CAMPAIGNING as a Liberal Democrat in the 2015 general election was not a happy experience, says Stephen Williams, a former minister for local government. The party was disliked for propping up the Conservatives in a coalition government in 2010-15 and for reneging on a pledge not to raise university tuition fees. It scraped just 8% of the vote, down from 23% in 2010. “At times I felt like the most hated man in Bristol,” Mr Williams sighs.

Now, though, things are looking brighter for the Lib Dems. Last year no party campaigned to remain in the European Union so vehemently. And now, none is likely to benefit so much from the vote to Leave. The party’s noisy opposition to the government’s proposed “hard Brexit” has helped it to notch up some spectacular swings in council and parliamentary elections since the referendum (see chart). Meanwhile, it faces only weak competition for left-leaning voters from Labour, which is under catastrophically bad management (see article).

So the Lib Dems are optimistic about their chances on June 8th. All 48 seats they lost in 2015 will be “in play”, reckons Rob Ford of the University of Manchester. A 10% swing to the Lib Dems would see them pick up 40 seats, 25 of them from the Conservatives. They are unlikely to do quite that well—partly because eight of those seats are held by the Scottish National Party, whose vote is likely to hold up, and partly because the Liberals’ organisation is still relatively weak after successive local electoral drubbings. But Lib Dem watchers guess the party could pick up more than 20 new seats. Popular former MPs including Vince Cable, a former business secretary, and Simon Hughes, a former justice minister, have said they will seek to win back their old constituencies. Nick Clegg, a former party leader and deputy prime minister, has confirmed he will stand again.