The UK’s Pro-European Movement: Strengths and Weaknesses

This chapter starts from the assumption that if the likelihood or otherwise of re-joining the EU depends on the actual impact of Brexit and on developments in public opinion, then it also depends on the effectiveness of the anti-Brexit movement. In seeking to evaluate the quality of the movement, we draw on data deriving from a series of semi-structured interviews with re-join activists; from the re-join movement’s organisations’ and groups’ online and printed campaign materials; from conversations etc. made possible by our own involvement in the movement. We begin by contextualising the analysis through a discussion of the emergence, development and the current contours of the re-join movement. We then consider the literature on social movements and what it has to say about why some organisations achieve greater success than others. The section after that considers the extent to which the movement, its organisations and activists meet the suggested conditions of efficaciousness highlighted in the previous section.