Thread by @RichardBentall

There seems to be a palpable energy in the Remain movement at the moment, which might seem a bit surprising, even paradoxical, given that we are about to confront our worst nightmare on January 31st. 1/

Brexiters smell this. Given that they're about to get what they want, just as paradoxically, they seem to be remarkably unhappy. Their trolls are even more active than usual; the Tories are desperately spewing out Orwellian propoganda; the Russia report remains hidden. 2/

It is as if they are frightened. Frightened that there will be no unicorns, that 'global Britain' will be shown to be a con. Frightened that they have to own their shit . That it will no longer be possible to pretend the Emperor is clothed. Frightened of the spectre of Rejoin. 3/

More than anything else they are frightened that we will not go away.

Which is why they are doing their best to pretend that it's all over on the 31st, to abolish Brexit from their lexicon, to hide the consequences of their actions, to suppress dissent.

We must not let them. /4

There is a lot of chatter about how we move forwards at the moment. Here's a very thoughtful article by @GuitarMoog: politics.co.uk/comment-analys… Others such as @IanDunt have also authored thoughtful pieces. /5

Rejoin is a longterm project; as @GuitarMoog points out, apart from everything else the EU will need to be convinced that there is a big shift in British culture before they will welcome back Perfidious Albion. So we must address more immediate goals /6

Why does the EU matter? Not just for pragmatic economic reasons but because it stands for liberal, Enlightenment values that we hold dear (see Lisbon A2). These are the values that the Tories will try to crush in the years to come and we must be willing to fight for them. /7

We must also hold Brexiters to account, and point out every broken promise, every anticipated consequence of their foolishness and mendacity.

We must cry out for everyone hurt by their heartless policies and stand in solidarity with the victims (for there will be victims). /8

But first we have to find a way to muster our forces. There are millions of good people who have been politically woken by Brexit; there are many organisations - small and large, local and national- that have risen to fight for Europe and are now loking for direction. 9/

We cannot rely on political parties: they have proven to be unweildy and inflexible, wracked by division, muzzled by the self-interest of their internal oligarchies and, above all, utterly incapable of cooperating with each other even at a time of national crisis. /10

So we must find some other way of coming together. Individually we must take every opportunity to reach out to each other. We must exploit every opportunity to unite our disperate groups and organisations under a common banner. 11/

I am not sure how we do this. I don't think it can happen from the top. We will not be rallied by a charismatic leader. It will have to happen in a thousand little steps, each important. We all have the power to make these steps.

This is our task in the months ahead. 12/ END