Is this the end of the remain campaign?

 Progressive European Party

An email came to me today from the Peoples vote campaign

“Hi philip,

We want to pay tribute to the millions of People’s Vote supporters who have worked tirelessly to demand that their voices are heard.

Since the election was called, tens of thousands of grassroots campaigners have mobilised all over the country. With record donations and hundreds of People’s Vote events in the last six weeks alone, it is clear that millions of people remain committed to fighting Brexit-fuelled injustice.

The People’s Vote will now refocus its campaign to concentrate on vital social issues that this government must urgently prioritise in its Brexit negotiations. We will remain a grassroots campaigning group who will act on issues of social inequality. We will put pressure on the government to stop them sacrificing opportunities for the poor and vulnerable, removing citizens’ rights, undermining the NHS and reducing job security in pursuit of a destructive Brexit driven by a hard-right minority.

We urge the government to avoid a hard Brexit that will be a disaster for our country and instead work with our European partners to get the fair deal that British people deserve. The poorest and most vulnerable will be further marginalised if Boris Johnson’s government crashes us out of the EU with no deal.

We will now redouble our efforts to make Johnson’s government accountable to the people, to give assurances that protect the weakest in our society and put the needs of the people above political ideology.

Early next year the People’s Vote campaign will rebrand and reorganise to campaign for a fair deal for Britain.

Kind Regards,

Stuart Hand

Campaign Director, People's Vote”

Not very promising is it, where did it all go wrong, I have, I believe, a clear understanding of why we have failed. At least failed so far in our endeavours to stop Brexit. And unless we change tack soon all that flag-waving speech-making and marching will soon be forgotten. As will the MPs who changed parties or stood as independents, not one of them were re-elected.

Recent history has shown that having a million people march on Parliament (unless they burn it down when they get there) has no effect. The stop the war Coalition did not stop the war and our efforts did not stop Brexit or get a confirmatory referendum

Unless a movement has political representation it will not move anything. 

So far the great opportunity that Brexit offered us has been wasted. Brexit has clearly thrown into great relief the failings of our current political system. It not only exposed the imperfections of our failing democracy it also pointed us in the direction of how it could be changed. 

We came up with the concept of a new Progressive party that would not only keep us in the EU but would also transform society to end the causes of discontentment that the “forgotten” in our country have suffered.
Why not stick with existing parties that want to remain? Because they are a part of the problem. It is easy to forget now that the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party both campaigned for an in-out EU referendum before Cameron put the idea forward. 

If the enormous amount of work campaigning and the not-insignificant amount of money raised had been put into our new movement then maybe we would have made some real progress. Or if we had been waving our flags and celebrating our EU citizenship before 2016 then maybe it would not have happened in the first place. But we can not put the clock back.  

Listening to this https://youtu.be/kVaE61crZDg recent speech by Madeleina Kay you would think that she is singing directly from the Progressive Party’s songbook. But unless Madeleina and people like her are leading members of a Political Party that has representation in Parliament it matters not how brilliant her speech is. The people in power will just ignore her. 

Coming up with the solutions was for us the easy part. The hard bit, convincing the general public, has so far eluded us. And because the biggest names of the remain campaign have made the decision that they and the movement should be apolitical we have not persuaded them either. 

All may not be lost but we are in a far worst place than we were before and the opportunities are far more limited. New opportunities will present themselves, I just hope that this time when they do we can take advantage of them and make it work. 

The phoenix can still rise from the ashes 

Philip Notley