By Bagehot
IN A year of grim defeats for internationalists in Britain and abroad, a morsel of relief. The Liberal Democrats pitched yesterday’s by-election in Richmond Park as a chance for voters to voice scepticism about Brexit. The gambit worked: Sarah Olney took the south-west London seat with an increased vote-share of 30.4 points. Zac Goldsmith, the languidly aristocratic Brexiteer who fought a dog-whistle campaign for the London mayoralty in May, had triggered the vote in October by resigning from the Conservatives in protest at plans to build a third runway at nearby Heathrow Airport. By covering off this issue (the greenish Lib Dems are also opposed) and making the choice about Europe, his opponents pulled the rug from under him.