Tag Archive for: Rejoin

We cannot afford to give our opponents a free run

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Amongst the most common comments I see relating to the campaign to Rejoin are those along the lines that we must wait or the time isn’t right or we can’t do anything now because the Tory party has such a huge majority. Other comments relate to either Keir Starmer or Ed Davey playing some sort of clever long game over Rejoining which whilst I sincerely hope such claims are correct, I have to say I have never seen any supporting evidence to back up those claims. To be honest they seem like wishful thinking rather than having any real substance.


Similarly, I often see comments that that we must wait for the economic damage of Brexit to become apparent when we all know that many Leavers simply don’t care about the damage they are causing or that the damage caused by Brexit will simply get lost in the economic damage caused by the pandemic.


The end effect of all of these comments is that far too many Rejoiners are simply doing nothing to promote our cause. So, I thought I would take a look and see what some of our opposition is up to on social media.


Leave.EU has nearly a million followers on Facebook and nearly 300,000 on Twitter and is posting dozens of times every day on both channels.


The Brexit Party or whatever Farage’s latest incantation is called have around 200,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter and again are posting regularly. They have also made it very clear on social media that they intend to field candidates in the forthcoming local elections.


Labour Leave have just under 40,000 followers on both Twitter and Facebook and again are very active posting a dozen or so times a day.


If these organisations are active on social media you can bet the shirt on your back that they are active in other areas. For example, Labour Leave will be trying to push their agenda at a constituency level and at a national level including at the party conference.


At yet people in our movement are still saying the time isn’t right, its too early etc etc etc…and in the process giving our opponents a free run.


That has to stop and stop now.


Nobody is going to do this for us. We have to be proactive. Our opponents haven’t stopped and that means we must continue.


That doesn’t necessarily mean we should go out and start campaigning on the street and pushing our Rejoin message out to the electorate immediately, but we do need to be fighting our corner in other ways, particularly behind the scenes and within all of the political parties, which includes putting motions forward to party conferences such as the one to be put to the forthcoming Lib Dem spring conference which commits the party to EU Membership in the longer term.

REJOIN – A path back to EU Membership by Robert Braban

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Recent days have brought a lot of huffing and puffing on the topic of putting right the Brexit damage and restoring Britain to EU membership.

Exploring theories with multiple options is a valuable exercise, but like many brain-storming sessions, the eventual conclusion ends up being not too far from the status quo. Essentially, politics is very much about marketing and needs to be approached as such.

The single biggest factor impacting on my view and that of others has been the registration of VOLT, a Pan-European political group, as a UK political party.

Although VOLT is a superb organisation, contributing to continued cohesion of the EU 27, it’s latest move is a real threat to the UK securing electoral support for reentry to the EU. To all but the politically naive, it will be immediately obvious that the intervention of an offshoot of a Brussels based political organisation will be a gift from heaven for Brexiteers and marketing disaster for supporters of the core initiative.

There needs to be a very clear separation between the supported Rejoin party and any suggestion of foreign influence, within or without the EU.

Having established the need for a clean UK image, the next marketing imperative has to be rethinking on product labelling. ‘Rejoin’ may be descriptive of the final objective, but it has become too emotive to have the widest achievable appeal. The label needs to more accurately describe the intended process and that will be conditioned as much by the EU as by us.

‘The Road back to Prosperity – Renegotiate-Restore or Repair-Rejoin’ might be a starting point for thought. It describes a natural process to get into the Single Market and Customs Union, restoring supply chains and trade, and eventually regaining membership. It would offend fewer doubters. It needs work, but practical political thinkers will get the drift and have ideas based on the theme.

For the purpose of this exercise I shall continue to use ‘Rejoin’ because it’s familiar to readers.

In the absence of a totally new Party with a Macron-like figure driving it, I see the only really realistic lead option as the Lib Dem’s.

Why?

Simply because they are already very Pro-Europe and have the appropriate national organisation in place. Organisation is of prime importance and it would take many years for a successor party to build up a similar base.

FORGET previous squabbles! This is not about reliving history, it’s about securing a vehicle that can get us to the desired destination. The old personalities are gone. Those hung up on those bye-gone events need a software restoration’.

