Can the Liberal Democrats build on recent successes? Ed Davey should be careful what he wishes for

Conditions seem ripe for a resurgence but take away Boris Johnson and the equation soon changes, argues Sean O’Grady

Foot in the door: Davey celebrates his party’s by-election win in Tiverton and Honiton (PA)

To their many enemies, the Liberal Democrats are the Japanese knotweed of British politics – once established, very, very difficult to get rid of.

Like the invasive weed, you can think you’ve extirpated it entirely and there's no sign of it for years and then, one day, you notice a little orange shoot poking up through the apparently impenetrable tarmac you’ve laid. The Tiverton and Honiton by-election win is just such a remarkable sprouting, punching through the solid weight of a Conservative majority of 24,200 votes.

It looks very much that new MP Richard Foord, will soon lay down deep roots in the long-Tory constituency. Ex-army and such a champion of local interests that on his first day in parliament he’s demanded a cut in rural fuel duty. Like many a Liberal, Alliance and Liberal Democrats by-election hero before him, he knows that the main way to hang on to such a seat is to work hard and become a local stalwart. The likes of Simon Hughes, Alan Beith, David Rendel, Eric Lubbock and indeed leaders such as Paddy Ashdown, David Steel and Jeremy Thorpe have had to convert marginal seats into safe havens, and make sure their constituents love them (though eventually the magic can wear off in the face of a huge national swing, usually to the Tories).

So it proved in 2015, when the Liberal Democrats were virtually wiped out – reduced to just eight seats and finishing fourth place behind Ukip, as a result of smart Tory tactics during the coalition years, and in particular the betrayal felt over student tuition fees. But still, knotweed-style, there were fragments of their once-mighty plant still in the soil, hibernating and slowly recovering.

Now, a decade or so on, memories of Nick Cleggmania and its bitter aftermath are fading and the conditions are once again propitious for a Liberal revival, the fourth since the Second World War. Tiverton and Honiton follows Chesham and Amersham and North Shropshire (swings of 29.9 per cent, 25 per cent and 34.2 per cent respectively) as three spectacular gains in a year, and none of them former Lib Dem held constituencies. On top of that, the Lib Dems have been rebuilding their traditional base in local government, rewarded with control of Somerset County Council and a net gain of council seats in the May elections.

An unpopular Conservative government and a hopeless Labour opposition are the best growing conditions for a Lib Dem resurgence, but these don’t always result in much parliamentary change–- ending up with either a small majority Labour government (1964, 1974) or, if Labour is extremely weak, a Tory landslide (1983, 1987) with a large but mostly irrelevant Lib Dem share of the vote. The present position, with a stronger Labour Party is far better from the point of view of a change of government. If Labour is carrying all before it, as with Tony Blair in the Nineties, you get a Labour landslide but relatively large Liberal Democrat parliamentary representation.

With Keir Starmer the Lib Dems have the ideal position. They have much more chance of influencing a Labour government with a modest majority with a wedge of say 40 to 60 Lib Dem MPs, sitting in a new regional base across the Remain-inclined south of England, with younger voters, graduates and wealthier voters who feel disillusioned with Johnson’s populist nationalism. The Lib Dems in England have also benefited from the collapse of UKIP/the Brexit Party as a receptacle for protest votes.

But aren’t the Liberal Democrats only on a pitiful 12 per cent or so in the national opinion polls? Yes, of course, but what matters is the gap with the Tories in the seats where they are clear challengers, and the now stronger inclination of Labour and Green voters to “lend” them their votes.

At the 2019 election (gifted to Johnson by an over-confident and reckless Jo Swinson), the Lib Dems did poorly. One reason was the arithmetic: the gap between them and the Tories was a whopping 32.1 per cent. Now, with the Lib Dems virtually unchanged at 12 per cent, but the Tories on 33 per cent, there’d be a decent swing of 5 per cent from the Lib Dems to the Tories.

The real bonus, however, the rich fertiliser needed for more Lib Dem breakthroughs is the return of anti-Tory tactical voting, which turbo-charged their efforts in the recent by-elections – just as it did in the 1997 and 2001 general elections. In fact, today it feels to be very much a tactical anti-Boris Johnson vote. Take Johnson away and the chances of a Lib Dem resurgence and an eventual say in a progressive Starmer-led government might be much reduced. Ed Davey, a bruised survivor of the Cameron-Clegg cabinet, spends a lot of time calling for Johnson to quit. He should be careful what he wishes for. Even Japanese knotweed can wither if the weather changes.