Thread by @nicktolhurst

There are still a few remainers who think a “purist rejoin” party can be a “reverse UKIP” and move & accelerate Britain towards Rejoin.

There are many, many reasons why this won’t work.

The main one being this...

2/

UKIP drew many voters from traditional Labour, far right & non voters. So the supposed UKIP threat to the Tories was much less than many supposed. At worst it was ambiguous.

But which voters would a purist rejoin party drew from..?

3/

A purist rejoin party is clearly going to draw more younger voters from Labour/LibDems and in likely more prosperous urban areas.

These areas have often been turning away from Conservatives in last decade.
This would split the non Tory vote in crucial seats.

4/

A purist rejoin party is - let’s be honest - unlikely to draw many voters from people still voting Conservative in 2021. In 2017-19 perhaps a few, but now you’d have to be a very particular niche person to be radical immediate remain but still voting Johnson.

So...

5/

So rather than being a “reverse UKIP” a purist Rejoin party would simply split the:
rejoin/EEA(leading to rejoin) vote base in England from 3 parties into 4
And in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 & 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 into 5.

At PRECISELY the point all pro-Brexit voters are coalescing into 1 party.

Good luck with that.