No victory for Remain

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For those of us opposed to Brexit, replacing a pro-Brexit MP in Brecon and Radnor with an anti-Brexit one is good news of sorts, although the fact that the new MP is a member of an anti-independence and pro-nuclear weapons party means that it’s not exactly unalloyed good news from my perspective.  The impact of the electoral pact, under which Plaid and the Green Party stood aside for the Lib Dems is unclear and will remain so unless and until someone does some research on those who actually voted comparing their vote this time with their vote at the previous election.  We simply don’t know whether former Green/Plaid voters went out and cast their votes for the Lib Dems in accordance with the wishes of the leaders of those parties, voted for someone else in protest, or simply stayed at home.  I suspect that there was a mixture of all three; standing down will only have made a difference if significantly more of them voted Lib Dem than took either of the other courses of action open to them.

Of the votes cast, 43.5% went to the only unequivocal anti-Brexit candidate, whilst the three pro-Brexit parties scooped up 50.4% between them.  Even if we count Labour as anti-Brexit (a highly dubious assumption at present), the result was still 50.4: 48.8.  On a reduced turnout, it could be that Brexit supporters felt more motivated to vote, of course, and there is always a danger in drawing too many conclusions from a single by-election; but the one clear conclusion that I draw is the negative one – this result does not provide any evidence of a significant change in opinion towards Brexit since the referendum in 2016.  Had the Brexit Party not stood – or had the election been conducted under a proportional system – the pro-Brexit Tory would probably have won, despite his criminal conviction and the strong support for the recall ballot.  Anti-Brexit and anti-Johnson celebrations are more than a little premature.

The Tories and the Farageists will surely draw the obvious conclusion as well – that fighting elections against each other will potentially reduce the number of pro-Brexit MPs in the House of Commons, especially if the Remain side can cluster their support around a single candidate (something which should be much easier for them in England than in Wales or Scotland).  For the Remain side, the biggest single obstacle to reversing the referendum result continues to be the chaotic and incoherent position of the Labour Party.  The good news for Johnson (and the bad news for those of us opposed to Brexit) is that there is still no sign of the Labour Party digging itself out of the hole into which it has placed itself.

Will it make a difference?

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Whichever decision Plaid took about standing in the Brecon and Radnor by-election was always going to be divisive for the party’s members and supporters.  There have been those arguing in favour of standing and those arguing against; someone was going to be unhappy either way.

Personally, I’m not sure how much difference it will make.  Doing the mathematics of looking at how people voted in the past and adding up the votes for ‘remain’ and ‘leave’ in a way which gives a majority for a particular outcome is easy enough to do; but mathematical theory isn’t the same thing as electoral fact.  It is by no means certain that people who support a party will vote for a different party just because ‘their’ party asks them to.  And when a party has such a low vote in a constituency as Plaid does in Brecon and Radnor, the probability is that a higher proportion of those voters are committed to the party’s fundamental aim than is the case where the party enjoys much wider support.  That means that asking them to vote for a party fiercely opposed to the stated aims of ‘their’ party may turn out to be counterproductive. 

There are a wider range of policy considerations as well.  If I were an elector in the constituency, I’d have serious reservations about voting for a party which is vehemently opposed to Welsh independence and which supports the retention of nuclear weapons, to name just two policy areas – without even starting to think about how honest and trustworthy they are, having seen their approach to campaigning over many years.  (Not for nothing are they widely known as the Fib Dems.)  Whilst it’s clear what the Lib Dems might gain from the decision, the political gains for Plaid are far from clear, and assisting the party which most threatens one of their own seats to regain some of its credibility could turn out to be a colossal mistake.

And yet…  The looming threat of Brexit is an historic turning point, and I can fully understand why any party which is serious about putting Wales first would seek to act in a way which could help to change the direction of travel on such a defining issue.  And changing the way politics in Wales works necessarily requires an occasional bold decision; there’s no gain without an element of risk.  It’s a pity, though, that an outdated and unfit for purpose electoral system doesn’t do more to facilitate a switching of votes by allowing people to place parties and candidates in order of preference rather than requiring one or more different viewpoints to voluntarily remove themselves from the field of battle.

Whether it’s the ‘right’ decision or not remains to be seen – and it will be many years before that becomes clear, because the implications go well beyond the counting of the votes on 1^st August.  Those claiming that it’s a massive own goal and those claiming that it’s a defining change in Welsh politics are both speaking too soon and projecting their own preconceptions onto the decision.  I rather suspect that it will turn out to be neither of those and will actually make little difference, more’s the pity.