Ben Smith's victory in the Smith’s South by-election was rightly celebrated at One Bermuda Alliance headquarters. But the celebrations should have been tempered with some relief by the Opposition and its new leader, Jarion Richardson.

A significant narrowing of support for the OBA, let alone a defeat, would have indicated that the rebuilding work undertaken by the party since the catastrophic 2020 election had been in vain.

Instead, the OBA can take heart that, in terms of vote share, it improved not only on its 2020 performance but on its 2017 General Election result.

On the other hand, it is unlikely that the result will have set off any alarm bells within the Progressive Labour Party. Its candidate, Mischa Fubler, made a good impression and set a different tone from the conventional opinions expected from the PLP.

That the PLP can be unfazed that it failed to perform as well as it did in 2020 stems from by-elections rarely being good indicators of General Election fortunes.

They are customarily marked by low turnout — as was the case in Smith’s South — and voters will often cast their votes differently than in a General Election, when the stakes are higher.

In the case of Smith’s South, this has always been an OBA stronghold and a PLP victory here would have caused shock waves.

As it was, the voters gave the OBA a 10 per cent higher share of the popular vote, up from the 63 per cent former MP and OBA leader Cole Simons won in 2020. It was also higher than the 71.6 per cent Mr Simons enjoyed in 2017.

Certainly, turnout was lower than the 65 per cent recorded in 2020, when many OBA voters stayed away island-wide. But a 48 per cent turnout is normal for a by-election, especially one that has no influence on the direction of the country.

If the OBA is back to where it was in 2017, that is encouraging for the party, but it does not necessarily mean it is ready to challenge for government. In 2017, the Opposition won 12 seats, seven short of a majority.

Still, Mr Richardson and Mr Smith can be pleased with the result. It suggests that Mr Richardson’s assumption of the leadership has been accepted by OBA voters, even in the former leader’s seat, and that there has been an improvement in its standing.

Some of the credit for this success lies with Mr Simons, who stabilised the OBA after the catastrophe of 2020.

He also demonstrated that he knew when to get off the stage to make way for a new generation of politicians represented by Mr Richardson and Mr Smith.

The real question for the OBA is not whether it can hold a seat such as Smith’s South, but whether it can recapture its former strongholds in places such as Hamilton South, Smith’s West, Pembroke West, Warwick West and Southampton West Central — where Mr Smith lost in 2020.

These are the seats it needs to win simply to be a credible Opposition, let alone a potential government.

In many ways, winning those seats should be a fairly modest goal, but it is the first step if the party wants to return to power. Recapturing seats needed for an actual majority will take more effort.

Mr Richardson would do well to look at the approach Sir Keir Starmer has taken as leader of the British Labour Party.

Sir Keir took the leadership of Labour in similar circumstances to those the OBA was in 2020.

It had been humiliated in a General Election, had suffered from poor and unpopular leadership, and looked condemned to opposition.

That has been reversed and Labour is now widely expected to form the next government, but it was not accomplished overnight.

Sir Keir first re-established Labour’s credibility by removing the leaders and unpopular policies that had made it unelectable. He then set out about undermining the governing Conservatives’ reputation for competence, a task made easier by the circus-like leadership of Boris Johnson and the catastrophic tenure of Liz Truss.

Now the Labour leader is embarking on the third and hardest part of the job — laying out the policies that will give British voters a reason to cast a vote for Labour as opposed to against the Tories.

Bermuda’s position is of course different. David Burt has for the most part been able to lead competently, but he and his party are losing popularity and are short of new ideas.

Mr Richardson needs to take a hard look at those elements of the OBA’s platform and leadership which voters so resoundingly rejected in 2020 and 2017 with a view to setting a new course for the party.

In doing that, he must also lead a more assertive and confident attack on the PLP. While the PLP has some competent ministers and sensible policies, it has more quantity than quality.

Finally, Mr Richardson and his team need to develop a coherent set of principles that the public clearly recognise as the essence of the OBA. From there, they need to develop the policies that flow from the principles.

This does not mean that they need to roll out the policies now. Many can wait until the election is called. But development of the core policies which will underpin the manifesto need to be in place as soon as possible.

The by-election result shows the OBA has made progress since 2020, but there is much work to be done before it can claim to be a government in waiting.