I stumbled across Nick Clegg recently — almost literally, as it happens — signing copies of his autobiography in a corner of a regional Waterstones. There was a decent turnout, and Clegg looked fit and well. He was dressed down in that preppy English privately-educated way — suede boots, neatly-ironed jeans, shirt and v-neck, sports jacket. He’s a handsome lad with an easy, relaxed manner, now layered with the world-weary authority and gallows humour you often find in ex-somebodies. If he seems older and wiser, he conversely seems younger and fresher too, freed from the depredations of government and the Cabinet-table snipings and media shaftings from those Right-wing Tories who could never reconcile themselves to the existence of the Coalition.

It might be a surprise to hear of the former Lib Dem leader’s chilled demeanour. After all, the reward for five years governing with the Conservatives in order to ensure democratic stability at a time of severe economic crisis was abject humiliation: his party was reduced to a stubby rump of eight MPs in the 2015 general election, with big hitters like Danny Alexander, Vince Cable and Ed Davey cast into the wilderness to do whatever it is ex Lib Dem MPs do. Thus disempowered, this most Europhile of parties had to stand on the sidelines and watch limply as David Cameron called and lost a referendum on the country’s EU membership. Now Brexit is upon us, and a steelier Tory administration has emerged to send into exile the centrist politics in which Clegg and Cameron believed, and which dominated British government and politics for the past 20 years.

So what gives? Perhaps chirpy Clegg, now once more a humble MP, has simply become aware earlier than most of one evolving truth: the Lib Dems, despite what many of us thought, are not necessarily done for. They have not kicked the bucket, run down the curtain or joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. And for this they have Cameron and his disastrous referendum to thank. Clegg and co may justifiably view Brexit as a calamity, but as the old political truism has it, every crisis contains an opportunity. And as Alex Salmond is fond of saying, you must play the ball as it lies.

In May, even before the referendum, the party picked up 45 new seats in the English local elections, while Labour lost 18 and the Tories 48. It was the only party to gain control of a council. But the result of Thursday’s by-election in Witney to replace the departing Cameron gives cause for measured optimism on the national stage, and hints at that aforementioned Brexit dividend. Though the Tories retained the seat, their 2015 majority was cut by 20,000 votes to 5,700 and the Lib Dems vaulted from fourth place to second, taking 30 per cent of the votes cast. Labour was pushed into third, and Ukip slumped to fifth, behind the Greens. One must never read too much into one by-election, of course, but there is a certain logic to this outcome: errant Tories, wooed by Brexit and Theresa May’s non-metropolitan traditionalism, are returning from Ukip to the mothership; Labour voters disillusioned by the hopelessness of Corbynism are looking afresh at the Lib Dems, as are disillusioned Remainers and floating centrists.

Next up, a possible by-election in the Richmond Park and North Kingston constituency, where Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith is threatening to quit if the government supports a new runway at Heathrow. There is a strong chance the Lib Dems would take the seat, which was theirs anyway until relatively recently — they would, as acknowledged masters of by-election strategy, throw everything at it and at the very least come close.

Before we get over-excited, a national YouGov poll published yesterday put the party at just eight per cent, with Ukip on 12 per cent, Labour on 26 per cent and the Tories way out in front on 42 per cent. A lot of damage has been done to the Lib Dem brand and it will not be easily fixed. It is not clear that the party is in much condition to mount a revival, or that its current leader Tim Farron is seen as more than a likeable lightweight. But, as we know, success in politics begets success. People are attracted to momentum: it has a habit of changing both narratives and perceptions. And the electoral experts detect stirrings. Rob Ford, Professor of Political Science at Manchester University and one of the country’s leading psephologists, says: ‘Such is the depth of their decline that it will probably take two elections to come back. But they could spring some surprises in traditional areas of strength such as South West England, as Willie Rennie already did in northern Scotland. They’ll also benefit from being the only viable Remain voice in many Middle England seats, and the UKIP collapse means they’re the only viable opposition to the Conservatives in many seats.’

Brexit has gone off like a nuclear bomb in British politics. The debate, four months on from the vote, remains luridly emotional. The path ahead is far from clear. On the electoral and policy side, no one really knows what the long-term consequences will be, though there is the serious prospect of a substantial realignment of loyalties. The gracelessness in victory of May’s more robust ministers and their allies is making it difficult for the wounds opened by the referendum campaign to heal. The administration ploughs mulishly towards the hardest of Brexits, adopting a confrontational posture towards the referendum losers, apparently forgetting they comprise almost half the electorate. Low emotional intelligence is rarely a good sign in governments.

Brexit also seems likely to serve as something of a ground zero. Such is its epochal import that much of what has gone before could be wiped away — clean slates and fresh starts and all that. The Lib Dems have long been dogged by their (entirely sensible) u-turn on tuition fees, but it surely now seems a bit pre-war to continue holding it against them. And where that spell in coalition government was judged harshly in the short–term, it may play to their advantage over a longer period. After all, they didn’t screw up in power. Quite the opposite: their ministers competently delivered a decent number of social-democratic policy wins, including taking the lowest earners out of income tax, ensuring extra money was spent on the most disadvantaged schoolchildren, and keeping the government focused on the environment. The idea that the party is unfit for office has been debunked.

Lastly, there is no sign of the new unifying party of the centre-ground that many longed to see. Labour’s anti-Corbyn MPs are simply too tribal to give up on their grim old institution or to accept they have been vanquished from its power centres for good by the Hard Left. That leaves those voters who might have been tempted by a new version of the SDP scanning around for an alternative champion. Will their gaze come to rest on the Lib Dems? It’s not unthinkable. In a way, what other option is there?

This article appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail on October 22, 2016