The Lib Dems had run their entire campaign in this wealthy part of west London suburbia, in which 72% of people had voted Remain on June 23, on an anti hard-Brexit message. “For the first time I can remember we were not the pot-hole party. We were promoting our views on the EU, on internationalism, tolerance, what sort of country we want to be,” said one party insider. [...]
Later voters began to explain why they had switched from Goldsmith to the unknown politically inexperienced accountant Sarah Olney. “It was a shame, really. Zac was always really diligent,” said Susannah, a young mother who did not not give surname, on the school run in Mortlake. “But the Brexit stuff was the most important issue. Lots of people here still can’t really believe Brexit is happening. It was much harder to vote for Zac knowing he’d supported the people who got us here. It’s made a lot of people like me change our votes.” [...]
For Theresa May and the Tories, despite their assertion that Richmond changes nothing, it is a warning shot that Brexit is shifting the landscape, in profound, if very different, ways across the country. May’s already wafer-thin Commons majority has been cut to just 14, and if more byelection losses were to follow, her ability to govern effectively would be called ever more into doubt. Today, a group of former Tory ministers and senior MPs warn that if the prime minister panders too much to anti-EU hardliners, the party will lose middle ground voters en masse as they did in Richmond, and risk defeat at the next general election.
The tactical counter to that is that a soft Brexit will deliver ammunition to Ukip, under its new leader Paul Nuttall, particularly in the Midlands and the north where they pose a threat to both the Tories and Labour. For Labour the dilemmas are just as acute. They were never expected to do well in Richmond, but their miserable tally of votes there has sounded loud alarm bells nonetheless. The fear among Labour MPs is that the party led by Jeremy Corbyn, a lukewarm supporter of the EU but a keen advocate of free movement and defender of immigration, risks being trampled between a newly resurgent Lib Dem party in pro-Remain seats in urban areas and the south, and Ukip in Leave strongholds. As one senior Labour MP put it: “Our leader seems to be anti-markets and lukewarm about the EU on the one hand, yet gives an unqualified pro-immigration message on the other. It is the worst of both worlds electorally.” Yesterday, in a speech in Prague, Corbyn said it was vital that parties on the left did not respond to the surge of rightwing populism by scapegoating refugees and migrant workers, again refusing to be allied to those in his party who argue it is a problem that needs addressing.
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