If we get a referendum, we need to win it. To do that, we need to make the case for being in the EU, not just the case for a People’s Vote.
That’s why InFacts is backing a massive march in London on July 20. The date has been chosen for maximum impact on the new prime minister, almost certainly Boris Johnson, just before he enters Downing Street.
This will be a march with a difference. Unlike the three People’s Vote marches, it will boldly make the case for being in the EU. It will be led by the grassroots. And it will be making the case for change not for the status quo.
MPs can probably stop Johnson crashing out of the EU without a deal, despite yesterday’s setback. Most of them know it’s madness. But if there’s a referendum, we will have to win the argument with the people. And unless we start making the case now why we are better off in the EU, we could lose it.
After all, Johnson – who came way ahead of his rivals in the first round of the Tory leadership race today – is a formidable campaigner. And Nigel Farage is back with a vengeance. At the moment, hardly anybody is arguing that we need to stay in the EU. If we don’t, Johnson and Farage will run away with the ball. They won’t even have to defend their position that we should quit the EU. They’ll just scream “betrayal”.
July 20th
Park Lane, London
Click here to find out more
If we get a referendum, we must not repeat the failed 2016 campaign. We can’t re-run Project Fear – though there are certainly a lot of dangers in Brexit.
We also need a message of hope. But this shouldn’t be about how everything will be just fine if we stop Brexit, because it won’t. A lot of people are rightly unhappy about the status quo.
We need a message about change. That’s why the march is called the March for Change.
We need to convince people that so long as we put the bawling Brexit baby to bed, we can fix the country’s real problems. Our politicians then won’t be obsessing about the aftermath of Brexit for the next decade. And we’ll have more money too. Money that can be spent on the big problems that people really care about: the NHS, social care, knife crime, child poverty. The list is endless.
We also have to convince people that we can help fix the world’s problems if we are one of the biggest players in the world’s most powerful club rather than if we go solo and end up being bullied. We can help stop the planet frying if we work with our EU friends.
This is a patriotic argument that can fire up people’s emotions. This is the answer to the Brexiters who will make us impotent, despite their rhetoric about taking back control.
This is why the march’s slogan is: Reunite the People. Reunite with Europe. March with us on July 20.
Note from the editor: InFacts is a founding member of the People’s Vote campaign. We have supported all the People’s Vote marches and will support the next one in October. But the priority now is to show the new prime minister, the country and the world that we want to stop the Brexit chaos. That’s why we need a show of force on July 20. Please support this initiative by backing the crowdfunder.
Edited by Luke Lythgoe
I’m 73 but would still like to give this a go However, don’t want to go alone and still have to argue my case to my husband and family. I
I live in Cornwall and have been on all the People’s Vote marches – and will march again in October, but I will not attend this march which I think is a huge mistake.
I believe it will get a fraction of the support of the other marches and will be spun as confirming the Brexit cause.
Words matter. Names matter. Can we please not refer to this unprincipled populist by his first name only? He should be referred to as Boris Johnson. Only his supporters and apologists and members of the populist press call him by his first (actually his second) name alone. This makes him sound deceptively friendly and that he certainly is not. He is not the friend or leader Britain needs now and certainly not any sort of Man for the Moment despite the fact that some people may wish to present him as such. He is only a Man Out for Himself and Power at any Price. The price of the tortuous Brexit process is being paid already by my European-based children and, should this man become PM in this most undemocratic of ways, will continue to be paid for the generations to come.
Congratulations on creating another march. Although I Support Labour, Jeremy Corbyn’s ambiguous attitude towards the 2nd referendum is quite intolerable hence I have made a modest donation of £11.00 to your “March for Change”. I only hope that you will make a coalition alongside the Libdems, SNP, Green Party, Conservative calcitrants, etc., to ensure success both in the March and in Parliament. Apart from the March itself, the case must be made in Parliament, too. How is it possible for so many Old Etonian MPs, having been educated in the country’s supposedly top institutions , to back the likes of Johnson for Prime Minister? If it walks like a buffoon, if it talks like a buffoon, if it behaves like a buffoon, then it most certainly IS a buffoon!
