Liberal Democrats will not challenge the North East Fife result

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The Scottish Liberal Democrats have decided against mounting a legal challenger to result in North East Fife last week.

There the SNP held on to the seat by 2 votes after three recounts. The Lib Dems had been ahead until the last recount.

BBC News quotes Willie Rennie, the leader of the Scottish Lib Dems:

"Many people have asked us to challenge the result in court. 

"We have given this careful consideration and, despite legal advice that we would have grounds to challenge the result, it has been decided not to go to court. 

"We have decided there is insufficient evidence to justify a lengthy and expensive legal challenge. It would be expensive for us, expensive to the taxpayer and an inconvenience to the voters, so we could not sanction that without sufficient evidence to warrant it."

Somewhere behind this decision, I suspect, it the memory of what happened in Winchester 1997.

There the Lib Dems' Mark Oaten won by 2 votes. The Conservatives challenged the result and another contest was called.

Oaten won it with a majority of 21,556.