Remainers had the better arguments, but they have failed to shift public opinion
For a lot of Britons, Brexit is still mostly just words. Jargon, vague promises, dire warnings, contradictory predictions, a few catchphrases [silly vulgar Leavers mostly]...It’s a conversation that remainers have rarely controlled, let alone dominated. If they are, finally, about to lose the Brexit battle, this may be why....remainers [have not] produced equally effective propaganda of their own.
Here's an example of the sort of thing Graun journalists might have done:
After the referendum result was announced, leave figures quickly began talking about “the biggest democratic exercise” and “largest mandate” in British history. The first claim was incorrect: more people voted in the 1992 general election, when the UK population was more than a 10th smaller. And the second claim was at least debatable: the leavers’ victory margin was much narrower than those in the UK’s two previous national referendums.
That would have clinched it. All it takes is a bit of simple checking and the whole thing would have evaporated:
The same has happened with who voted for Brexit. Again and again, they have been characterised as “the left behind”: poor, neglected, Labour-inclined voters from the north of England. The reality that Brexit is essentially a rightwing project – to deregulate the British economy for the benefit of more hard-nosed, non-EU capitalism – has been largely obscured...Remainers have been unable to identify and promote a similarly marketable political cohort of their own.
Well, they think the petty bourgeoisie just is 'the people' They couldn't admit to being a mere cohort could they? And would it be a popular cohort with lots of support?
The (other) meeja are to blame (astonishingly):
The formation of the prevailing common sense on political questions is rarely driven by which side has the better ideas. The leavers have had most of the press on their side, implacably anti-European for decades. And the BBC has been strikingly reluctant to pick apart dubious pro-Brexit claims, for example about the supposedly overwhelming leave mandate – for fear, it seems, of being accused of remainer bias.[So I imagined all those hysterical denunciations of Leavers on Newsnight?]
Graun journalists have been wonderful of course, but dogs can always turn on other dogs:
journalists outside the Tory press would always act as remain’s allies – as fact-checkers against the leavers’ half-truths and lies – [but] remainers should have realised that a Brexit deal, and whatever uncharted world comes after, is simply a better story for the media than Britain staying in the EU.
Here's another fact for you: 'Leavers have had much of Whitehall on their side, too. '
The problem is that Remainers are too idealistic and nice:
A wide but unwieldy coalition of liberal celebrities, lawyers, usually apolitical citizens, leftwing and centrist activists, and usually warring political parties, it has advanced – further than most people ever expected – on multiple fronts: on the streets, in the courts, in the Commons. But the movement has been so busy with all this, and with managing itself – the 48% getting to know each other – that it has not noticed how the underlying political narrative has still been moving in Brexit’s favour, and has not done enough to reverse that.
However, they anticipate more delicious possibilities even if they have lost:
the Brexit crisis will still be there – but as a more concrete matter, less about rhetoric and more about economic and diplomatic realities. Remainers may finally be able to say the words that some of them have been itching to use for years: “We told you so.”
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