As a remainer, I always found it far too harsh when eurosceptic pundits occasionally compared some of my fellow voters to Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender. Now I’m less convinced that this comparison is always as unfair as I once thought.
Last week, I offered some thoughts on ‘Why the #FBPE hashtag failed – and the general lessons from that failure.’ It was intended as a discussion of the ways in which the Follow Back Pro Europe meme on Twitter backfired. It was a somewhat nerdy, technical discussion, focusing on how FBPE accounts actually just ended up talking to each other – and, in the process, failed to convince the other side to change their minds. But what I thought was a mild piece ended up rattling a hornet’s nest I assumed no longer existed. I was soon buried under a Twitter avalanche. FBPE types were not questioning the fine details of my article but rather the idea that FBPE had failed at all. This blew my mind.
Amongst a subset of remainers on Twitter, there is no acknowledgement at all of what the Tory victory in December meant for the Brexit issue. And I do mean, none at all. Within the replies, there was denial:
‘We did turn people’s perception regarding the EU but because of the outdated FPTP system in the UK and a weak Labour leader, the Tories got in.’
Then there was deep denial:
‘You should have read up on what #FBPE is and not just following what prominent Brexiteers high on coke are saying.’
There was, well, a lot of deep denial, in fact:
‘Our crowdfunded case making our EU citizenship a right that cannot be removed is just hitting the courts.
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