Campaigns like Final Say prove it's much better to fight for a cause that is right, not just what's popular

Our leading position in the campaign for a Final Say for the people on Brexit has been especially exhilarating, because it has travelled from eccentric minority interest to mainstream debate in so short a time

I introduced myself to a Tory ex-cabinet minister a few years ago. Obviously feeling no great need to ingratiate himself to me, he exclaimed, a little theatrically I thought: “Ah! The Independent. The patron saint of lost causes.”

Well, he had a point; many of our political campaigns have enjoyed mixed success. We haven’t yet for example achieved electoral reform for a fairer voting system, though its time may be coming faster than we think.

Still, it is much better to campaign for a cause that is right than one that is popular, at least initially, as that politician’s old boss Margaret Thatcher might have reminded him. It is about conviction. Our support for the elimination of massive food waste for example, and our appeals for conservation and charities such as Space for Giants are fully consonant with our values.

Our leading position in the campaign for a Final Say for the people on Brexit has been especially exhilarating, because it has travelled from eccentric minority interest to mainstream debate in so short a time. We can’t claim all the credit, and wouldn’t wish to: the People’s Vote campaign, the Lib Dems, the SNP; figures in Labour such as Tom Watson and Emily Thornberry; brave Tories such as Sam Gyimah and Huw Merriman; the Greens, Change UK and Chuka Umunna and of course the million marchers who descended on London earlier this year have all been part of this growing movement.

If only Momentum and Labour would throw their weight fully behind it, it would be even more powerful...

I grant you that many who back a “confirmatory” referendum are passionate Europeans, but this is above all a democratic cause, a chance for everyone, however they voted and will vote, to grant final consent to a move – Brexit – that had no real definition back in 2016.

This is no lost cause but one that has found its moment, and, what’s more, has an air of inevitability about it.

Yours

Sean O’Grady

Associate editor