PV split -- City PR guru takes on Lord of Darkness

A newsy bloggy thing on the Graun website has this:

1h ago 10:16

Around 40 members of staff at the People’s Vote campaign have written to Roland Rudd, who effectively runs it, complaining about his decision to dismiss two of its most senior executives, James McGrory and Tom Baldwin. In the letter, which was sent last night, they said:

It is utterly absurd that at this critical time for our country, you have started an argument about how our campaign is run.
We do not want a public argument [sic], we simply want to get back to work, delivering the people’s vote that our country so desperately needs.
Your actions have meant that we have been unable to do that, at this critical juncture for the campaign and the country.
As the staff of the People’s Vote campaign, we demand you allow us to continue with our work, under the leadership of James and Tom. 

I missed the main Gru coverage yesterday. It was a cracker:

McGrory and Baldwin, the campaigns and communications director respectively, are not going away without a battle, and staff are pushing for them to be reinstated.... McGrory, [is] a former spinner for Nick Clegg and the remain campaign, and Baldwin, a former director of media for Ed Miliband [there's some talent there!] .. But to get their positions back they have to go head-to-head with Roland Rudd, the powerful City PR guru who effectively controls the campaign through the Open Britain organisation...Rudd, a multimillionaire businessman and the brother of the Conservative former cabinet minister Amber Rudd [fancy!], is one of the godfathers of the 2016 remain campaign [I never knew they had any wealthy backers], having co-founded the Britain Stronger in Europe group that turned into the official coordinating body... Rudd, its chairman, also says he is chair of People’s Vote, although that is disputed by his opponents[!].

One person familiar with all the parties said the fallout began when Rudd began to install his allies on the board, with Peter Mandelson and others trying to stop him taking control. In his next step in the battle, Rudd is expected to make moves to remove Lord Mandelson and his allies – two former remain campaign executives, Will Straw and Joe Carberry – from the board of Open Britain.
Anger among senior staff also boiled over when another friend of Rudd, Hugo Dixon, was made deputy chair of the People’s Vote campaign, and began organising a semi-rival March for Change that they felt cut across some of the organisation’s aims.

Said a colleague:

“Roland is a frustrated politician”. “He’s very pleased with his success in business. But it’s never been enough. He’s desperate to be acknowledged publicly. It’s a combination of pique, amour propre and a desperation for publicity,” he said.

[Critics] place Rudd on the side of “starry-eyed remainiacs”, saying he wants to form an alliance with other pro-EU groups and potentially even help bring about a realignment of centrist politics around the Lib Dems...On the other side, the current executive team have been focused on winning the practical arguments for a second referendum in the country and trying to get more soft Tories and Labour figures on board in parliament...But allies of Rudd say this characterisation is rubbish and a “smokescreen” for explaining away problems with the current structure. They also point to previous efforts by Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, the former communications director to Tony Blair, to get rid of Rudd, saying that had pushed him into this course of action. A rival plan pushed by the Mandelson group would have put Michael Heseltine, Dominic Grieve and Margaret Beckett in senior roles [what a winning team that would have been].