Theresa May’s decision to pursue a hard Brexit is driving Conservative-supporting remainers to desert the party, the Liberal Democrats’ newest MP said in the aftermath of her sensational win in the Richmond Park byelection.
In an interview with the Guardian, Sarah Olney said her victory over Zac Goldsmith on a 21.5% swing was secured thanks to voters who felt the prime minister was only focusing on the part of the population that voted to leave the EU.
“What I found when I was talking to voters is an awful lot of people who’ve never voted anything else but Tory said they were going to vote for us,” she said, arguing that people back the Conservatives for “stability, security and economic competence”.
“The referendum result and Theresa May’s response to it has blown all that out of the water – people no longer trust them.”
Olney, who overturned a majority of 23,000 to become the MP for Richmond Park and North Kingston in south-west London, accused May of “pandering” to people such as Nigel Farage, who she said were guilty of “stoking up division to serve their own political ends”.
“One of the things that concerns a great deal of people in this constituency is ... the Conservative government seems to be shifting very rapidly towards the right,” she said, claiming May was trying to appease “Ukippy members of parliament”.
“I think what this result shows us is that’s not what a majority of Tory voters want.”
Olney argued that her 1,800 majority, secured with just under 50% of the vote, was a cry from the 48% of remain voters to be listened to and for a more “moderate, consensual, unifying approach” to Britain’s EU exit.
It was a bad day for Labour, which did so badly in Richmond it lost its deposit. Professor John Curtice warned that the party was right to worry about the risk of losing socially conservative voters who were likely to back Brexit, but warned it had an even bigger amount of support among pro-EU liberals. “The nightmare scenario is that while Paul Nuttall [the Ukip leader] mobilises people at the other end of the spectrum, the Lib Dems eat at the socially liberal vote,” he said.
Although Goldsmith was standing as an independent after resigning from the Conservative party to fulfil a promise to his constituents over Heathrow, Olney argued that the vote was not “against him personally” but instead about his leave support and May’s leadership since the Brexit vote.
The Conservative MP Anna Soubry, who has become a vocal critic of a hard Brexit, agreed as she praised the Lib Dem’s “sensational” result.
She told the Guardian: “This is about those people who voted not to leave the European Union, who aren’t trying to thwart the will of the people or undo the vote, but who are saying ‘we’ve been sidelined, we’ve been ignored, we’ve been scorned, we’ve been called remoaners ... but we are entitled to have a say’.”
She warned that the election upset was because of the “terrible mistake” of ignoring those who backed remain, and claimed voters were angry about the behaviour of the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, in “insulting other countries”.
Soubry called on the government to publish a white paper for politicians to discuss leaving the EU. Her colleague Nicky Morgan said it was a “wake-up call for those pushing hard Brexit”, saying those who opposed the direction of travel were making themselves heard.
The result was also noted in Brussels, where the chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, said: “Europe is watching and we are proud,” triggering an angry exchange with the former cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith.
The Brexit-supporting MP said the official should “mind his own bloody business”, adding: “How dare an unelected apparatchik comment on an election first and foremost.”
Verhofstadt tweeted in reply:
Actually, Iain Duncan Smith, I was elected by my constituents with more than half a million votes 😉 pic.twitter.com/pYUeWkQZGx
— Guy Verhofstadt (@GuyVerhofstadt) December 2, 2016
The Richmond Park result was dismissed as irrelevant by a senior Conservative who said: “You’ve got a Conservative government building a country that works for everyone, and the Lib Dems who say they are liberal but their leader doesn’t support equal marriage, and claim to be democratic but want to ignore the result of the referendum.”
Nevertheless, the victory – which could make Conservative MPs in seats such as Twickenham, Kingston upon Thames and Lewes in East Sussex nervous – came at the end of a week in which the government appeared to soften its position over access to the single market.
Olney, who will vote against article 50 and wants a second referendum on the Brexit deal, stumbled in one of her first media outings, having to be pulled off air by an aide during an interview on Talk Radio.
Asked repeatedly by Julia Hartley-Brewer if there ought to be a rerun of the Richmond byelection as well, the MP argued the referendum was based on “no clear manifesto” before going silent and then being replaced by an adviser who said: “I’m really sorry but Sarah has to leave now.”
Speaking to the Guardian, the MP was critical of both out and in campaigners in the June referendum, arguing that the then prime minister, David Cameron, had wrongly opted for “project fear”.
She called for a positive case to be made for close economic links to Europe, and argued that she had a “big personal mandate” to oppose Brexit in the House of Commons and to push for a public vote on the final deal.
Asked if MPs in Brexit-supporting constituencies should also block article 50, Olney suggested they should.
“That’s a paradox for them. It’s an easy decision for me but ultimately MPs need to vote for what they think is in the best interest of their constituents and if they think the best interest of their constituents is served by remaining in the EU then that is how they should vote,” she said.
She added that the “will of the people is for a stable and prosperous society and it is my personal belief that we can’t deliver that by leaving the European Union”.
She also rejected the notion that the referendum had delivered a majority vote for Brexit. “It wasn’t a majority at all, it was something close to 25% because so many people didn’t vote. I just want the whole thing to be more carefully considered.
“It’s like 52% of people who expressed a preference want to leave the EU – ‘off we go then’. It is going to be the most enormous economic, constitutional, social, upheaval that we face for a generation – it feels to me that’s not adequate basis for making that decision.”
She also accused leave campaigners of misleading voters with claims of £350m for the NHS and a promise to those from the Indian subcontinent that it would be easier for their relatives to get visas.
And she questioned May’s interpretation of the result as being largely about immigration. “When I talk to people who’ve voted to leave I think a lot of them have been driven by nostalgia ... for some mythical lost time that they want back,” she said.
“There are lots of reasons people voted to leave, it wasn’t all about immigration and I disagree with Theresa May choosing to interpret the referendum result in that way.”
Olney said she believed immigration was positive overall but that large numbers of people moving “suddenly into one area” could have a negative impact on community relations and needed to be managed.
Asked about Tim Farron’s suggestion that up to 30% of Tory switchers to the Lib Dems had actually voted to leave, Olney said she did not have the figures and that she did not meet many Brexit supporters on the campaign trail.
“I met one or two – one called me a fascist because [he said] I wanted to overturn democracy. So I assume he wasn’t going to back me.”
The Lib Dems’ position over Brexit has not been mirrored by Labour, where a number of MPs think the response must be action on immigration and a vote for article 50.
