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Saturday, 3 December 2016 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
LONDON 2 (Reuters) - Britain’s pro-European Union Liberal Democrats party won a parliamentary seat previously held by the ruling Conservatives on Friday in a major upset it hailed as a rejection of a “hard Brexit” that would pull the country out of the single market.
Liberal Democrat Sarah Olney’s victory in a constituency in southwest London - overturning the Conservatives’ 23,000 majority from 2015 - illustrated the deep divisions running through a country that voted 52-48 percent to leave the EU.
It also reduces Prime Minister Theresa May’s already slim majority in Parliament, which might have to approve her decision to trigger the formal process of withdrawing from the bloc.
The affluent Richmond Park and North Kingston area had backed the Remain camp in June’s referendum on EU membership.
Olney, who had campaigned for the parliamentary seat on a promise to vote against triggering the withdrawal talks, said its residents had sent “a shockwave” through the Brexit process.
“Our message is clear: we do not want a hard Brexit; we do not want to be pulled out of the single market; and we will not let intolerance, division and fear win,” she said in a speech after her victory was announced.
She beat the incumbent Zac Goldsmith with 20,510 votes to his 18,638. Goldsmith ran as an independent candidate after quitting the Conservatives over the government’s decision to expand nearby Heathrow Airport.
All the main candidates in Richmond opposed Heathrow expansion, however, and the Liberal Democrats turned the by-election into a vote on the terms of Brexit.
Goldsmith, the son of a billionaire financier, was a longstanding supporter of Brexit.
May’s Conservatives, which did not field a candidate to oppose Goldsmith, said the result did not change anything in terms of Britain’s Brexit strategy and invoking Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty to begin the withdrawal process.
“The Government remains committed to leaving the European Union and triggering Article 50 by the end of March next year,” a Conservative spokesman said on Friday.