The problem immediately obvious to many is that the Lib Dem’s still suffer prevarication within the Party. They have a ‘tired’ leader, a nice man, but one unable to enthuse members or the public, and there is no obvious replacement in sight. However, spreading the Party ‘Rejoin’ ambition does not have to be limited to Lib Dem MPs. With a strong Rejoin message, other prominent politicians will step up to promote this issue, if not the entire manifesto. A further factor is that a good showing in the local elections could add customer appeal.

Turning to the manifesto for a moment, the party representing Rejoin will need to have rejoin as core policy, its USP, but it must be supported by strong mainstream policies. New parties have an obvious difficulty in that regard.

Turning to branding ‘ Rejoin the EU’ is certainly too heavy for many fringe supporters to swallow as one dose. Moreover, voters inclined to give support would rightfully doubt the ability to deliver and conversion of that sentiment to criticism would hamper progress.

In order to get the sort of numbers that one would need would involve not only securing the votes of current anti-Brexit voters, but a good number who were once convinced of the value of Brexit, but have since suffered or witnessed events that have impacted on their thinking. They need leading back stage by stage, not driving back up the cliff face.

It’s important to note that planning to move back in increments is not giving anything up time-wise. It’s realistic. It’s the only way it could happen anyway.

Probably the best way to see a path forward in this type of dilemma is to think about what one would do if one was still running a company and was confronted by a similar situation.

A prime consideration is that there are a lot of Brexit voters who are already suffering and recognising betrayal. Lorry drivers face fines of £300 for entering Kent without a permit. Fishermen find that their ‘sunny upland’ comprises the smelly glow from fish rotting because their market has been removed by Brexit. Industrial workers are seeing broken supply chains that will, probably sooner rather than later, cost them their jobs.

It’s a consideration that the first tranche are likely to be educated intelligent people making decisions on evidence rather than emotion. Such people need careful nurturing and under the ‘Poacher turned Gamekeeper’ syndrome, they can become a powerful sales force.

That the Brexit situation will get worse as new problems arise is pretty obvious. The solution for the party with the guts to get off the fence will be to go forward pledging to:

  1. Reopen trade negotiations with the EU to secure a return to the single market and customs Union, thus restoring supply lines and established trade links. That will better secure jobs and slowly stop the rot.
  2. Take action to restore national security by returning to the EU institutions governing: space, medicines, crime, security, Erasmus etc, and
  3. sit down with the EU Commission to start talks on eventual full membership of the EU.

A manifesto package of that nature promptly updates and validates itself every time a Brexit screw up emerges.

Even the first stage a package offers several real benefits:

  1. It removes the NI border problem and recognises the importance of the GFA.
  2. The policy adoption and progress towards implementation could change the balance of the drive for independence in Scotland and thus help secure the Union.
  3. The first element would simply deliver what Vote Leave promised, an important selling point..

Were I not 82 years of age and a walking medical experiment, I would be seeking to promote this from a political platform. As it is I can only furnish ideas and sit back and watch the scrap.

Quite naturally, the whole picture would change if SKS and the many opposing factions within the Labour Party got together and decided to respect the views of the majority of Labour voters.

Put your coat on and go and look at the Lib Dem’s from the other side of the window by Robert Braban

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Lib Dem is a very tired brand. Were I still running my marketing company I might well be using Lib Dem as the best available example of ‘brand death’. A massive lift is needed.

I read a comment claiming that the Party should concentrate on selling its current USP: It doesn’t have one. However the Lib Dem message starts off, it comes across as: “We do what the other parties do, but better”.

The party has always, since I first joined in Cambridge in 1960, concentrated more on keeping a few existing members, rather than offending them and recruiting five times as many. That’s not necessarily bad: members don’t win elections. Winning is down to strong and often unique policies, and a charismatic image.

In its present state the party can forget charismatic image. In many areas it’s close to anonymous. Wholehearted commitment rather than luke-warm lip service to Rejoining the EU is probably the most electorally attractive core policy available. For the Lib Dem’s it could be salvation if put at the centre of other policies. It guarantees:

  1. Policy separation from the other parties. Viz. The missing USP!
  2. A refuge for millions of Rejoin supporters who are currently disenfranchised.
  3. Massive publicity focused on the Party bringing it back into the public eye. There would be hatred from the right wing press, but support from others. In this context, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Being reviled by the Sun, the Mail and Farage is all positive. It would mean that once again the Lib Dem’s mattered.
  4. Near endless policy food. As Brexit damage emerge it would supply the party many additional fists to punch with.

