Tag Archive for: Rejoin the EU

Should Rejoin back Volt?

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Since Kier Starmer’s interview last week, I have seen the subject of a new political party raised frequently, with Volt often being mentioned as an alternative to establishing a new party.


When considering such issues, we need to remember the cross-party nature of support for Rejoining the EU. Our support base is very diverse and comes from right across the political spectrum which is why any new political party needs to be tightly focussed on Rejoin and very closely associated issues.


Having spent some time looking at Volt’s website and researching them, whilst I see much that is welcome, they are not a single-issue party by any stretch of the imagination and are therefore unlikely to attract the widespread cross political spectrum support needed within the Rejoin community let alone the wider electorate.


One particular area of concern relating to the wider electorate is Volt’s federalist stance given the nature of some of the wider debate surrounding the issue of our EU membership over the last few years. Their stance on this issue may well be unpopular with the wider electorate, and furthermore, our opponents would undoubtedly seize upon this to demonstrate their concerns about federalism and the foundation of an EU “superstate” were well founded. When you consider some of the other obstacles that we will have to overcome with the electorate on our route to Rejoining, such as the need to adopt the Euro and join Schengen, this federalist stance would make a difficult job even harder.


There is also the issue of Volt not being a home-grown party. To the vast majority of us, including myself. this is not an issue in any way whatsoever. However, again, this may be an issue of concern for the wider electorate given the nature of much of the debate surrounding our EU membership. We need to look at this issue from the perspective of the wider electorate, not our own perspective, and again, this may give us yet another difficult obstacle to overcome. A home-grown single-issue party putting the case for our EU membership to be in our best interests as a country would be an easier proposition to sell to certain sections of the electorate.


For these reasons Volt does not therefore offer a viable route forward for us as a movement, indeed their federalist stance in particular could actually end up hindering us in achieving our goals. That said as a movement we should encourage Volt’s stance on our EU membership.

Polical parties – a call to arms

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I find this graphic very interesting as it shows where remian and leave support sits in terms of political parties. Whilst things have changed since 2016, with for example, only 19% of those who voted Remain in 2016 voting Tory last December, it does show two things very clearly.

Firstly, this shows that any Campaign to Rejoin the EU has to be cross party in nature otherwise we simply will not have the support needed to win a further referendum. This has considerable implications for what we can and cannot support as a Campaign. Anything we do support has to have broad support within the Rejoin community, meaning we must stay very focused on our primary goals and objectives that will directly help us to achieve them.

Secondly, this shows that within the support base for every party, even those considered to be pro European, there is an element that is against our EU membership. Such people will be active within all those parties trying to stop that party supporting our cause. The practical implications for us of that are that we must be active in promoting our cause, building our support within each party, and trying to get rejoin onto the agenda of all political parties.

So one of the first practical steps anyone in this group can take along the long road back to EU membership is to consider joining the party which most closely matches your views, becoming active in that party, standing for positions of influence within that party and maybe even standing for election.

A second practical step would be to join us in one of our political sub groups on Facebook which we have established to foster the pro European debate within the political parties and to help us get Rejojn and associated issues onto the agenda of each party by, for example, putting motions forward to party conferences. This would be especially important if you are already a member of a political party and know how that party works. If you hold a position of influence within that party even better.

So if you support a particular political party please help us by joining one of our Facebook political party sub-groups listed below. Links to them can be found in this post

Green Rejoin EU Group
Labour – Rejoin EU Group
Lib Dem Rejoin
Conservatives Rejoin the EU
Ailymuno Plaid Cymru Rejoin the EU
SNP Rejoin the EU
Alliance Party Rejoin the EU
SDLP Rejoin the EU

For some of these groups we are actively looking for people to join us in running and promoting them – please get in touch if you want to help. Also if the polictal party you support is not listed please get in touch and we will set up a group for you.

I know many people want to see a new single issue political party established. I will address that subject in another blog post in the next few days.

One Year On

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A year ago just after the depressing news of Johnson’s win I was scrolling through Facebook when i came across a meme that said the campaign to rejoin the EU starts now.

I thought yes why not? Why should we just roll over and accept what has just happened? And why shouldn’t we start to campaign to rejoin now?

So, I started a little Facebook group expecting to end up with around 80 to 100 members and here we are a year later with around 21,500 members in this group alone…

Initially we expanded very quickly and started developing ideas for our campaign. For example, we came up with the idea for our #IAmEuropean campaign for the 2021 census, we started planning regional social meet ups, and alwo some form of pro EU summer festival.

But as we moved into February and March, far more pressing concerns about covid brought most of our plans to a grinding halt, and it is fair to say it has been a difficult and often frustrating year where many of our ideas have had to be put on the back burner.

However, over the last year we have achieved much and have spent a lot of time developing our infrastructure to the point where we now have a variety of different sub groups and pages on Facebook, various twitter and Instagram accounts and a website. We have built a presence and we are starting to influence.

We have developed our four-point plan to move towards our ultimate goal of rejoining the EU and are working towards each one. These four points are:

  1. To challenge the legitimacy of Brexit
  2. To promote the benefits of EU membership.
  3. To place rejoining the EU onto the agenda of the main political parties
  4. To develop, grow and maintain our Rejoin Movement and our European identity

For many people what is going on at present is very difficult with the shadow of no deal hanging over us and our country in just a few short days time, but we have to keep our hope and our belief that we will right this wrong, and that the UK will retake its rightful place at the heart of the EU.

We face a difficult journey and, for that journey to be successful, we need to move on from the events of the past, including the mistakes. What has happened has happened and we cannot change the past. Fighting amongst ourselves will not solve anything, and neither will trying to place blame onto one group of people or another. Both must stop and stop now.

We need to recognise that we are a diverse movement that has support from all sections of the UK population and amongst British people who live in other countries – all ages, all ethnicities, all religions, all geographic regions, and all political views etc etc support our goals, and we need to bridge those divides and work together to achieve our goals if we are to succeed.

Whatever does happen on the 31st December, we cannot sink any lower, and we start the journey to rejoining on 1st January.

The time for talking will stop and the time for action will begin and each and everyone of us needs to ask ourselves what we can do to help because there is a lot that needs doing.

Thank you for being part of this journey over the last 12 months. Covid still hangs over us, but as the threat recedes due to the wonderful efforts of our NHS and the Scientific community, hopefully the next 12 months will be a little easier for us than the last, and we will be able to advance our cause.

I hope you will join me in thanking the team of volunteers that runs our organisation, including the people that run this group. At times it has been a lot of hard work and it has not always been an easy or straightforward task.

We will prevail. Here’s to the next 12 months…