The main challenge isn’t to win over Brexiters, it’s to get people to re-engage with an issue they just want to go away
There is no rule that says people have to be interested in the things politicians want them to care about. For years, Eurosceptics got that wrong. Most British citizens went about their lives unbothered by the European Union. Brussels was an object of compulsive loathing for only a tiny number. Their good fortune was to find in David Cameron a malleable prime minister who could be pressed into calling a referendum on a question few voters had ever thought to ask themselves. The cranks got their hobby horse into the political Grand National – and, credit where it’s due, they won.
That campaign raised the volume of EU debate without making the topic more appealing. June 2016 was when Britain’s collective receptiveness to European arguments peaked. A question was asked; an answer was given: leave. How to make it happen was someone else’s problem.
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Read More The remainers’ biggest problem? Voters have switched off | Rafael Behr