Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
LibDems Win Chesham and Amersham By-Election
The constituency of Chesham and Amersham north-west of London has been at Tory stronghold since the seat was created in 1974. At the last general election, Welsh Secretary Dame Cheryl Gillan won election with more than half the vote. Yesterday, the Liberal Democrats won the by-election occasioned by her passing with 56.7% of the vote and a swing to the LibDems of more than 25%. The Greens came third, and Labour was a distant fourth, losing its deposit and winning just 622 votes. The LibDems are claiming this shows the changing nature of Britain's political map, profiting from Remain voters in Tory seats having nowhere to go except to them. This journal worries that this LibDem revival is yet another mirage.
The idea of a Liberal or Liberal Democratic revival goes back a century. When Labour replaced the Liberal Party as the main rivals to the Tories about a century ago, the Liberals started with a fantasy of somehow holding the balance of power, engaging in a coalition that would bring true Liberal and liberal policies to the British people who would be so grateful that the party would regain its former prominence. This was the plan of Jeremy Thorpe in the 1950s and 1960s, the hopes of the Alliance with the Social Democrats in the 1980s and the actual coalition with the Tories under Nick Clegg in 2010. The latter ended in a complete disaster and the electoral destruction of most of the parliamentary party in 2015.
That said, the party does well at by-elections as a protest vote, and its policies do sometimes get enough support that the government of the day steals an idea or two from them. The LibDems are not really there to govern so much as they are a place for ideas to grow until they are ripe for the nation as a whole. The Greens find themselves in much the same situation, and the two parties do have significant overlap on policy in many areas.
At the same time, the LibDems are right that the political geography of the nation is changing. Scotland is lost to the London political parties. The North, formerly a Labour stronghold, has several Tory MPs now. There is a rebalancing underway as Brexit's realities sink in.
LibDem leader Sir Ed Davey said, "Do you know what, I think there are many Conservative MPs across the country who are now worried. People have been talking about the red wall -- I think that after Chesham and Amersham, they'll be talking about the blue wall, and how the Liberal Democrats are the main threat to the Conservatives in huge swathes of the country."
He is not alone in that assessment. Polling Expert Professor Sir John Curtice said "in remain-voting middle class seats in the south of England, the Conservative coalition has been weakened to some degree in the wake of Brexit -- the Liberal Democrats are best placed to profit from that."
The by-election result showed that Labour does not have a prayer in the Tory southeast. The Leavers are solidly in the Conservative camp, and the Remainers don't feel at home in Labour, which could not pick a side in the most important issue of a generation. The pro-EU, pro-capitalism Liberal Democrats have some room to run in the Home Counties and similar seats.
Of course, one must not read too much into a by-election result. They are unique events and are often decided by a small number of voters who bother turning up. Protest votes are much more common, and governments usually fare worse at a by-election than in the general election before or after it. The LibDems did well, but they have only 12 MPs, quite a distance from a revival that threatens the two main parties.
Nevertheless, the Tories lost a seat they should have won, and Prime Minister Johnson should spend a little time figuring out why. If he does not, the Blue Wall in the southeast will crack just like Labour's wall up north did.
© Copyright 2021 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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