Copeland – a chance to reach out to both sides of the Remain/Leave divide

They're calling Copeland, soon to have a by-election after its MP decided to go work at Sellafield, a three way marginal between the Tories, Labour and UKIP. Maybe in old money it would have been, but that was before Brexit.

Now those three can fight over whose Brexit is bigger and harder, giving us a unique position. The 38% who voted to Remain, and a good chunk of the 62% who voted to leave in June may well be attracted by the thought of a vote on the final deal, a chance to legitimise what is being done in their name by the Government.

I tend to view the 2015 election results as a bit of an aberration. In Copeland we got 3.5%, but for the previous three decades, we'd been trundling along at around the 10% mark. We should certainly aim to improve on that as we did in Sleaford.

Our Copeland campaign has an advantage in that Tim Farron's constituency and redoubtable campaign team are not so far away with their local knowledge and understanding of the issues. The other advantage is that we do actually care about the concerns of those who voted to leave. Had we been in power these last 30 years, our model of investment in public services and community empowerment would have avoided at least some of the issues that now cause so much anger.

This by-election gives us the chance to reach out to both sides of a divided community and beyond that to both sides of a divided nation. Copeland is an area that stands to lose a great deal from a hard Brexit. It's up to us to fight a campaign that resonates with local people and get the best possible result. Anyone up for a trip to Cumbria?

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings