LONG-READ: With 50 days to go until 29 March - can Brexit be stopped?
10 min read
There are just 50 days until Brexit. That’s just over seven weeks. It’s 1,200 hours, or 4,320,000 seconds.
It is not a lot of time for those who want to stop Brexit in its tracks. But the campaigns to overturn the 2016 EU referendum result are set to go into overdrive over the coming days as the clock ticks down to the moment they have been desperate to prevent for more than a year. MPs will be heavily lobbied, Facebook ads will be targeted and political lines of argument will be deployed. Those who are pushing for a second referendum - or a so-called People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal Theresa May brings back from Brussels - are refusing to lose hope. “We feel as confident as we ever have in our case,” Labour MP Ben Bradshaw tells PoliticsHome. “And still very confident of success.”
But the various campaign groups calling for a fresh plebiscite - including the People’s Vote campaign and its offshoots such as Our Future Our Choice, For Our Future’s Sake and Scientists for EU, as well as others like Best for Britain and the Fair Vote campaign, are running out of road. Their strategy continues to be three-pronged: Forming its message around the Brexit mess, plotting a parliamentary path to a second vote, and making sure MPs back it.
THE MESSAGE
The line of argument the pro-EU camps will take depends in part on what the PM brings back from Brussels. She has promised to renegotiate the hated Northern Irish backstop - the plan to ensure the Irish border stays open no matter what - before bringing her deal back before MPs on 14 February. But campaigners hope to shift the attention away from the dominant narrative of the backstop and onto the deal in general. One insider from the People’s Vote campaign said the movement will “hammer the point” that there are other issues with the PM's Brexit blueprint, including the fact that the Political Declaration - the plans for the future trading relationship with the EU - are too vague. The £39bn Brexit divorce bill in exchange for nothing concrete will also be highlighted, as will the uncertainty over immigration. “We want to try to focus on the fact that this is a bad deal in general - not just because of the backstop but because of other issues as well,” a source says. Elsewhere, there are hopes to paint the backstop as an "obsession" and a "distraction" from a deal which the Government itself has admitted will damage the country.
The central strategy for the People’s Vote campaign is to pick off all other Brexit options until the only two left are a no-deal departure and a second referendum. That means arguing against the PM’s deal, a Norway-style exit and the Labour plan that would see the UK remain in a customs union with the bloc. The campaign hopes to highlight that all those choices are unworkable and do not command support in parliament or the country. The idea is that minds will focus when a no-deal Brexit appears the sole alternative to a second vote. “We think the best way to achieve the objective of getting a People’s Vote is by showing it as the only option - the only way forward out of this,” a source explained. “That strategy requires other options to be looked at and to be analysed and increasingly to be seen as not viable.” Another senior campaign figure said: “You will see some interesting things in the next couple of weeks or so - we are going to be firmer in our articulation of our points. The reality is that the fundamentals haven’t changed and we are still in a really tight spot and the only way out of it is a People’s Vote.”
THE COMMONS
Second referendum campaigners were dealt a blow last month when a bid to delay the 29 March Brexit date was defeated in the Commons. The amendment, tabled by Labour MP Yvette Cooper and Tory Nick Boles, was seen by senior campaign figures as the only route left to securing a second referendum, but it lost by just 23 votes. All eyes now turn to 14 February when Theresa May will bring her tweaked deal - or another motion if her last-ditch bid with Brussels fails - back to the Commons. The motion will be amendable, giving parliamentarians the opportunity to put forward their Brexit strategies for colleagues to vote on. “Cooper needs to come back,” one senior campaign figure says. “It’s the last chance. It’s the only chance. It’s the only game in town. Anyone who tells you otherwise is fibbing.” Another admits: “We do need an Article 50 extension to get where we need to be.”
An issue during the showdown votes last month was that a number of different commons amendments won differing levels of support. One that demanded a straight delay to Article 50 - rather than the separate parliamentary process outlined in the Cooper-Boles plan - did manage to win favour from a majority of MPs. Others, such as a proposal to seize six days of parliamentary time, helped to make noise around the issue but added to the confusion. Second referendum campaigners hope that MPs from across the Brexit divide will coalesce around just one amendment calling for a delay to Article 50 when the next set of votes takes place on 14 February. That could mean MPs putting forward ideas to gauge support then refusing to put their proposals to a vote to ensure a single clear option.
