Brinfluence aims at Brino

The focus for soft Remainers now seems to be the Labour leadership contest. The Graun has a piece from the Deputy Director of the 'thinktank' British Influence. Here is its Wikipedia entry:

British Influence, formally the Centre for British Influence Through Europe, was an independent, cross-party,^[1] pro-single market^[2] foreign affairs think tank based in the United Kingdom, founded in 2012 to make the case for the European Union amid increasing calls for British withdrawal from the EU.^[3] It appointed Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat), Kenneth Clarke (Conservative) and Peter Mandelson (Labour)^[4] as joint presidents ahead of a possible 2017 referendum.^[5] In 2016 it changed its name to The Influence Group and advised UK businesses on the single market. 

The article finds the thinktank a little short of business initially:

Labour could widely misjudge the public mood, or appear to be in denial that it lost, or even look like a party of remain that wants to frustrate the process altogether. So here is the most important thing: Labour must abandon that fear, and fast. We have left the EU and there is no current movement to rejoin. [Starmer has floated the possibility, apparently --so this is a point against him?]. Labour must reassure leavers of that at every opportunity

But the Struggle can still go on, slightly deflected:

the new [Labour] leader must advocate what many remainers were proposing for two years after the referendum: the compromise position of a soft Brexit in the single market and customs union, or the maximum harmonisation that comes just short of it [could be Nandy's position?] ..Only Labour would deliver the Brexit people were promised.[!]

 Here is BI's take on the Election:

it was only the promise of a referendum that brought remainers back [to Labour]. Second, the majority in December did not want to “get Brexit done”. Over 52% of voters backed parties in favour of either a second referendum or remaining outright

So let me see -- that's 52:48? Not really a majority at all then.

With any luck, there will be a disaster:

If Brexit goes wrong – which the evidence suggests it will [expensive strawberries!] – then an opposition that has meekly acquiesced to it will share the blame [not to mention the klutzes that voted for it] . This is Labour’s chance to show itself as the party of moderation and maturity [ie not led by Long-Bailey?].  

Moderation and maturity = EC-vectored neo-lib domination. 

It's the usual interpretive problem for me -- obsessions woven into identities that can never be let go? a tactical plan for the (very) long term return to the EU? a shorter term plan to defeat any Labour enemies of Blairism even if it means L Nandy? trying to keep the consultancy business going after a nasty shock?

Meanwhile, N Malik raises the possibility of a reckoning:

As Mary Beard found, EU sympathies are a disqualifier for senior public roles. This authoritarianism must be challenged 

Whether her views have any bearing on her ability to do the job [as BritMu trustee] is neither here nor there. All that matters is allegiance to the Boris Johnson-Dominic Cummings project.

Which would indeed be alarming, although the authority for this comes only from 'Whitehall sources' -- Malik is citing a story in the Sunday Guardian/Observer for evidence.  That story ends with this absolute clincher for a malicious conspiracy:

Four years ago, Johnson and Beard faced each other in a debate organised by the media events company Intelligence Squared....Beard gradually swayed the audience...[Johnson]  also owns socks depicting the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, bought from the museum’s shop last year... Ashurbanipal called himself “king of the world” – a view echoed by the young Johnson, who told his family as a child that he planned to be “world king”.

Guilt established by inspecting the sock drawer. Arguing for meritocracy or value-neutrality in these appointments is a little late anyway, of course . The real beef might emerge in this:

It was only a matter of time before “having enough of experts” turned into blocking those experts from doing their jobs...The false binary [welcome back, old friend]  of British or European was created. A new traitor, the “citizen of nowhere”, was identified....We ignore culture-war skirmishes at our peril [now we are losing that is?]  Every flag-waving gimmick, every stunt, every media swipe at an elected “bureaucrat” [no longer talking about trustees of the BritMu then?]  for doing their job leads to this.

The trouble is we have seen the partisan backside (sic) of so many civil servants and journos during the Brexit Wars, so many patronising thinktank experts,authorities and cynical and self-righteous politicians, and they have all now massively lost credibility, having often staked their professional reputation on Remain. It is their ineptitude and lazy ideologizing that makes me actually quite supportive of any attempts to purge them at the moment.