What could the remain campaign have done differently?

Forcing people to choose between democracy and wealth didn't work for the British Empire in our colonies. It's not worked here either.

Just as the US, Australia, Canada, India took their independence from us and are now prospering, so must the UK follow our former colonies.

With more democracy, comes more prosperity even after turmoil.

What would you have changed about the way the Remain campaign worked? What message should have been said? Who should have been the more prominent voices?

SS

Reply 1

moggis

Well for one thing-and I realise many may think this is daft but I'm serious-they should have made use of actresses like Juliet Stevenson to help get their message across.

Instead of a procession of some of the most hated or disliked MPs that this country currently has.

Reply 2

ODDBALL1011

The problem is (and this isn't the absolute truths, both sides used scare tactics), the Leave side used primarily scare tactics, with some true facts, to encourage the emotional and disenfranchised to vote for them, where as it's not exactly easy for the remain side to apply to the emotional, because too many follow the leave campaign emotional.
The leave campaign used things such as immigration and how we should be able to control our own borders, where as the most the remain could say is that actually in order for us to trade, no matter the outcome, we have to subscribe to the EU movement policies, which doesn't sound anywhere near as heroic.
To cite another example, the leave campaign told us about the £350mil that we send per week and how we can use this on the NHS, which many got behind, however by looking at this, you can see that if we use all of this money on the NHS, we don't use any on anything else. Now, after the result, Farage has said that the £350mil may not actually be used on the NHS, he isn't sure (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/24/nigel-farage-350-million-pledge-to-fund-the-nhs-was-a-mistake/).
The problem with the remain is that it wasn't able to make any (in my opinion) "wild" claims, because the people already voting for them would have lost faith if they did.

Reply 3

thunder_chunky

They could have not smeared all brexit voters, campaigners, and potential voters as racists and xenophobes.

Less racism.

Original post by thunder_chunky

They could have not smeared all brexit voters, campaigners, and potential voters as racists and xenophobes.

Absolutely agreed. I think this was one of the absolute lowest tactics they made during their campaigning, in a bid to attract so-called liberals to their side.

Reply 6

username2313507

'if you vote Leave you are racist'

Like the rise of Trump, I think Brexit was at least partly spurred on by political-correctness and immigration moreso

Remain campaign didn't really constructively target this much, instead choosing to just call people names because they had non-economic reasons to Leave

Reply 7

AnnieGakusei

Original post by Gora The Xplorer

Less racism.

I can't even handle the blatant racism of those tweets. :frown:

Reply 8

Gora The Xplorer

Original post by AnnieGakusei

I can't even handle the blatant racism of those tweets. :frown:

We should have constructively presented a case for a prosperous Europe. Countries like the UK pay in more now than we get and countries like Poland take more than they give, we should have been working to make countries like Poland prosperous and wealthy so they pay in more and it works for us. Instead Remain campaigners just insulted White people.

Reply 9

AnnieGakusei

Original post by Gora The Xplorer

They insulted white people for being racist against other white people. There is no understanding some people's logic.

Reply 10

NewcastleFresher

@thunder_chunky This lol.. look at the Remain voters calling Leave voters uneducated plebs on Twitter today :rolleyes:

Reply 11

Good bloke

The things to first come to mind are:

Conduct a more aggressive and successful membership terms renegotiation before the referendum. What was on offer in this area was not worth having

Avoid saying that those who favour controlled immigration are racists

Avoid (completely) using obviously over-egged threats - war and the end of western civilisation as we know it were just the two worst ones

Tell the electorate how they might be financially better off inside the EU, in a positive way

Outline a coherent and united strategy to get immigration under control

Don't rely on expert economic and financial opinion, which has a history of being grossly wrong

Don't allow Jeremy Corbyn to stand up a few days before the referendum and emphasise the truth about EU migration - that it has no upper limits - (his general performance, as usual, was lacklustre, inept, uninvolved and devfoid of leadership)

Select better debaters to go up against Michael Gove

.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 12

RF_PineMarten

They could have done away with the disgusting snobbery and condescending attitudes. They went on about it like the only people who want to leave are racists, xenophobes, little Englanders and people with no understanding of politics or economics. Completely ignoring the legitimate arguments in favour of leaving the EU.

If they did less of that and had more realistic and genuine proposals for reform running right to the heart of the EU, they could have got more people on side. I would probably have voted remain if there was a realistic prospect of significant reform, but I saw no evidence for that.