1. Some thoughts about picking over the bones of the referendum loss.

TLDR - get over it, move on, and most importantly, find a better strategy.
2. From an analytical perspective, I don’t think there’s much point in constantly assessing the referendum.
3. The answer is either so simple as to be banal (bad campaign etc) or too complicated (deep rooted societal roots etc) as not to provide any simple lessons. In any case, the result was very close.
4. Rather than dwell on the past, live in the future. Influencing what happens next is much more important than focusing on historic defeat.
5. You don’t see current Brexiteers lamenting the woeful state of their plans do you?
6. For a start, you aren’t remainers any more (and leavers aren’t leavers), you are people who passionately support ongoing close relations with Europe.

You are the Sensibles.
7. Considering the challenge ahead, you might think about it like this.
8. The competition between the intellectual arguments for remain and leave has (so far) been soundly won by the former.

In terms of process and economics it’s no competition.

And in terms of sovereignty, well, you can’t eat sovereignty.
9. But clearly note that Remainers lost every single important domestic political election. You can blame who you want (Jeremy Corbyn, FPTP etc) but the stone cold reality is Remainers got beat at the referendum and trounced in the December 2019 election.
10. On each occasion, Leavers devised and prosecuted a strategy that won.

It is true that those victories were founded on a series of gross untruths
11. But that doesn’t seem to matter in the very narrow but critical sense of who is in power and makes the decisions.
12. Leavers have demonstrated that a political philosophy of by any democratic means necessary is how you win the day.
13. The Sensibles might take a leaf from their book. Be as focused and as calculating, be as determined and be as ruthless.
14. And if you are, as the disaster unfolds, in slow motion or otherwise, you might be surprised by what you achieve.

Brexit isn’t going away and neither are you.

/ends
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