Witney by-election suggests Tory support is soft and their majority vulnerable

In hindsight, the Coalition Agreement now almost looks like the first move in a patient five year Conservative strategy to move on the  Liberal Democrats and try to absorb their support. But the gains they made amongst liberals are beginning to look very soft.

By-elections are often tricky to decipher. For instance, sitting governments usually do poorly and lose ground - so that can not necessarily in itself be taken as an indicator of impending defeat at a general election.

However, there are a few things that the Witney by-election, triggered by the resignation of former Prime Minister David Cameron shows us about the state of British politics.

First of all, and of some importance, it is a reminder of just how thin the government majority really is. Cameron & Osborne, and now May, have governed like they have a majority of one hundred and thirty seats, not a narrow thirteen - showing little regard for how divisive their policies actually are.

It takes only a minor disagreement with just a few disgruntled MPs for the path toward Tory goals to be blocked - a clear indicator that, majority or no, the government should be far more respectful of political opinion far broader than the narrow and unrepresentative majority the party holds.

However the second observation is perhaps the most alarming for the Conservatives. Their advantage is not just thin, but also soft. Their majority was attained in 2015 by crushing their former coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, claiming credit for Liberal Democrat policies while specifically targeting their electoral campaign at their seats.

But governing as a majority, unfettered by the Lib Dems, seems to have, perhaps, stripped away the blinkers from those thought that the Conservative & Unionist Party had adopted a gentler, more decent and more liberal way - rather than being restrained by Liberal Democrats in endless policy battles.

And in Witney, it would seem that a significant number of liberals, on the fence between the Tories and the Lib Dems, went over to the Lib Dems - in fact, an entire third of Tory support went over to the Lib Dems, cutting the majority in the seat from twenty five thousand to just five thousand.

What could that mean for British politics more broadly?

David Cameron's former majority, in his recently resigned seat of Witney, has been reduced from 25,000 to just 5000 by his former Coalition partners the Liberal Democrats. Photograph: Prime Minister David Cameron - official photograph by Number 10 (License) (Cropped)

Since 2010, it has been abundantly clear that the easiest way to achieve a progressive government in the near future will be through a coalition. And the only way to make up those numbers would be for whoever is strongest against the Conservatives in a particular area to take the lead.

The strategic position of the Liberal Democrats and their support makes them invaluable to putting progressives over the top and into government. The party is the main opposition to the Conservatives in thirty six constituencies - with a particular concentration in the South West - and that number does not include Witney were the party was third along with at least four others were they also fell below second in 2015.

Local election gains, along with a steady rise in party membership, have been all that the Liberal Democrats have so far had to encourage them that a 'Lib Dem Fightback' is under way. The Witney result might be the strongest signal yet - though, even if an election is just around the corner, it is far too early to read much into whether the Liberal Democrats can recover, not least because turnout at by-elections is often far below a general election turnout.

But their result - even if other progressive parties didn't fair as well (Labour fell to third and the Greens took only four percent) - should give progressives some hope, as voters abandoning the Conservatives for the Liberals is one necessary condition for toppling the Tory majority.

That makes for one front in the coming contest, though with some further assembly still required. Work must now be done to ensure that when an election campaign begins in earnest, progressives have opened up a number of other fronts and are ready to take on the Tories.

References

'Witney by-election: Tory majority slashed in David Cameron's former seat'; on the BBC; 21 October 2016.

'Witney by-election: Lib Dems celebrate reduced Tory majority'; on the BBC; 21 October 2016.

Tom Bateman's 'Witney by-election: How significant is the result for major parties?'; on the BBC; 21 October 2016.

Eleanor Steafel, Sophie Jamieson, James Rothwell & Mark Oliver's 'Election 2015 second place results: How it all could have been so different - Find out who came second in your constituency with our easy to read list of second place results in the 2015 UK general election'; in The Telegraph; 11 May 2016.