Appealing to Leave voters is the best hope for a Final Say
With the defection from the Conservatives of Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston to the 11-strong (so far) Independent Group of progressive MPs, you can almost sense the tectonic plates shifting. Europe, more than anything, has forced the change; and the Independent Group’s priority must now be to secure a Final Say referendum on Brexit. It is urgent, as they well know.
But, for all the hard work they have done and are doing still, they know as well as anyone that they are not enough. The campaign for a people’s vote has to be a broad movement to succeed.
Now, I don’t often turn to Clive Lewis, Labour frontbencher and Corbyn loyalist, for wisdom, but I noticed something he said a recently that was shrewd – and useful in this context.
This is what he said: “My message to Chuka [Umunna] and to Anna Soubry and the others who have been making the case for a people’s vote is: you have done what you think is right, well done, but if you do get your way, you need to step aside and make way for those who can communicate with the very people that we need to convince.
“This campaign, if it should fall upon us, for a public vote, needs to have less Tories, less men, less Londoners, more northerners, more women, more diversity and more of the left.” For more details about the Put It To The People march – and to sign up – please visit peoplesvote.uk/march For updates on what’s going on with Brexit, Independent subscribers can sign up for our new Brexit in Brief email newsletter via your ‘Account details’ tab at independent.co.uk It’s a bit patronising to Umunna and Soubry – now informal leaders in the Independent Group who have sacrificed so much in their careers for the national interest – but he does have a point.
The campaign for a Final Say referendum needs to build up its momentum – if I can use the word – with Leave voters, not merely making passionate pro-Europeans to feel ever more aggrieved. Or, more accurately, the task is to attract “soft” Leave voters, the ones who are persuadable. It will not be done though telling them that “you made our bad now you can lie on it”.
Most Leavers just made a judgement they felt was right. Some already feel that they made a mistake, or may be simply more worried about the way things are turning out
These individuals, who sincerely voted Leave in 2016, are perfectly decent people, concerned for the future of the country, worried about the way things have been turning in Europe – migrant crisis, banking crisis, euro crisis, the rise of extremism. They are not xenophobes, they are not racists, they are not idiots who were “duped” and conned, they are not fools manipulated by the likes of Arron Banks, Boris Johnson and parts of the media. There may be people like that, but they are not persuadable or pragmatic, by definition.
Most Leavers just made a judgement they felt was right. Some already feel that they made a mistake, or may be simply more worried about the way things are turning out. The logical next step is to support a Final Say or people’s vote referendum.
So they do not need to be patronised or insulted. When the terrible news came through about the Honda closure at Swindon, too many below-the-line comments on websites and social media postings basically said that it was Swindon’s own fault and they deserved it, because they had voted Leave in the 2016 referendum. The same goes for Sunderland, where the result was announced so early in 2016 and had such ominous implications for the Remain campaign. When Nissan made its announcement about cancelling expansion, there were the same embittered insults flying around. When I publish articles about why I, as someone who voted Leave, want a Final Say, I get plenty of, shall we say, “uncharitable” responses. It is
not a winning strategy. Remainers can be just as bitchy as Leavers. They oughtn’t.
This sort of gloating, vindictive tone from the Remain camp is not only nasty and unpleasant, obviously, but it is positively counterproductive for those who demand the people be allowed to exercise their democratic right to ratify whatever Brexit deal comes through (if any).
Many Leave voters also backed Jeremy Corbyn‘s Labour Party. Labour and Corbyn need to make the difference when the next round of votes comes to the House of Commons. The people’s vote campaign needs Labour and Corbyn: in return, Labour and Corbyn should be given a leading role in the campaign.
In a few weeks, parliament will, yet again, be asked to back the prime minister’s deal. The signs are that she will not be able to persuade many in her own party or outside it to give her deal – essentially unchanged – approval. We will then have the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, a fate that Corbyn is, apparently sincerely, opposed to. As his own party conference policy advocates, failing a general election (effectively ruled out now), Labour must now move to back a people’s vote on Brexit.
Rather like Theresa May, Corbyn will also have run out of options. It is said that many of his own frontbenchers would rather quit than back a second referendum. And yet the choice for them is equally stark, the risk of no-deal Brexit equally real, and the consequences for their Leave-voting constituencies in the east Midlands and south Yorkshire especially calamitous. They could back the prime minister’s deal in return for fleeting worthless promises about workers’ rights and public spending in their areas. Or they can offer their own voters the chance to say what they really want to do now, given what we all now know about Brexit.
In those Labour-dominated areas, Clive Lewis is right – it has to be a debate principally between Labour politicians and their voters. In the south and the shires, it is a campaign that should be led by moderate Conservative, now independent ex-Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. In Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the local parties, obviously, will take a lead.
In fact I would be proud to be there with Jeremy Corbyn – something I never thought I’d write – on the Put It To The People march on Saturday 23 March. He would be the star of the show, and make a terrific impact. His party would love him for it, and he would help to save the country’s economy – and the people he says he wants to help who will be hardest hit by Brexit.
See you there, Jeremy.