With MPs gearing up for a general election, a Lib Dem win at the recent Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, a Leave voting constituency in 2016, has been heralded as a predictive victory for Remain supporting candidates.

Jane Dodds overturned an 8,000-strong Conservative majority, reducing the government’s parliamentary majority to just 1 and signalling that Remain is holding its own against Boris Johnson’s militant, Brexit-or-bust rhetoric. 

Losing the seat weakens Johnson’s precarious grip on power. He now faces an even greater struggle than his predecessor, Theresa May, to overcome parliamentary arithmetic and deliver Brexit by October 31st, a deadline upon which his legitimacy depends. 

Nonetheless, while analysts from major news outlets (including the BBC, Mirror, Independent and Evening Standard) view the by-election as a major defeat for Boris’ fledgling government, attention to the numbers shows that a general election this Autumn risks handing the reins of parliament back to the Tories.

Labour’s dismal performance warns of decisive defeat for the opposition if a general election is called. Labour candidate, Tom Davies, took just 5.3% of the vote implying the Lib Dems picked up the lion’s share of its new support from disillusioned Labour voters rather than a burgeoning base of Remainers.

In a mere 2 years, Labour support in Brecon and Radnorshire has nose-dived by 12.5%, from a high of 17.7% in 2017. These results follow the trend of the European Parliament elections where labour haemorrhaged 10% of votes compared to its 2014 performance.

The message from voters should be clear: 3 years of “constructive ambiguity” have satisfied no-one and alienated Leave voters and Remainers from across the political spectrum. 

Yet, even since Labour’s disastrous performance in the European elections the leadership’s support for a second referendum has been half-hearted. Corbyn was, for example, quick to remove Emily Thornberry from the public eye, when she came out vehemently in favour of Remain. Voters have been further estranged by the ongoing anti-Semitism scandal, which the leadership has repeatedly failed to address. 

The by-election indicates that the Lib Dems are beginning to fill the vacuum created by Labour, yet both the circumstances of Dodds’ win and her slim majority imply that the Lib Dems would be hard pressed to replicate this result in a general election.

Jane Dodds’ victory was far from spectacular. The Lib Dems have an established history of support in Brecon and Radnorshire, but Dodds still had to work together with the Green Party and Plaid Cymru, both of whom withdrew candidates, to win the seat.

Yes, support for the Lib Dems is increasing, but the party is struggling to shake the poisonous image established through their coalition government with the Conservatives. The election of Jo Swinson as party leader, an MP who voted in favour of welfare cuts, tuition fee rises and the public sector pay cap while serving in the Lib-dem-Tory government, will be enough to turn some voters off.

All in all, the by-election does not signal a surge in support for Remain nor should the Liberal Democrats be overly optimistic heading into a general election. Instead, the by-election has deepened Labour’s existential crisis by signalling that voters no longer view Corbyn’s Labour as effective opposition.

With many Labour supporters seeking a new political home, a general election risks weakening the opposition further by splintering the Remain vote amongst fringe parties.

By contrast, a general election would play to Boris Johnson’s strengths as a campaigner and rhetorician. The Conservatives might have failed to retain the seat, but the by-election results proved the pragmatism of Johnson’s Brexit stance in uniting pro-Brexit voters.

The Brexit Party received just 10% of the vote showing that Johnson has stemmed the flow of disaffected leave-voters defecting from the Conservatives to the Brexit Party in recent months.

While the pro-Brexit factions are knitting together, the Remain vote is fractured: only by uniting behind the common cause of a second referendum will the opposition be capable of derailing Johnson’s Brexit plans. If Labour wholeheartedly throws its weight behind Remain they may even win back disillusioned former supporters.