Every good wish then for a successful March (and speeches) on July 20th. I will be there, complete with Klaxon to enforce the call for “REMAIN!” I have also donated to the Libdems and pleaded with them to form a coalition with “March for Change”>
We are vehemently anti-Brexit and have supported all the PV marches so far. We can not afford to march in July and October. Having two marches fragments the message. We don’t think there should be two marches so close together. Difficult for families to support both.
How will the Case for being in the EU be developed?
Will you invite comment on and contributions to the message?
Will it be tested on a sample audience before publication?
In my view, we (those who wish to remain) have perhaps not yet addressed, fairly and squarely, one of the issues that gets under the skin of leavers: the issue of sovereignty. They ask: why should the country surrender its sovereignty?
I wonder if we have properly explained that this question is not a valid one?
The uk is not surrendering sovereignty. The EU works because it has permitted a re-configuration of sovereignty. Much sovereignty remains at Westminster and is exercised by our parliament. But some UK sovereignty has, yes, gone to Brussels. There, it has been pooled with bits of sovereignty from 27 other countries.
The all-important question is who ultimately exercises this newly-created pool of sovereignty? It is not the Commission. It is not the European Parliament. It is not, in fact, even the European Council. It is the 28 countries themselves – both their states (acting via the European Council) and the people (acting through the European Parliament). These institutions are either appointed by the governments of the member states or elected by their people. Sovereignty has been re-configured. There has been no loss, no surrender.
That’s the way I see things – and I think this point should be made more frequently and more vigorously. The Eu is simply permits the countries of Europe to run some of the continents affairs as a collective enterprise and this has become possible because some of the member state’s sovereignty has been re-configured.
It will not placate the hardliners, but perhaps more people might have a better understanding of what the eu is fundamentally about.
1) We need to persuade people NOW – it’s no good waiting till October. So I’ve put a fair bit of money in, and will march, both in July and October, but whether we’re having to stay at home or can join the march, we somehow need to get some messages across. What’s the best ways of doing this?
2) As well as pointing out the different ways the UK can exercise its sovereignty within the EU, we should also point out the dreadful loss of sovereignty to the USA if we left. Trump would pounce on our NHS for a start, and perhaps demand our troops support him in a war with Iran.
3) Also, we should counter the Faragist claim that a People’s Vote would be undemocratic, not least by making clear just what a Rubbish Referendum his paymasters permitted in 2016. Rory Stewart was right to suggest a representative assembly as jury on the implications of Brexit – very very few voters in 2016 would have seen the Irish border as at all significant, for example. And when a well-advised jury reaches some conclusions, these should be made known in a proper Referendum or People’s Vote.
4) Please advise times for the march, so that transport can be arranged.
I signed up for this march, but with some trepidation. I feared that the numbers would not be there this time, and that the “Brexiters” and “Brexit supporting press” would seize on this as proof that “Remainers” had “run out of puff “! I therefore felt constrained to attend to try to proove them wrong! However, those that I hoped to bring with me, (three others), are on holiday, and I suspect that this scenario will be repeated. Also, this march is too close to the HUGE one in March, and could dilute the numbers in the more important march in October. I therefore shall not attend on Saturday after all, and feel that we should concentrate on making October even bigger than last March.
On another matter, I note a comment from an earlier contributer, concerning sovereignty. We participate in drafting the rules within the EU. This includes “Directives” concerning food standards for example, which are based on “CEN Standards”. These are drafted by expert representatives from Member States. ALL Member States have oversight during the drafting process, and ALL Members vote on the final draft. Take a look at the “loss of sovereignty” we stand to suffer if we accept the US “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership”, (TTIP)!
I was a UK Government trade official for 25 years, working consistently to ensure that the UK’s participation in the EU’s common commercial policy was the real success which it was, including opening up markets in non-EU member countries to UK as well as other European exporters. I know what is involved in negotiating trade deals; they are difficult and complex, as Liam Fox himself is now painfully beginning to realise, and they take a long time to negotiate because of the masses of detail involved. It is self-destructive madness for us to drop out of the EU Single Market and customs union, which together account for nearly half our trade; and the reasons given by Boris Johnson and others for doing so are mainly based on lies and misinterpretations. At the age of 81 I shall take part in at least some of the march on July 20.
I am not able to march today or in October but I have been on the previous 2 and support the principles and actions of the group. I will make sure that I am available to take part in other demonstrations later