In a spirit of amused devilment, I took part in the first great March by the ‘remaniacs’, as it entered Trafalgar Square and went down Whitehall. Led by Eddie Izzard, Peter Tatchell and Madeleina Kay (the so-called ‘Super EU’ girl) and her dog on Sept 16, 2016.
At the time I was amazed that they had managed to work up the enthusiasm: they were a few months too late to impact the result of the Referendum, and I didn’t understand why they were not carrying the Union Flag, but that of the European Union, the optics just seemed wrong. Now I learn from the former Labour Staffer, Morgan Jones, in his new book ‘No Second Chances: The Inside Story of the Campaign for a Second EU Referendum’ that it was because the remainiacs actively despised the Union Jack.
But now I learn that this great outpouring of Brexit Derangement Syndrome was a multi-organisational whirlwind of misplaced moral certainty and political delusion. People’s Vote, Another Europe is Possible, Open Britain, SODEM, InFacts, Rejoin Party, Our Future Our Choice, Change UK, Best for Britain, For our Future’s Sake, Another Europe is Possible and so on ad infinitum.
The Lyrics of Dominic Frisby’s ’17 million Fuck Offs’ encapsulates that attitude of those targeted by the great, good and deluded. ‘They wheeled in the experts to tell us what’s right / They gave us the benefit of their foresight / To leave is calamitous, that’s what they said / But 17 million said ‘fuck off’ instead.’ It’s a jaunty folk ditty that captures the raw sentiment of Leave voters towards the endless parade of Remainer doomsayers, and reading ‘No Second Chances’, one can’t help but hear its chorus echoing through every page of infighting, ego and ultimate futility.
Jones’s book is billed as ‘The Inside Story of the Campaign for a Second EU Referendum’, and it delivers on that promise with the kind of granular detail that only comes from someone who conducted nearly 70 interviews with the key players. It’s a chronicle of how a ragtag alliance of devastated Remainers, from grassroots Bath based, beret-makers to Labour insiders and City financiers, tried to claw back the 2016 result through marches, stunts and parliamentary maneuvering. But from a Brexiteer’s perch, it’s less a tragedy than a comedy of errors, a testament to how self-righteous certainty can blind even the cleverest operators to political reality.
The story kicks off with the cultural artefacts of Remainism, like Maggie Turner’s blue beret with yellow stars that became a symbol of devotion and, frankly, a bit of a joke (I have one for the laughs). Jones recounts how Turner, a retiree, hand-crafted these hats in her kitchen before scaling up to Chinese manufacturing, selling thousands and donating proceeds to anti-Brexit groups. It’s a charming anecdote, but it underscores the movement’s bubble: these were middle-class, often elderly activists who saw Brexit as a personal affront to their cosmopolitan identities, not a democratic mandate. As Jones notes, many viewed Leave voters as ‘lied to, stupid, reactionary’, echoing political scientist Rob Ford’s assessment in the book. This condescension permeated everything, from the ‘Wooferendum’ pet protests to signs lamenting dogs unable to ski post-Brexit. Who can forget the ‘Who will serve me my latte, if EU citizens have to leave’ tweets from the afflicted?
The heart of the book lies in the organisational chaos. Jones divides it into sections on culture, groups, Labour’s internal wrangling, the People’s Vote campaign and the doomed centrist parties. The People’s Vote, headquartered in Millbank Tower, emerges as a microcosm of the mess. Led by James McGrory and Tom Baldwin, both praised by junior staff as inspirational but viewed by outsiders as domineering, it coordinated massive marches that drew up to a million people. Yet, as Jones reveals, these events highlighted fatal flaws. Campaigners tried handing out Union Jacks to soften the Europhile image, but protesters refused, calling it a ‘National Front symbol’. Instead, they waved EU flags, alienating the very moderates needed to sway MPs. ‘The bigger the marches, the more important our fundraising, because we weren’t getting big individual donations, the more important our activists became,’ Baldwin reflects in the book. ‘It meant our image was becoming more and more Remainy.’
Infighting was relentless. Youth groups like Our Future Our Choice and For our Future’s Sake clashed over tactics, with Femi Oluwole nearly running for Parliament in Peterborough, only to back down amid fears it would alienate Labour. Jones details how Roland Rudd, Open Britain’s chair and a City grandee, clashed with Baldwin and McGrory over strategy: Rudd wanted a pro-EU grassroots push, while they focused on peeling off Tory MPs. This culminated in the ‘implosion’ of Chapter 15, where Rudd sacked the duo in October 2019, prompting a staff walkout. Patrick Heneghan, installed as European Movement CEO to bridge gaps, ended up as interim Open Britain boss amid the fallout. It’s a tale of egos exploding like overripe fruit, with staff singing ‘Happy Birthday’ as an office anthem while the ship sank.
Jones is fair-minded, letting interviewees damn themselves with their own words. Labour’s dithering under Jeremy Corbyn gets a thorough skewering: despite grassroots pressure at the 2018 conference, the party hedged, fearing Leave voters in Red Wall seats. The centrist splinter parties – Change UK, Renew, Advance Together – are portrayed as hubristic fiascos. Annabel Mullin, who led Renew and Advance, admits they ran candidates just to spend more money, racking up fines and paltry votes. Jolyon Maugham’s ‘Spring, the Party’ never left the drawing board, a ‘festival’ that fizzled into nothing. Jones compares these to UKIP’s strategy of patience – these outfits lacked grit, and were drunk on their Twitter fame.
The book’s strength is its refusal to sugarcoat failure. Jones concludes that sectarianism doomed the movement: inward-looking activists alienated swing voters, while elites chased unattainable parliamentary arithmetic. Public opinion had shifted against Brexit by 2019, but the campaign couldn’t capitalise upon that, imploding before Johnson’s election victory (sort of) sealed the deal. It’s a cautionary tale for today’s politics, think Reform UK’s rise, about how passion without pragmatism leads to irrelevance.
For Brexiteers, ‘No Second Chances’ is schadenfreude in print, confirming our suspicions that Remain was a metropolitan echo chamber. Jones, a left-leaning journalist, writes with wry detachment, making it accessible even to those who cheered the original result. At 320 pages, it’s long, and at times a bit clunky and the acronym soup SODEM, OFOV, FBPE (how many of us have groaned when seeing that little hashtag appear in somebody’s bio?) can overwhelm. Still, it’s essential reading for understanding how 17 million ‘fuck offs’ proved unbreakable. One key figure is of course Steve Bray, the ‘shouty man in a hat’. There is something quixotic but almost charmingly crackers about his little traffic island crusade, no matter how annoying he gets. But his monomania acts as a metaphor for the whole rejoiner movement. Lots of coverage, very little cut through.
In the end, the Remainers got no second chance, and on this evidence, they didn’t deserve one.
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