The march of Hard Brexit can be stopped

I WAS delighted to play a small part in helping Sarah Olney defeat Zac Goldsmith in the Richmond Park by-election.

The result has implications far wider than this corner of South-West London. It was a great boost for the Liberal Democrats, bringing us back into play along with a resurgence of support around the country.

Mr Goldsmith intended this to be about him and about Heathrow expansion. But all the candidates opposed a new runway, so it became a vote on a much-bigger issue: the Government’s handling of Brexit.

By failing to field a pro-Heathrow candidate, the Tories and Ukip effectively endorsed Goldsmith and condemned him to be their Brexit candidate in a strongly pro-Remain seat. But what was striking was that the Lib Dems’ support came not just from Conservatives who voted Remain, but from many Brexiteers.

Growing numbers fear that the Government is confused about its priorities and may be drifting towards a damaging hard Brexit.

Moderate Brexiteers did not intend we should embark on the massive economic disruption involved in leaving the single market or the customs union, or breaking up collaborative research and university networks. The Richmond Park result does not mean a change of Government and it doesn’t render the referendum result null and void. But it marks a change of mood in the country.

The hysteria around the referendum is over. Voters want to know what to expect when the Brexit talks are over.

At first sight, Theresa May’s position remains strong. She is popular. She still has a parliamentary majority. She faces an official Opposition of almost comical hopelessness, whose leader appears far more occupied with the passing of Fidel Castro than Britain’s future relationship with the EU.

Mrs May has the political nuclear weapon of an early General Election which, on present polls, would smash the Labour Party and give her a comfortable majority.

But after last week’s result, that option no longer looks quite as tempting. What happened in Richmond Park could happen to Tory MPs in dozens of similar seats.

If she still risked it, I would be among the Lib Dem candidates and would confidently expect to regain the Twickenham seat I lost in 2015.

The prospect of a new Commons with more Lib Dems, as well as Ukip MPs, will not a very alluring one for her, so she will almost certainly try to soldier on. But Mrs May will be increasingly reminded that, like Gordon Brown, she has no electoral mandate of her own.

Her current popularity will sag. The economy may well turn sour in coming years as devaluation of the pound feeds through into higher prices and reduced living standards.

Uncertainty in the business climate may gradually produce casualties in lost investment and jobs. And she will face sniping from her own side on the abysmal failure to meet immigration targets, partly a product of her refusal to remove overseas students – who are not immigrants – from immigration statistics.

Now our supporters have tasted an old-style Lib Dem by-election triumph, they will turn out in even bigger numbers in future contests.

After five years in coalition government, now increasingly seen as an era of stable and competent administration, we can longer be dismissed as a protest party.

But we didn’t do it alone in Richmond. We were helped by the enlightened decision of the Greens to withdraw their candidate to present a common front.

Such collaboration could become more common and I hope it will, although sadly Labour did not follow suit in Richmond.

I have spent a lot of time over the last year talking with people about a ‘progressive alliance’ against the Tories. Until Thursday, this seemed little more than well-intentioned rhetoric. Now there is proof that co-operation works, that the march of the far-Right and hard Brexiteers can be stopped.

Of course, there is much more to be done.

My party’s recovery is just beginning. And the many moderate and electable Labour MPs still need to find way of escaping from their unelectable leadership. But there is a new political feeling out there. The seeds of a wider political movement may have been sown.

The nation voted to leave the EU on June 23 – not to abdicate the right to have any say whatsoever over how we leave the EU. Make no mistake, they want that say. That is the message of Richmond Park.

Mrs May ignores it at her peril.

This is a clear message the PM will ignore at her peril