Unhappy remainers gear up for their next fight

And now, on the precipice of Brexit, ardent pro-European Britons, who by some measures outnumber those favouring Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, are looking for new outlets for their rage — something, anything, to keep from staring into the abyss of a generation-long exile from the bloc. After going for broke last year with a strategy of trying to undo the withdrawal, they are rallying their weary, despairing supporters for hugely consequential battles ahead over the shape of Brexit, leaning on lawmakers to preserve smooth trading ties with Europe so British workers can keep their jobs. “Nobody really felt any of the actual effects of it, because we hadn’t yet had to look at border checks, we hadn’t had to consider what happens to our right to live, work, study and love in another country.” In many Britons’ eyes, it was remarkable that pro-European Britons mounted a serious fight to overturn Brexit at all. In converting scores of British lawmakers, campaigners turned stopping Brexit from a fringe cause into the largest pro-Europe movement on the Continent. Enough people changed sides that in many opinion polls before the general election in December, Remainers narrowly beat out the Leavers favouring withdrawal from the bloc. In their rage at the government’s migration plans, and their desperation not to sink into years of despair, they said they were looking to the way left-wing voters in the United States reacted to President Trump’s win in 2016. “In the US, we’ve seen mass mobilisation in defense of migrants, Abolish ICE protests,” said Ana Oppenheim, an organiser for Another Europe is Possible, a leftist anti-Brexit group. But cutting the European Union adrift carries its own risks, especially in ex-Labour heartland seats that are home to automobile or aerospace industry workers who stand to suffer if the bloc responds with trade barriers, as its leaders have promised. “I’m not sure he knows which ones yet, but Boris Johnson will inevitably betray more people, more promises, and his opponents have a duty to expose that.” Not that anyone thinks rejoining the European Union is in the cards, at least in the next decade. The poll uncovered deep fault lines in British society, and subsequent arguments over when and how the U.K. should depart, if at all, caused political paralysis until a decisive victory by BorisJohnson in a general election called to resolve the deadlock last month. As the United Kingdom prepared to bring to an end its 47-year EU membership, the bloc's top officials on Jan. 31 pledged to continue playing a prominent role despite the loss of a powerful affiliate. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives at 10 Downing Street for talks focused on a post-Brexit free trade deal, in London, on Jan. 30. People’s Vote split into warring camps in October, with one side trying to turn it into an avowedly pro-Remain organisation and the other trying to keep recruiting a broader range of lawmakers. Another challenge for pro-Europeans in Britain is that, unlike with anti-Trump voters in the United States, there is more than one party competing for their votes, said Denise Baron, a political researcher who has worked for campaigns on both sides of the Atlantic. While Democrats alone benefited from the swell of anti-Trump sentiment in the 2018 midterm elections, many pro-European voters are waiting for the results of the Labour leadership race this year to decide whether to make that the vessel for their opposition to Mr. Johnson or turn to another party. Of all the opposition’s battles ahead, perhaps none has attracted as much concern as the roughly 3.4 million European Union citizens in Britain, some of whom are struggling to secure long-term residency rights and are anxious about being denied housing or jobs. Tanja Bueltmann, a professor of migration at Northumbria University, said that while the attention was welcome, pro-European campaigners were coming belatedly to the cause, given that the window for easing the process of applying for so-called “settled status” had closed. As people filled the pub, among them a group of pro-Remain Britons who were nevertheless making fun of the Europeans there, Mr. Luker bemoaned the decades of upheaval ahead.

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