Over-interpreting byelection results is one of the things people in Westminster are best at. We know that these events exist in their own microclimate, where national issues often play second fiddle to local concerns and where voters feel free to act in a different way than at general elections, but still we can’t help ourselves. Liberal Democrats know this better than most: Paddy Ashdown’s byelection triumphs didn’t signal his inevitable rise to prime minister, and the Lib Dem victory in Eastleigh in 2013 was not an omen that the general election two years later wouldn’t be that bad for the party after all.
In Brecon and Radnorshire there needs to be an extra note of caution added. I don’t know what god Lib Dem HQ was praying to in order to get a contest against a Conservative candidate who had just lost a recall petition after admitting fiddling his expenses, but I’d suggest they build it a bigger shrine. Throw in other remain parties not standing and we shouldn’t pretend that anything other than a Lib Dem victory here would have been a shock.
But if there’s a danger in over-interpreting one result, there’s also a risk that the current relative good fortune being enjoyed by the Lib Dems is taken for granted. Received wisdom now appears to be that with a strong remain message and the Labour and Conservative parties apparently vacating the centre ground, everything is now theirs for the taking – and that it was always thus. Yet it’s worth remembering that six months ago the very same received wisdom was that the party was possibly doomed. The newly unveiled Independent Group was seen as a more attractive centre ground choice, pundits were confidently saying that the only option was for the Lib Dems to merge with the new party as there was nothing more they could do with their “tainted brand”.
With hindsight, the launch of the Independent Group may have actually marked the start of the turnaround; it was the point at which the cracks in the other parties became a mainstream issue. The MPs who broke away were right that things had reached breaking point, but perversely it seems like the Lib Dems were the ones to gain from that very public diagnosis, perfectly situated at both the local and European elections to become the standard bearers of centrist, remain politics.
A sense of momentum is one of the hardest things for a party to capture, particularly for a smaller party starved of media coverage. Tim Farron and then Vince Cable had been waiting for four years for something to drag them out of the doldrums. For a moment it seemed like 2016’s Richmond Park byelection might have been the beginning of that, but then Theresa May called a snap election, ending hopes of another win in Manchester Gorton and seeing Farron’s campaign bogged down in debate around his views on homosexuality. Finally, this year the party got the jump-start it needed.
All of which brings us back to Brecon and Radnorshire and why it actually matters. First, it maintains that precious sense of momentum, giving the Lib Dems more airtime to paint themselves as the ascendant party flying the remain flag and getting results. Second, it’s the first indication that Boris Johnson’s strategy of focusing on Brexit party voters over moderate Conservatives gives the Lib Dems a big opportunity to claw back many of the losses from the cataclysm of the 2015 general election.
In that general election, the Lib Dems lost 27 seats to the Conservatives. People who liked the coalition government tended to give the Tories the credit. The years since may have already been something of a shock to those voters, but Johnson is final confirmation that this Conservative party is now a different beast. This is not an oversight, it’s a conscious strategic decision, essentially accepting the loss of some Cameron-backing voters in order to win back those now supporting the Brexit party. Throw in the Lib Dems’ renewed ability to reach Brexit-hating Labour voters and a path to victory in a lot of those lost seats open up.
This is the importance of last night’s result, not as a pseudo opinion poll or a straight indicator of how the parties would fare in an election, but as the latest sign that the Liberal Democrats are a valid option for the many people opposed to Brexit and for those worried by a Conservative party that has decided it doesn’t need their votes. For a party that didn’t have enough MPs for a game of five-a-side football a couple of years ago and was still being written off as practically finished as late as this spring, the last few months and the possible opportunities ahead have felt like rain after a very long drought.
• Sean Kemp is a former head of media for the Liberal Democrats and was a special adviser in Downing Street during the coalition government
