BREXIT DIRECT ACTION: RANKED

We’ve seen a lot of direct action on Brexit so we’ve decided to rank the PR impact of the key events from most to least:
  1. The gov.uk Petition to stop Brexit outright, now 6 million signatures deep, has probably been more successful than the march in terms of affecting the legislative agenda. This excellent map from Unboxed shows that there isn’t a constituency in the UK without a significant amount of visible people and, while the actual no-questions-asked cancellation of Brexit the petition demands is fanciful. A couple more options have since emerged in parliament – particularly the “confirmatory public vote” on ‘the deal’ – which could stall, if not stop Brexit completely.
  2. The Independent Group -- by covering them in consecutive weeks on these trends we’ve secured them about as much media attention as they’ve had since. Having campaigned as a single-issue movement, TIG have today announced their application to become a political party. Label them what you like, their perceived microscopic impact on the whole process perhaps significantly shifted the momentum of the Brexit debate, with their creation tugging the Tories back from the edge of the White Cliffs of No Deal, and softening Labour’s turgid stance on a second referendum.
  3. Professor Sir John Curtice -- A good word for hard data as the country’s top pollster– now routinely the only guy with a clue what’s going on in the arena of public opinion– released some stats which have all but killed ‘the will of the people’ as a shibboleth for “let’s get out now and the good of the country be damned”.
  4. People’s Vote March. Legislatively it did nothing but in terms of adding visibility and colour to the remain banner it did the job. Funny signs created a Meme element for the apolitically puerile among us (not to be overlooked because good humour was in notably short supply during the initial referendum campaign, which has probably contributed to the poisonously sour public mood surrounding Brexit ever since). Part of PR is appearing to be a bigger deal than you actually are and the swollen crowd-size estimates suggest a job well done for march organisers.
 
Unranked: March to Leave. You’d forgotten about that one hadn’t you? It got Nigel Farage on the radio again, but its risible turnout and make-up did nothing to suggest a serious, coherent political movement on the leave side. As with most things he gets involved in, it helped nobody except Nigel Farage.
 
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