official opposition looks the less risky it is for people who normally vote Conservative to vote Lib Dem to protest against Brexit.  The Brexit process is now unstoppable and we will be leaving the EU.   I have a feeling that deep down the Tory team in the Commons was never that enthusiastic about that prospect.  They will be less so now.  They have no choice but to go along with it, but they don't have to say or do anything that draws attention to their support.  Avoiding the subject altogether would probably be the best tactic.  The chances of Brexit coming off in a way that can be made to look like a success have got a lot lower.