Brexit truce as pro-EU Lib Dems focus on long game

Other Lib Dem activists do see differences with Labour, but aren’t so sure voters care that much about Brexit.

During the general election campaign, “it wasn’t really in the public’s mind”, says David Chalmers, a veteran pro-EU Lib Dem.

“They were really concerned about the cost of living, the NHS and sewage. If you start talking about rejoining Europe, you’re not actually listening to people.”

Helen Morgan, the Lib Dem MP for North Shropshire, says she has been listening to lots of people in her constituency, which voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.

She says locally, A&E waiting times, potholes and energy costs this winter were the issues that came up on the doorstep most frequently.

“I spoke personally to probably more than 1,000 people during the course of the election campaign,” Morgan says. “I talked about Europe maybe a handful of times.”

Josh Babarinde – the new MP for Bournemouth – says there was no mass clamour to immediately rejoin the EU in mail from his constituents.

But if voters want that eventually, “our stance on Brexit was there in black and white”, he says.

“I don’t think anyone will be in any doubt where Liberal Democrat sympathies lie when it comes to Brexit.”