Thread by @bird_mike

Thread.
1/ Remain is winning the Brexit argument: the UK will be worse off under Brexit no matter what form it takes, but especially under no deal.
So why is it making no difference?
Because it's the wrong argument to have.
Brexit is not, and never has been, about economics.

2/ At its heart, Brexit is about national soul. It's about the identity of the (largely English) British people.
Brexiteers believe that being part of the EU undermines being British so they fear it and want to fight it.
Hence the WWII metaphors etc.

3/ For many of these people, Brexit is an issue about which they could go to war. It's that fundamental.
Their mental construct of the EU is that it has, in effect, invaded the UK by stealth, facilitated by quislings who have betrayed the country.

4/ This thinking isn't necessarily conscious, but is revealed by the language they use, the depth of their emotion and their frustration that others don't get it.
A lot of Brexit discourse is effectively saying, "Can't you see what they are doing? They are plotting against us."

5/ Because Brexit is about national identity, it provides a vehicle for people to act on their fear of foreigners.
"I want the UK Parliament to be sovereign (because [sotto voce] I don't trust foreigners),"
or,
"I'm not against immigration, I just want strong borders."

6/ Much of this antipathy to foreigners has the same root. The concept that many Brexiteers have of the UK is the one that they believed in when they were young: an English, white, world power where the classes, sexes and foreigners knew their respective places.

7/ Rationally, they know this has gone - if it ever existed. But they resent that it has done so (again, not necessarily consciously).
So they are frustrated that the old certainties have disappeared.
And they don't trust foreigners.

8/ Of course, these feelings have been amplified by some who share the same beliefs.
And by some who want Brexit for more venal reasons.
Newspapers have fanned the flames of this resentment for years for their own, selfish reasons.

9/ Social media pours petrol on these feelings. And, of course, we now know that special interests used social media to stoke and fan these feelings, often illegally, or in the interests of the UK's enemies.
The result? Brexiteers who were not just frustrated, but angry.

10/ And as we learned this week about the Leave strategy for the referendum, all these feelings coalesced around one idea: "We must leave the EU."
Not how we should leave.
Nor what we should leave to.
Just leave.

https://twitter.com/rolandmcs/status/1086899951735574528

11/ The Leave campaign was and is motivated by a visceral, emotional belief: that being in the EU puts being British at risk. It is a fight for the soul of Britain.

12/ But Remainers have been fighting a different battle. They thought it was about economics.
That it was enough to prove that we are better off in the EU.
For Brexit fundamentalists, the economics are irrelevant.

13/ They want Brits to have charge of British destiny.
For them, this is worth any price.
No-one goes to war because they believe that afterwards they will be better off economically. They know that war most likely will make them poorer. But they think the price is worth it.

14/ In the most part, democracies go to war for reasons of principle. Afterwards, they rebuild, economically poorer, but vindicated as a people. Hence, for example, the Falklands War.
Or WWII.

15/ For many Brexiteers, Brexit is the same order of national challenge as a war.
Hence the push for "No Deal".
Hence the disregard of forms of Brexit that make more economic sense (EEA, for example) but which would keep us beholden to the EU.

16/ Remain has been fighting the wrong battle for years. "Brexit will make us worse off, " they cry. To which the Brexiteer response is, "So what?"
Remain has won the economic argument.
For Brexiteers, this is a battlefield about which they don't care.

17/ But if the argument is about the economics, Brexiteers know Remain wins the argument but loses the battle. So they keep the argument about this. Most Remainers with power in this conversation think that the EU is 'good thing' that makes us better off.

18/ Remainers say, for example, that "the EU's not perfect, but..."
It's not a thing about which one might die in a ditch.
So on the one hand, we have Brexiteers who know in their guts that they are fighting for British soul, and on the other, a bunch of people with calculators.

19/ Apart from the young people.
The young get it.
They don't think of the EU as an economic abstraction, they see it as their future. They love being part of Europe. They like foreigners and love the idea of being able to go anywhere in Europe to work, live and love.

20/ They like the idea of their rights being guaranteed. They like an organisation founded on principles. They really like an organisation created to enable peace and which has succeeded in doing so for more than sixty years.

21/ They also understand and accept that in today's world, things happen through shared, collective working and compromise. They understand that sharing sovereignty increases a nation's power.

22/ And they see a bunch of old farts taking this away from them. The same old farts who destroyed their ability to buy a house. Who retired at 65 but demand that younger folk retire at 70. Who cut benefits for the poor, but aren't bothered by tax evaders.

23/ The old farts who retire to Spain but want to stop foreigners coming to Britain. The ones who think the colour of a passport matters more than the right to use this passport to travel freely round Europe.
Those old farts.

24/ For these young people, EU membership really matters. It is a matter of principle.
They see Freedom of Movement less as a privilege afforded to foreigners coming to the UK and more as a right which the old farts want to take away from them.
We should listen to them.

25/ If we don't want Brexit, we should stop bleating about economics - it's not relevant. We need to make the arguments for principles.
We need to argue for peace. For freedom of movement. For human rights.
Because these are the things that Brexit will take away from us. /END