The Liberal Democrats threw everything they had into the Richmond Park byelection triggered by Zac Goldsmith’s resignation from the Conservative party.
In the weeks since he announced his decision to stand as an independent in protest at Heathrow expansion, activists have carried out more than 150,000 door-knocks, resulting in more than 50,000 conversations.
Tim Farron’s party also tried to plaster themselves all over the constituency with more than 1,000 window posters and 700 stake boards. They finished their effort with a flourish: 400 activists pounding the streets on election day, starting with a somewhat antisocial 4am leaflet drop.
Their literature included one pamphlet entitled “Your choice on Thursday”, on which there was an arrow pointing to “hard Brexit” and another to the “single market”. From Goldsmith, there was a newsletter about a strong track record with a map of Richmond covered in the red scrawls of potential flight paths.
Goldsmith had been desperate for it to be a referendum about a runway; the Liberal Democrats were determined to make it a byelection over Brexit.
Two weeks out and it was Farron’s party that began to win the battle as the residents of Richmond started to respond to their Brexit mantra. After all, the pro-Heathrow Tories did not put up a candidate and the Lib Dem contender, Sarah Olney, was also against the third runway, leaving Goldsmith with no serious opposition on his central campaigning point.
The Lib Dems, however, were able to tap into unease in an outer London borough that voted 72% in favour of remain in June’s EU referendum. The constituency itself was thought to be even more pro-staying inside the EU than the council-wide average.
Goldsmith’s strengths were his massive local popularity – turning what was a Lib Dem seat until 2010 into a 23,000 Tory majority by 2015 – and his principled stand over a third runway in a constituency already marred by aircraft noise.
He was well liked enough that few local voters seemed to blame him for the controversy surrounding his attempt to become mayor of London with a campaign that was criticised for playing on Sadiq Khan’s race. An issue that had seriously damaged his reputation across the city barely featured in this byelection race.
Some felt that the former Tory stood a good chance because Olney was not a well known Lib Dem figure like Vince Cable, who lost his seat in neighbouring Twickenham in 2015.
But Goldsmith’s position in support of Brexit put him well out of step with these normally loyal constituents, many of whom work in the City in jobs with strong European links.
He was further hampered by the so-called progressive alliance through which the co-leader of the Green party, Caroline Lucas, threw her support behind Olney, as did the Women’s Equality party. While Goldsmith might have felt buoyed that Labour did not follow suit, despite calls within the party to do so, it was of little help in the end.
Labour’s candidate, Christian Wolmar, was unable to break through a wave of tactical voting that squeezed his vote to an embarrassingly low, deposit-losing level as supporters turned in droves to Olney instead. The result underlines a major challenge for Jeremy Corbyn’s party, which must beware that while it understandably needs to look over its shoulder at Ukip, it should not forget that its potential supporters are also packed at the other end of the Brexit divide. On the final weekend, three Labour activists even turned up at Lib Dem HQ and asked if they could go door-knocking to help get out the vote.
On the day of the poll, many local residents admitted they were voting Lib Dem in order to make the statement that Olney wanted. One Goldsmith supporter even admitted she thought he had lost because “the Lib Dems made this all about Brexit but he barely mentioned the referendum”.
It all resulted in a stunning victory for the Lib Dems, who overturned one of the Tories’ safest looking seats. The party will deservedly cheer the result as a statement about the government’s direction on Brexit and also take heart that they still have the ability to squeeze a third party – often a critical factor in first past the post elections.
But these should be cautious celebrations.
This byelection has shown that Farron’s 48% strategy – targeting the very large minority of voters who backed remain in the EU referendum – can cut through in a place like Richmond.
Still, for a party crushed to just eight MPs in 2015, Richmond Park is only a tiny step back in the right direction. The Lib Dems have made it into the foothills of a hike back to electoral relevance. They know that to make serious gains up the mountain of a general election means much more than persuading the most fiercely pro-EU electorate in parts of London.
Instead, they need to win time and again, with stretched resource and in target seats that are largely scattered across a much more Eurosceptic south-west England – which also voted Tory in 2015 but then went on to back Brexit a year later.
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