A Message to Remainers
I see a lot of Remainers getting down about the fact that Labour are a party of hard Brexit and wasting energy on arguing with Corbyn and Corbynites.
I can understand the emotional pain. We all got heavily involved in politics over the last year, less by choice than because we had to. Our country is in great danger of taking a path towards steep decline. Throw in a hard fought general election campaign where many of us took tough tactical decisions on the basis that the last thing the country needed was a bigger majority for May’s Hard Brexit stance and we’re emotionally raw.
But let me put it to you that we’re losing sight of the longer game here.
We hit lucky, May didn’t need to call an election. We tactically voted as best we could — and the electoral system being what it is we gained and lost in the process. We lost because Labour, just like the Tories, are far more interested in power than in what happens to the people of this country — and so our tactical support gets claimed for Brexit. But we gained because the hung parliament torpedoed her ability to ram things through without reference to Parliament.
Now, I hear you say, it turns out that the new Parliament is no less cowardly than the old one. And you’re right!
So, our job actually remains what it was before the election. We need to build the grassroots awareness of what Brexit really means and why it is such a danger. Economics is on our side, the Brexit effect is percolating through summer holiday costs, weekly shopping costs and hiring is slowing as companies put investment on hold. When a clear majority of people think “Brexit, what a mess!” then Parliament will, in their cowardly way, start to shift…
But we have to keep campaigning and frankly we need to do a better job of it. The narrative is still being set by the other side. We need to keep the flame of hope alive and then we need to spread it.
The harsh truth is, a year has gone by and while many of us have tried our guts out, we didn’t get organised enough and haven’t made enough impact. That needs to change. I’ll be blogging about that some more later this week.
