Will Sleaford Cancel Out Richmond?

Typical Lincolnshire Church

I spent this Sunday morning reading the coverage of the Richmond by election in the papers and following some discussions of it in a few forums.  Although absolutely nobody foresaw the result, this doesn't seem to stop there being some pretty firm conclusions about what it all means.  There's a line of argument from some Brexit enthusiasts that because the Lib Dems scored fewer than the nominal number of remain voters for the constituency that it represented a swing away from support for EU membership.  I admire their creativity but the overall feeling was that whatever the details that this result was bad for Brexit and good for either staying in or at least pushing towards the least extreme version of leaving.

There's another by election up this week and yet again nobody seems to have the remotest idea who is going to win it.  Logic and rationality indicate it should be a safe Tory hold.   They had a good majority there last time.  The Tories have embraced the leave agenda pretty firmly and this is a place where leaving scored pretty highly.  So on the face of it voters should be happy enough with the current state of affairs and should be voting accordingly by sending a Tory back to Westminster.  I haven't checked the details, but I assume that the local Conservatives have not picked a liberal remainer type of Tory.  So the obvious result should be a fillip to the Tories but not much of a game changer.  It will just confirm were we are - lots of people unhappy about the direction we are going in but with the government still putting forward a programme with majority support.

But this is 2016 so nothing can be taken for granted.

UKIP simply have to win this seat to keep up with the Lib Dems and to show that the Tories haven't eaten their lunch.  If they can't pull off a by election upset while the sandal wearers can then their relevance going forward is questionable.  You'd expect them to be throwing everything they have at it.  Well everything they have isn't very much.  Unlike the Lib Dems who have a sold core of competent activists who can get out on the streets as soon as they've finished their muesli, UKIP are small, old, divided and broke.   They still have plenty of support in the media, but that hasn't helped them that much in the past and the Lib Dems did pretty well in Richmond without it.   So on the face of it doesn't look much like UKIP have much to look forward to.

But I wonder if logic is of any use in this.  

There are still plenty of angry people around in places like Sleaford.  Voting out gave them an opportunity to express that anger in a way that didn't seem to do any harm but sure as heck got a reaction.  I wonder if they will still feel the need to give the establishment a kick.  If so, UKIP might do surprisingly well.  Whose to say if they will pull in enough votes to actually win.  In which case, next Sunday we'll be hearing about how this means that Mrs May needs to get her hard Brexit plans implemented as soon as possible.

I wonder if any of this has anything at all to do with the actual European Union any more.


Postscript - just had a look at the 2015 General Election result.  I am more convinced now that UKIP are in with a chance.  While Sleaford isn't Richmond, even there there will be a number of people who normally vote Tory who want to protest against Brexit by voting Lib Dem. There might not be many, but even a couple of thousand might be enough to bring the winning post into UKIP's range.