Thoughts on the Anti-Brexit March London June 23rd 2018

To get in early with a moan, the organisers gave the big march in London yesterday some weird name I’ve already forgotten.  They should have just called it the anti-Brexit march.  That’s what it was, on the second anniversary of the vote.   It wasn’t suprising that the date should be marked by the supporters or opposers of the outcome.  What was surprising was the vast number of people who turned up to support the losing side.   There was a pro-Brexit march as well, but that was limited to the few thousand that most causes can summon up.   The anti-Brexit crowd was estimated to be 100,000, which looking at the airiel footage was unlikely to be an underestimate.


I would be interested to know just how so many people got wind that the event was on.  I saw references to it on social media,  but it was hardly mainstream news.  And when I thought about joining in I found that I couldn’t find the start time or where to gather.  (That was enough to put me off.  I’m pretty much the opposite of a dedicated political activist.)

So on a beautiful summer day a huge crowd of people gathered in central London to cheer, wave EU flags and generally enjoy themselves in the company of like minded people.    Will it have any more effect than that?

The precedent is that in the short run it will probably have no effect at all.  As the phobes in my timeline were quick to point out, 100,000 cheerful people in London doesn’t cancel out 17 million votes in a referendum only 24 months ago.  And while this was a big demo, it wasn’t anywhere near the size of the demonstration against the Iraq war.  And that didn’t stop the war.

But I think that there still might be some effects.  Although the war wasn’t stopped, my gut feeling was that  the big demo did rob it of its legitimacy which later turned into dislike of the hitherto all conquering Tony Blair.    I don’t think it is entirely co-incidental that Jeremy Corbyn spoke at that demonstration and later ended up with Blair’s job. 

Corbyn also featured on the anti-Brexit march, but this time by ironic chanting asking where he was.   He seems to have now not only got Blair’s position in the party, he is also repeating the ignoring the people on the streets thing as well. 

I wonder if the people on the demo will go home having made some new friends and decide that the next step is to join up to their local Labour party and start pushing for a more pro-EU line than the one that Corbyn is offering.  If so, the march might well have a very big impact.  And the fact that the march was so big that even the BBC couldn’t ignore it is a step towards draining away legitimacy from the referendum result.  After all if  it is the will of the people, how come so many people are willing to oppose it?