Another contentious issue last month was whether MPs should table an explicit amendment calling for a second referendum. Those who were mulling it eventually backed down at an embarrassing mini-press conference, in which they put the blame on Jeremy Corbyn. But it later emerged there was disagreement between the parliamentarians and the campaign HQs as to the best way forward. PoliticsHome understands there are currently no plans for an explicit second referendum amendment on 14 February unless all the other options “fall away”. A source explained: “The best way to build a majority for that in parliament is to put it in at the right time and to see it as the only way forward out of Brexit.”
THE MPs
After the loss of the Cooper-Boles amendment by just 23 votes last month, the second referendum campaigns will be pulling out all the stops to ensure MPs back what is likely to be a final shot at the primary goal. The plan is to pile pressure on wavering MPs who failed to back it last time by campaigning in their backyards. “There is so much working having to go into these people who abstained and voted against,” one source says. “It’s all about trying to convince them in their constituency to move - that’s it. It’s a ground game in stopping Brexit. The ground game is no longer 650 seats, it's 20.” They add: “Anybody who knows those MPs is getting contacted. If I can find their fourth cousin twice removed they are getting texts.” One senior campaigner said the camps will be “intensifying everything we are doing now” by throwing everything at MPs who are “on the fence” - including direct lobbying in parliament, advertising and letter writing.
Labour MPs in pro-Leave sets who are tempted to back the deal will be urged not to side with the Tories on Brexit. The argument goes that they will lose support at the next election, particularly from young people. Facebook ads are being posted to voters in target seats like Oldham West and Royton (held by Jim McMahon) and Stoke on Trent North (held by Ruth Smeeth). They call on constituents to write to their MPs urging them to “stand up” for their area which is set to be left “poorer” by the deal. The ads note, just for good measure, that the Withdrawal Agreement will “harm our NHS”. A separate line of attack is to accuse Downing Street of “grubby manoeuvres” to buy wavernig MPs off - after it emerged No 10 had offered Labour figures in pro-Leave seats investment funds if they back the Brexit deal.
Another key target will continue to be the Labour leadership. Huge pressure has been piled on Jeremy Corbyn to back the campaign, but there has been little indication so far that he will. Labour policy - decided at party conference last September - is to consider supporting a referendum if securing a general election proves impossible. A confidence motion in the Government triggered by Corbyn last month was defeated, but the party has so far remained tight-lipped on whether it will move to the second part of its policy. The Labour membership is overwhelmingly pro-EU, but key pressure group Momentum has no plans to outright support a fresh vote unless Labour does, PoliticsHome understands.
THE CHANCES
The likelihood of actually securing a second referendum on Brexit looks increasingly unlikely by the day. One senior campaigner admits that when the groups were formally set up the odds were somewhere around 5% and now stand at 15% or 20% - a considerable jump for a movement not backed by either of the two main parties, but a clear suggestion that the campaign is ultimately doomed. Indeed, the groups have managed to build a sense of momentum since they formally began last year. An October rally in London attracted hundreds of thousands of people; the term ‘People’s Vote’ has entered the political dictionary; and a number of MPs have quit the Government benches to support it. However, polling suggests backing for a second referendum, or for remaining in the EU, has not increased among the public - although campaigners would argue otherwise, dependent on how the question is asked.
Despite the mountain that must be climbed within 50 days, the campaigners remain optimistic. “Parliament isn’t going to be able to sort this out, and while it’s a low probability we think it's a worthwhile thing to fight for because we think it’s the right way forward for the country,” one source says. “The optimism within the office and among activists has always been at the same level, which is that we broadly think it’s the right thing to do and when you believe that, it's easy to fight against the odds.” Another says: “There is still a long way to go in this fight. I think there is no reason to feel that this is in any way a lost cause.”
Labour MP Ben Bradshaw tells PoliticsHome: “This has been a long battle and I still think the logic of asking the people to give the final say on wherever we end up is irrefutable and gets stronger all the time as Parliament is incapable of agreeing an outcome.” He adds: “None of the people that I speak to regularly and meet on a cross-party basis are losing hope. On the contrary, I think we feel as confident as we ever have in our case. And still very confident of success.”
Key to remember is that everything about Brexit is currently up in the air. The negotiations are still in full-swing and the red lines of MPs, the opposition and Theresa May herself are constantly shifting back and forth. The level of disagreement could see the government toppled and the country plunged into a no-deal Brexit, a general election, or yes, a second EU referendum. At this point pretty much anything is on the table.
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