The Richmond Park by-election may be the start of the rot for the Conservatives. The fact the Liberal Democrats won by campaigning on their refusal to consider the Brexit referendum vote as conclusive, has sent a shiver of fear through members of the Conservative Party.
Suprise Lib-Dem win
The fact that the Liberal Democrats managed to pull off such an electoral shock against the de-facto Conservative candidate. A huge 21.75% swing in their favour against Zac Goldsmith. This now has the Lib Dems looking at other Tory seats, where their constituents voted to Remain.
This could mean the Lib Dems take seats away from tories in the south-east.
Theresa May under pressure
“The Conservative party needs to be alert that there is a moderate core of Conservative voters, who voted Remain, and who want to hear the Conservative government speaking above the noise of the Brexiters,they do not want the Conservative party to be Ukip-lite, nor to hear that their desire for a negotiated Brexit is an attempt to delay." wrote a collection of Conservative current and ex-MPs today.
As such they want Theresa May to give parliament a guideline on what she hopes to aim and gain from the EU after article 50 is activated and how this will be achieved. They state they do not want to be left out of discussions on Brexit, effectively being over-shadowed by some of the louder members, who want Brexit.
They also do not want the party to carry on trying to emulate Ukip. They feel if voters want Ukip, they will vote Ukip and not a watered down version of the same ideas. A model Labour tried to emulate of the Conservative party and as such suffered a huge electoral defeat.
Supreme Court judgement due
Despite this argument from her own party, Theresa May is wanting to table a bill in parliament to stop what she sees as an attack on the Brexit camp from the Remain camp.
As such this bill will be a few lines long, but this is all contingent on the outcome of the forthcoming Supreme Court judgement.
Corbyn has used a speech in Prague to say that the Labour party respects the referendum result but if the Supreme Court rules in favour of MPs having a say on article 50, then Labour will seek to get amendments on the article.