It would be a mistake to assume that SKS will sit on the fence on a permanent basis. Labour is a majority Remain party and will become more so as Brexit damage emerges. Red wall MPs are already giving Johnson a hard time and that’s because they are being hassled by their constituents. It may not be too long before the priority becomes the overall membership and not the crumbling red wall.


The Rejoin option may not be the No 1 political bargain for long. There could soon be competition for customers at which point the party might be criticised for jumping on someone else’s bandwagon”.

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…

Why we need to push Labour on Rejoin now

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There has been a lot of debate in recent months about why Starmer does not come out in favour of rejoin with perhaps the most common arguments being that he needs to bide his time or he is playing a clever game.

Thats not an argument that has any evidence to support it and this article highlights the dangers of those arguments – Labour Leavers are still active and are trying to either remove the issue of Rejoin from the agenda of the Labour Party or move Labour policy into opposition to EU membership.

That is something that we must counter if we are ever to Rejoin.

Articles such as this confirm that we are correct in setting one of our strategic goals as attempting to place Rejoin onto the agenda of the Labour Party.

This article also confirms that we need to be doing so now.


https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/westminster-news/keir-starmer-should-apologise-to-labour-voters-6316320?fbclid=IwAR0UrrkUFu2rb8chkHnhfL5YqIpU-pgDxk0A3pDhX1Kru5LbV_Z3RcZA9B0

Campaign to Rejoin and Political Parties

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A few days ago I outlined a high level strategy as a way forward for the Rejoin movement.

Given the current news coverage and speculation concerning the views of Starmer and Davey on rejoining the EU, I thought it appropriate to return to the subject and expand a little on point three of that high level strategy, which was for those of us who are members of political parties to promote Rejoin within those parties and other issues that lay the ground for that.

The news concerning Starmer and Davey really does highlight the need for this, particularly against the background of increasing calls for a single issue Rejoin party to be established that I have seen in the last few days.

This is an issue that our team have been discussing since last December when we first set this group up and started to develop the Campaign to Rejoin. Initially, after consulting with members, we agreed that it would be best to wait and see what happens with the new leadership and use the intervening time to investigate establishing a new political party.

Establishing a new political party in itself is not particularly difficult or expensive. There are few requirements such a leader has to be nominated and accounts have to be kept to a certain standard and submitted every year (which is ultimately the reason why Furhage set up the Brexshit party as a limited company), but perhaps the most onerous requirement is that the party must convince the electoral commission that it intends to participate in elections – and that’s where the problems and indeed costs, start.

Participating in elections means costs and also a need to adhere to various rules and laws and therefore requires a certain level of funding and expertise, which in turn means more costs.

There are many arguments in favour and against establishing a new single-issue party, not least this need for funding and costs, with perhaps the most common one being the potential for splitting the anti-Johnson and pro EU vote (I’ll explain why I say anti Johnson rather than anti Tory a little later).

Given those arguments and the costs etc. associated with establishing a new party, together with the fact that the next general election is probably around 4 years away, a more pragmatic approach would be to push for Rejoin to be placed onto the agenda of all political parties that have a realistic chance of having MPs elected at the next general election, along with other policies that would help us in our efforts to rejoin, specifically

  1. An enquiry into the conduct of the Leave Campaign and the Brexit related activities of the May and Johnson Governments
  2. Stronger regulation of the press and other media to ensure accurate reporting and the prevention on fake news and a requirement for all news organisations to adopt a politically neutral stance during elections referendum campaigns.
  3. Regulation of advertising by political parties to stop the false advertising such as that undertaken by the leave campaign in 2016 and the Tory party last December.

In addition to these issues there is also the question of changes to the electoral system, however given the cross-party nature of the Remain now Rejoin movement, we need to be very careful to retain cross party neutrality or we could lose support. Whilst I personally am in favour of electoral reform, I am cautious about pushing for it as a campaign goal as it may prove controversial given our need tombs cross party. This is something that we need to discuss as a movement.

As a Campaign we therefore need to be pushing for these issues to be on the agenda of all political parties, including putting forward motions for party conferences.

Furthermore, we need to set the agenda, not follow the agenda of others in the hope that they might just, if we support them, maybe, possibly agree to another referendum.

