Could 2017 be the year of a Liberal Democrat revival? With the party reduced to a rump of eight MPs at the last election, down from 57 the time before, it’s hard to believe there is a future for them. But let’s look for a moment at the Richmond Park byelection. A Conservative majority of more than 22,000 was overturned by one of the most energetic campaigns of recent years. Voters report phone calls throughout the day, visits to offer lifts, with up to four checks made on canvassed voters during election day to make sure they went to the polling booth.

The operation was masterminded by the Lib Dems themselves, but they couldn’t have won without support from other parties too, under the banner of “Vote for Europe”. This organisation, including many Labour voters, was happy to endorse the Lib Dem candidate, Sarah Olney, whose hostility to Brexit is well known. Looking at the efficiency of this campaign, and contemplating the woeful, divided condition of the Labour party, I’m beginning to ask myself whether we have missed a really important story.

It’s understandable why the media has not made much of the Richmond Park byelection. It was an odd one – Zac Goldsmith’s resignation over an unrelated issue, Heathrow airport, and his decision to stand as an independent, without formal Tory support; the way the Lib Dems wrenched the agenda back to Europe and the way some other parties, notably the Greens, stood aside. And, in the British context, it’s an odd constituency too. Richmond Park is wealthy, one of the most highly educated constituencies in the UK, and voted fiercely to remain in the EU. For very good reasons, the political class is nervous about extrapolating to the rest of the country from anything that happens in such an elite place. Everybody is nervous of seeming to disrespect the referendum result.

Nevertheless, the anger felt by pro-European liberals spreads a long way beyond Richmond, or indeed London. Since the summer, the 48% have been treated as if they simply don’t exist, and have no political worth. More than 16 million voters are being ignored when it comes to small matters such as our membership of the customs union, the future of tariffs and that of EU citizens living peaceably and prosperously among us. We are led to believe that leaving the EU is a simple binary choice and that the critical questions (which will affect the prosperity of future generations) can be left to a tiny group at the centre of government who – apparently – can’t agree anyway.

‘Jeremy Corbyn was left declaring his enthusiasm for the referendum half-heartedly and, unsurprisingly, roughly 3 million Labour voters chose the Leave side.’ Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

This is outrageous. It cannot sustain. Even when the gap between the sides is as big as a million people, in a mature parliamentary democracy, referendums cannot be absolute, winner-takes-all events. After the Scottish referendum, the losing side re-gathered with commendable vigour and determination: “the 45%” became a badge of honour, worn on T-shirts and fluttering on flags, as the SNP saw its membership soar. Scottish politics was shaken after the referendum, and is still a long way away from settling even now.

Yet across the UK, the 48% are scattered, adrift, and lacking any central voice. Labour does not have a coherent EU strategy. During the referendum, it was caught between the Bennite left’s old hostility to Europe as a capitalist club (a “bankers’ ramp”), and the Blair-era conviction that the EU offered the only road to modernity. So Jeremy Corbyn was left declaring his enthusiasm half-heartedly and, unsurprisingly, roughly 3 million Labour voters chose the leave side.

Since then, while vaguely deploring some of the possible results of Brexit, and making much of conversations with European socialist parties that aren’t even in power, Labour has promised its support for the triggering of article 50. Caught between the anti-immigration views of some of its voters and liberal internationalism, Labour does not know what to say about the control of migration. It might seem unlikely but even if Labour were re-elected soon, what would that mean for our leaving the EU? Nobody has the faintest clue.

After the referendum there were bold claims made about some new social movement to defend pro-European, liberal values, cutting across parties, and reaching out, particularly to younger people who were upset about the vote. There was even one large and enthusiastic march through London. The trouble is, we live in a parliamentary democracy where in the end we need parties with a coherent political line to support, or oppose. On the other end of the scale, Ukip, for all its moments of farce, hammered itself into shape. Broken by our first-past-the-post system, it was given a unique lifeline by David Cameron’s decision to hold the referendum. Pro-Europeans can’t expect anything similar in the years ahead.

The Lib Dems, of course, have a problem. For a party supposedly avowing tolerant, liberal mainstream values, to go into government with an austerity-driven rightwing Conservative government was a brand-destroying catastrophe, even leaving aside the betrayal over tuition fees. To many, that memory makes the smug, virtue-signalling style of Tim Farron’s leadership particularly infuriating.

Having said that, there is one overwhelming issue facing British politics for the next few years. The way in which we leave the EU will crucially affect the kind of country we become – it’s about bread-and-butter issues, but also our fundamental values. Leave’s victory did not change what Britain has become in the postwar era. We are the same mix of people. But now, perhaps with a general election not very far off, the 48% lack a party political voice. Liberal Democrats could become it.

To do so, however, they have to change. They have felt like an odd, closed political subculture, mingling provincial oppositionists – the awkward squad – with bland and watery centrists. To win the rest of us over, they have to start by being much more open about that mistake, and why they are not Tory outriders.

I don’t believe they can exploit their opportunity without shaking themselves up. They need to be shocking enough to jolt the 48% into looking at them afresh. That might be possible under the current leader but it will need a full policy review, reviewing taxation and welfare, dropping their kneejerk, individualist hostility to the trade union movement, and being frank about the necessity for deals with other parties. With Labour continuing to tear itself apart, a liberal fightback in this country may have to start with the Liberal Democrats.