Remainers can harness public appetite for direct democracy
COLUMNIST
CAMPAIGNERS for a second referendum on European Union membership could do worse than look for inspiration in the work of the men and women who fought for Brexit.
Just over a decade ago David Cameron described Ukip as “fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists, mostly”.
But next month Theresa May is due to trigger the process for leaving the EU. This will start a two-year countdown during which the UK Government will scramble to strike a deal with the remaining 27 member states.
People who desperately hope that Britain’s departure can be averted have a very narrow window of time in which to generate intense public opposition to leaving the EU. Tony Blair last week said it was his “mission” to persuade the country to “rise up” against Brexit.
The three-times election-winner declared: “This is not the time for retreat, indifference or despair; but the time to rise up in defence of what we believe.”
He spoke of the need to “build a movement which stretches across party lines”.
The hitch for the former Labour PM is that there was just such a movement in favour of remaining in the EU and it was spectacularly defeated in June’s referendum.
A majority of voters rejected the plea to stay in the EU put forward by the UK’s major political parties and leading figures in business and beyond. The establishment may have regarded many eurosceptics as “fruitcakes” but Leave campaigners won the trust of a majority of those who went to the polls.
The best the pro-EU campaigners can hope for is that they can kindle a burning desire among voters to “take control” and have the final say on the Brexit deal in a referendum.
They have to convince swathes of the electorate that it is their democratic right to approve or reject the terms the PM and her ministers will negotiate.
Eurosceptic academics could have mailed policy papers to the House of Commons Library every day for a decade and not shifted any of the major parties to a pro-Brexit position.
The genius of those who longed to cut the link with Brussels was to foment popular demand for a referendum – and Ukip became enough of an electoral threat for Mr Cameron to promise such a public vote in the 2015 manifesto.
A key moment occurred back in the mid-1990s, just as Mr Blair was leading New Labour towards its first landslide. Then, Sir James Goldsmith put his cash behind the Referendum Party – a proud “rabble army” – which stood candidates in 547 constituencies.
He hardly captured the zeitgeist. The party won just 2.6% of the vote.
But the idea that the people of the UK should be asked whether the country should continue to be part of the EU had been planted.
What’s more, he demonstrated that major parties could be nudged in a eurosceptic direction.
Labour went into the 1997 election with a promise that before the UK joined the single currency, “first, the Cabinet would have to agree; then Parliament; and finally the people would have to say ‘Yes’ in a referendum.”
The Conservatives had a similar pledge that “no such decision would be implemented unless the British people gave their express approval in a referendum”.
Former Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, Sir James’ son, argues that “keeping Britain out of the euro calamity” is his “father’s legacy”.
Sir James passed away in July 1997 so could not lead the next chapter of the fight to take Britain out of the EU but Ukip embraced the challenge. The party may only have won one MP at the last election but it won incalculable publicity for the Brexit case.
It is remarkable that determined opponents of EU membership were able to orchestrate such a seachange in attitudes in less than two decades.
But the challenge for pro-EU campaigners is that once Article 50 is triggered there is just two years before the UK is due to leave the EU.
With the exception of Ken Clarke, Conservative MPs have not sought to deny Theresa May the authorisation she needs to start the clock ticking.
Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn has said the referendum result should be respected, stating that the UK is “going to be outside the European Union”.
As yet, there is no prospect of a general election in the interim in which a pro-EU Referendum Party could field candidates.
What remains of the Remain team cannot replicate all of the tactics of the eurosceptics but they can preach the same core message, that a decision of such fundamental importance should not be left up to the UK’s Government or even its parliament but deserves to be put to the people.
Mr Blair has not committed to supporting a second referendum but argues that if there is “real change of mind, however you measure it” there should be the “opportunity to reconsider this decision”.
There is no guarantee that another referendum would go better for Remainers than the last one. For it to be meaningful, the EU would have to agree that a No vote would not result in the UK crashing out of the union without a trade deal but would lead to a continuation of the status quo or a fresh round of negotiations.
There is also the real chance that pro-Brexit groups would successfully portray a second referendum as an attempt by an europhile elite to overturn the will of the people. The Out team might win again with an increased majority.
But if it becomes clear as the talks progress that the UK is not going to be granted a cake-eating option to have the best of every possible world then anxiety may sweep through the country.
If the SNP pushes for a second independence vote and there is the genuine prospect of the UK breaking up, Whitehall may be forced to consider radical options.
Not that long ago it seemed fanciful to think that we would have a vote on EU membership. The public now has a taste for direct democracy and millions of people may well demand the decisive say on what comes next.