The countryside electorate here on the Somerset-Devon border are historically staunchly Conservative, but just before Christmas the Lib Dem Ross Henley took 71% of the vote with a swing of more than 40% from the Tories in a Taunton Deane borough council byelection with a respectable local turnout.

“To be honest I thought we would run the Tories close, I never ever dreamt we would get this vote,” Henley laughed, sitting in the tiny village shop cafe. “But now morale is really high. People helped in this byelection from all over the country.”

Lib Dem strategists are pinning their hopes for rebuilding after the dire results in 2015 on a resurgence in the south-west, their former heartland, where the party lost all 10 of its seats in the last election. Since then, the party has been quietly notching up its best council byelection results in 20 years, with a net gain of 28 seats compared with net losses for Labour of four seats, Ukip of three and the Conservatives of 33 seats.

On paper, this part of the country does not look like a happy hunting ground for the fervently pro-remain party, because of the high number of leave voters in the south-west. Yet more than half of those byelections gains were in the west country, most recently in Taunton and Teignbridge in early December, with the seats all seeing swings upwards of 20%.

Henley, who is also the county councillor, said he thought local leave voters had still backed him because of a personal relationship, but that his party was consistently winning over Tory remainers. “People did actually want to talk about Brexit on the doorstep,” he said.