PV -- single issue fails to unite.

The Graun has M Kettle urging tactical voting but wondering how to coordinate it,especially if he runs out of nice people like D Grieve to support. Meanwhile the decline of PV looks terminal:

The plan was for People’s Vote to become one of the most influential voices in the election campaign....[but now we have] the total collapse of the second referendum pressure group...With over 500,000 supporters, and two successful mass marches in London behind it, the group was raising £100,000 a week...as a force, the most powerful pressure group in British politics appears all but dead....Alastair Campbell, who had been closely involved in the campaign, said: “This has become an absolute joke. We had a big platform, ready to go, and we were taken off the field. We could have been a bridge between Labour and the Lib Dems, and the organisation is nowhere.”

 Why oh why, asks this blog,when the national interest was so clear? Factors include:

After months of simmering tensions, a boardroom coup...The organisation’s 40 staff all walked out in support, and three weeks on the dispute is no closer to resolution, even though Rudd resigned as chairman...“The reality is that the organisation was not professionally run, and if a second referendum was ever called would struggle to be designated the official remain group,”

 And:

Even those involved struggle to articulate any clear reason for the dispute, which in large part appears to revolve around a clash of personalities. Campbell accuses Rudd of wanting “to have status at west London dinner parties”, while friends of Rudd say “Campbell and Peter Mandelson don’t want to pivot the organisation to a pro-remain position”. Like Campbell, Mandelson has fallen out with Rudd....People’s Vote was made up of a patchwork of nine different organisations, the largest of which was Open Britain, the successor to the failed StrongerIn pro-European Union campaign from 2016. “Rudd appointed himself as chairman of People’s Vote, and although it was a bit odd, we didn’t really think that much of it,” Campbell said....What Rudd did was seize control of Open Britain, which employed the majority of the staff working at Millbank Tower and controlled its data, via a company called Baybridge

It was at first thought that Soubry and Umunna had wanted to use the group as a platform to form a new party, but they were rebuffed, complaining that they were not getting enough media appearances, as more MPs gradually came on board.

The whole episode confirms the problems with single-issue campaigns with inner divisions on other issues always threatening unity. This has been known since the early analyses of CND. XR has its moment to come. 

The inner tensions are hilarious in this case, with PV's pompous assertions about national interests and democracy. Prima donna politicians and their rivalries, corporate power struggles and 'personality clashes' seemed much more potent. That these issues triumphed surely raises doubt about the sincerity of the goal as well? I hope all those marchers, supporters and useful idiots are not too disillusioned with real politics.