The people who voted Leave hold the key to remaining in the EU – here's why

A good chess player plans several moves ahead. That’s where people who have flipped come in and should be at the front of people’s minds

James Moore
Thursday 13 December 2018 16:11 GMT
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Theresa May promises to deliver Brexit 'that people voted for' after winning confidence vote

So there you have it. It’s Theresa May’s brick wall we have to break down to get a Final Say referendum rather than some other Brexiteer Tory rube. At least as things stand.

Who knows what the unruly shower on the benches behind her the prime minister will do next. The “people”, whom she mendaciously cites at every opportunity, will doubtless have been appalled at yesterday’s disgusting spectacle held in the midst of a national crisis. Some of the more intelligent Tory MPs – they do still exist as an endangered species in need of a little help from conservationists – would do well to reflect upon that.

A question that’s less often discussed than perhaps it should be is this: what happens if The Independent and the People’s Vote campaigns for the democracy May has set herself against succeed?

That’s understandable in some ways. Getting the vote is what matters and there are even some Leavers onside in that respect. They have little love for May’s dismal deal. But it’s one thing to achieve a Final Say referendum, quite another to win it. The polls favour Remain, but Remainers have seen favourable polls before.

Recall the run-up to the last one, when complacency – principally David Cameron’s – led us to the unpleasant situation we find ourselves in today.

A good chess player plans several moves ahead. That’s where people who have flipped come in and should be at the front of people’s minds. They are the most important constituency in all this. They hold the key, more so than even the young or the abstainers, who could deliver a lot of votes – if they could be persuaded to vote. Previous efforts have met with mixed results.

You can be pretty sure, however, that those who did vote, and who have since been motivated to change their views, will do so again. They’ve been howling from the rooftops about the need for one.

The Remainer Now website bears the legend “It’s OK to Change Your Mind”. And it is. But people don’t always find it easy. Those who clear the fence tend to be particularly committed to their new course. They do say there’s no zealot like a convert. Theresa May, originally a rather reluctant Remainer, surely proves that.

Polling data from YouGov indicates that those moving in the other direction to her greatly outnumber those who have moved with her. Some 11 per cent of Leave voters polled this month said Britain was wrong to leave the EU, compared to just 3 per cent of Remain backers saying the opposite.

It’s often said that not many people have changed their minds with respect to our EU membership. If the polling is even close to being correct, I’d argue that it is a highly questionable assertion, one that’s favourable only to people like May who are bent upon crunching democracy under the heels of their boots.

Eleven per cent might not look like a big number. But considered in terms of the number of actual people it might represent, it racks up to about 1.7 million and growing. That’s a very big number.

I’ve written before that while many Remainers are understandably furious at the wreck of their country being made by May and her friends – and the fires will inevitably have been stoked by the scenes witnessed in the House of Commons yesterday – they need to embrace these people. Actually they need to do more. They need to put them at the front of the campaign.

Remember, we lost last time. Yes it was close. Yes the referendum result looks tarnished, not just by the lies that were told but by the cheating found to have been indulged in by both Leave campaigns, highlighted by the findings of the Electoral Commission and fuelled by money from… who knows where. Actually we know who knows. But the result still stands.

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To win a second time around, the support of the Remainer Now community is thus vital.

Those who have flipped, if brought further to the fore, could send a powerful message to others considering joining them: you’re far from alone.

As a species we are still very tribal. The Remainer Now tribe is a big and important one. And, if it is given the voice it deserves, it could be a very powerful one too. Campaigners take note.

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