Another reason to push for Rejoin to be on the agenda of the political parties is that it is a certainty that groups like Labour Leave will be doing their best to keep it off and to place staying out onto the agenda.

To help achieve this we have therefore set up sub groups for the Labour party, the Lib Dems and the Greens for members of those parties, with the aim of promoting and pushing for our cause within those parties. This should include putting forward motions to party conferences.

If you a member of one of those parties please do join the relevant sub-group. You can find details within the group announcements and I will place links to them in the comments.

If you are a supporter of one of those parties, but not a member I would encourage you not only to join the relevant sub-group but also to join the party itself to help advance our cause.

Obviously, there are other pro EU political parties that have the potential to have seats in the House of Commons after the next GE such as the SNP, Plaid, the SDLP and the Alliance. If you are a member or supporter of those parties and would like to help us establishing groups for those parties please get in touch.

Which brings me on to a difficult subject, but one that really does need addressing. Pro EU Tories.

Like it or not it is a fact that 35% of those who voted Remain in 2016 voted Tory in the 2015 General Election. Whilst that figure has fallen quite considerably since, 19% of remain voters in 2016 voted for the Tory party last December. This is why I referred to the anti-Johnson vote earlier rather than the anti-Tory vote.

In other words, 1 in 5 Remainers are Tories. The fact is if we are ever going to retake our place in the EU we need their votes.

We have therefore helped establish a Conservative Rejoin group to encourage pro EU Tories. It is very small currently, but If we are to be successful, we need to help that group grow and get their message out to other pro EU Tories. I will post a link to that group in the comments as well. As much as you may disagree and dislike the Tories, please respect the fact that they are trying to help us achieve our goals. Indeed, they share our main goal of regaining our rightful place in the EU.

When it comes to a new political party, there are two scenarios where I can see a need to establish one, and the first of these relates to pro EU Tories, many of whom may well feel politically homeless at present. A new party would provide a home for them.

The other scenario is where we simply cannot get our objectives onto the agenda of the political parties, in which case we may well have no choice.

So, particularly if you are one of those people who argue that a new party will split the pro EU vote, please help us get our agenda onto the agenda of the political parties!

Some thoughts on a way forward for the Rejoin movement

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Some thoughts about the way forward for Rejoin.
There is some disagreement amongst Rejoin supporters about the timing of a campaign with many arguing now is not the time to campaign as Brexit supporters need to see the damage Brexit does. I disagree this for a number of reasons:

  1. This is essentially a rehash of what leavers called project fear. They will blame anyone and everyone other than themselves for the adverse consequences of Brexit and if they are backed into a corner they will say it is all worth it
  2. Over the last 5 years together we have built an amazing pro EU movement, the largest in the EU. We must not let this die. Doing nothing will mean that this movement will wither and die.
  3. There is much we can do now in terms of building and organising, and also laying the ground for future battles on our terms, without actually overtly campaigning for Rejoin.
  4. If I were writing a Leave Strategy for the next few years, Pushing the idea that it is too early for the Rejoin Campaign to start would be a key part of my strategy. Waiting around is playing right into the Leave Campaign’s hands. In fact its quite noticeable that non of the party leaders have said anything like now is not the time.
    So what should we do? Broadly I believe we should follow four strands of action.
  5. Challenge the legitimacy of the decision by the current Government to take out of the EU. Remain activists know many of the reasons why, but do the rest of the Electorate? I would argue they do not and we need to raise awareness of this
  6. Promote the benefits of EU membership. Why? Because it’s never really been done in a planned systematic way. As remain we spent far too much time focussing on the risks of leaving and countering the lies told by the leave campaign
  7. Those of us who are members of political parties need to promote Rejoin within those parties and other issues that help us lay the ground for that such as proper regulation of the media
  8. Develop, grow and maintain our Rejoin Movement and our European identity. We had big plans in this area, but sadly we had to curtail much due to Covid, but there is still much we can do online.

I will cover each issue in more detail in future posts. I welcome your thoughts and constructive criticism on these broad outline of a strategy

Pro EU businesses

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We have established a new Facebook group to bring together pro EU businesses and Rejoiners called IN Business.
The group will maintain a list of pro EU Businesses which will also be posted in the forums section of the website. Pro EU businesses will also be able to promote their products and services to Rejoiners and it is hoped they will also offer discounts.
You can join the group by clicking here