Bagehot's notebook

IN A year of grim defeats for internationalists in Britain and abroad, a morsel of relief. The Liberal Democrats pitched yesterday’s by-election in Richmond Park as a chance for voters to voice scepticism about Brexit. The gambit worked: Sarah Olney took the south-west London seat with an increased vote-share of 30.4 points. Zac Goldsmith, the languidly aristocratic Brexiteer who fought a dog-whistle campaign for the London mayoralty in May, had triggered the vote in October by resigning from the Conservatives in protest at plans to build a third runway at nearby Heathrow Airport.

“BREXIT-plus-plus-plus” was how Donald Trump—who also called himself “Mr Brexit”—termed his pitch to voters during his successful presidential campaign. Sure enough, many Americans will soon be waking up soon to a feeling similar to the one Remainers in Britain experienced on the morning of June 24th: bafflement at the failure of so many polls to predict the result, shock at the electorate’s defiance of expert opinion, concern for liberal values. If Mr Trump relishes the comparisons it is because he identifies with the architects of Britain’s departure from the European Union: like him, privileged demagogues deft at manipulating the public’s worst fears and instincts.

DELEGATES and journalists arriving in Glasgow today for the Scottish National Party (SNP) conference had one big subject on their minds: the political puzzle that has been hanging over Nicola Sturgeon since June 23rd. In Britain’s referendum on leaving the EU, every single area of Scotland voted to remain in the union. The country is thus being dragged out of the club by England. What was the first minister—herself a prominent face of the Remain campaign—going to do about that? 

For keen pro-independence campaigners, some of whom have been clamouring for a new vote on quitting the United Kingdom since they lost the one in 2014, this is the SNP’s golden chance.

OWEN SMITH was never the front-runner in Labour’s leadership contest. But moderates in the party hoped that he would at least begin the process of clipping away at the mighty mandate, 59% of vote, that accrued to Jeremy Corbyn last year. Perhaps this could be shaved to nearer 50%. And perhaps, in one of the three voter categories—full members, registered supporters and affiliates (mostly union members)—he could even be beaten.

After all, the last twelve months have seen Labour wade progressively farther into a moral and electoral swamp. Mr Corbyn was a dismally poor cheerleader for Britain’s continued EU membership. Today the country is without a functioning opposition.

LABOUR is in the midst of a roller-coaster leadership election. Today a court ruled that the 130,000 people who have joined the party since January (most of them supporters of Jeremy Corbyn) will not be able to vote. That is a blow to the party’s far-left leader, but he will probably still win. So it remains incumbent on Labour’s MPs—who with their surgeries and door-knocking have a much better grip on political reality than their leader and his well-heeled base—to contemplate a future without him.

Regular readers of this blog and my print column will know that I have long called on Labour’s MPs to contemplate ditching their leader.

IT WAS sweeping, ruthless and decisive. “Brutal reshuffle, prime minister?” shouted reporters as Theresa May arrived back in Downing Street after a morning going through Cameroons like a hot knife through butter. A smile dashed across the new prime minister’s face as she strode into her new house.

What to make of it? Overall Mrs May has tilted the government to the right. But the picture is also more complicated. It helps to divide her appointments into two sorts: those related to Brexit and those not. Into every role that has lots to do with Britain’s exit negotiations, she has slotted someone who campaigned to make that happen.

BARELY more than a week has gone by since 37% of eligible British voters backed Brexit—52% of those who participated—but already the political landscape is transformed. With Boris Johnson out of the Conservative leadership contest, the choice of the next prime minister is one between various shades of isolationist Euroscepticism.

As Michael Gove made clear at his launch event this morning, he stands for total withdrawal from the European single market and a total end to free movement. Theresa May on Thursday was a little vaguer, emphasising the importance of access to that market.