Originally Posted by
Fairdealfrank
Obviously the Libdem was against, Libdems are against any airport expansion anywhere, but that's not the point.
The point is that Zac made a stupid rash promise previously (to fight a by-election as an independent if the government went ahead with Heathrow expansion) and foolishly felt obliged to stick to it.
The by-election's entire raison d'etre was Heathrow expansion. If the issue had not arisen, there would have been no by-election.
Apologies if I'm missing something, but I'm not really sure I understand this in the context of the original point.
You've said that Zac Goldsmith would be the only MP to loose his seat over this. He did for a short time, but I think the point is twofold:
1 - at a local level, anti-expansion will be pretty much par for the course.
2 - at the national level (i.e. in constituencies not local to LHR) there will be MPs who oppose expansion for other reasons.
There will of course be MPs who support expansion, but it feels finely balanced. I agree it's not so serious an issue that an MP should worry too much about loosing their seat over it, but is the government going to use its (currently very) finite political capital to drive through a project of questionable merit and deliverability when it has so many other competing priorities?
When you have key members of the cabinet and opposition as known ardent "antis", I'm not so sure it's a battle they will pick a fight over...