If the remain campaign makes the same mistakes again, it will lose again

Theresa May has survived a vote of no confidence from her own party and is safe from a leadership challenge for at least 12 months. But for all the ERG’s theatrics on Wednesday, the entire exercise was a classic case of high-drama-low-stakes huffing and puffing. The parliamentary arithmetic remains the same: there’s no majority for May’s deal, there’s no majority for no deal.

So what next? Potentially, the collapse of the natural party of government while in government, and a no-deal by default. Or, more likely, article 50 will be extended and decision-making on Brexit returned to the electorate, either through a general election (my preference), a second referendum, or indeed some combination of both. As the likelihood of Labour taking over Brexit negotiations fades, the party may well have to start war-gaming its response to a three-way choice between bad deal, no deal, or no Brexit.

Where I differ from many on the left is that, despite being a Eurosceptic at heart, I don’t think that it’s possible to fashion a Lexit out of the political forces we have now. In different circumstances, I could see myself voting leave. But, paraphrasing the OG Karl Marx, we do not make history in the conditions of our own choosing. When battle lines are drawn between a ragtag coalition of progressive tendencies, and nationalists who mobilise images of brown-skinned refugees to terrify the British public into backing them, I know where my allies are to be found. In two years, the left have not succeeded in wrenching the Brexit frame away from the hard right. The idea that 52% of the UK electorate voted to leave because of EU strike law is as much of a fantasy as empire 2.0.

The problem with the UK’s attempts to lurch out of the EU are as much existential as they are procedural. It’s easy to want something when you don’t have it. Like blown glass hitting cold air, Project Brexit is imperilled (as it was always going to be) by contact with political reality. And yet it’s remainers who are at a disadvantage in outreach, messaging and strategy. When it comes to talking to the 52% of the electorate who voted leave, the dominant remain tendency is to say what they did in 2016, but again and louder. It would be a shame to learn the hard way twice that being right isn’t the same as being effective.

Arguing over institutional arrangements works for discrediting a negotiated deal in parliament. But that’s not the case when it comes to dialogue with voters. Let’s be real for a minute: normal people absolutely do not give a monkeys about the difference between “the customs union” and “the facilitated customs arrangement”. What kamikaze Brexiteers like Boris Johnson and the ERG have astutely understood from the start is that the electoral coalition that will deliver Brexit doesn’t care about the technical details. Leave does indeed mean leave. That’s why all their bluster and contradictions don’t actually matter – Caroline Lucas might “gotcha” Jacob Rees-Mogg about the fact he advocated a second referendum back in 2011, but it has remarkably little cut-through with people who don’t already agree with her.

The reason Brexiteers have been so effective is that they have made the fight about broad political values. The message was sovereignty, borders, national identity; bolstered by the occasional figure (£350m) or policy area (fishing). Brexit didn’t win on a manifesto, it won on emotionally resonant memes. “Take back control” was able to tell a complex story in just three words – that voters had the opportunity to reverse national decline by participating in an insurgent political moment.

You can’t debunk memes with facts. It’s like bringing tap-shoes to a gunfight. So no wonder Project Fear failed in 2016. And if it is attempted again in a second referendum, it will fail again. The facts on the ground haven’t changed: telling people “it’s the economy, stupid” just sounds like you’re calling them idiots for not feeling politically invested in the finances of the rich. Arguments about collapsed economic growth aren’t going to work for people who haven’t felt the benefits of it for decades.

While I think Carole Cadwalladr’s work on the financial connections between UK Brexiteers and the shady dealings of the global alt-right is incredible journalism, remainers need to stop making it their first port of call when arguing why Brexit shouldn’t go ahead. Remember that point about the difference between being right and being effective? There’s a difference between investigative diligence and frothing about referendum spending because it reinforces your own worldview that change can only be the result of cheating. Fundamentally, leave voters don’t feel that Russian networks or Facebook ads affected how they voted. And what’s more, that line risks alienating leave voters further as it makes it seem like political forces are aligning to overturn the vote on a technicality. Dark money isn’t the only thing that erodes confidence in our democracy.

Remain campaigners are going to have to make arguments that operate on a radically different emotional register. Hope is important. Control over the economic and social forces that shape your existence is important. Brexiteers pulled a blinder when they monopolised “sovereignty” – but that’s not the same thing as democracy. This distinction needs to be addressed directly. You can return sovereignty to parliament, but that doesn’t mean the government won’t hold it in contempt. You might be able to fortify UK borders, detain and deport migrants more efficiently – but that won’t stop your local library being demolished to build flats you’ll never live in.

For remain to win, they’re going to have to spell out (preferably in words that can fit on a bus) how they’re going to close the distance between people and decision-making institutions.

The key to stopping the hard-right nationalist forces poised to pounce on Brexit isn’t going to be finessing a reprieve for the status quo. It’s about actively creating consent for meaningful change, and expanding democratic participation beyond a second referendum. In order to win, remainers need to make the case for taking back real control – and do it fast.

• Ash Sarkar is a senior editor at Novara Media, and lectures in political theory at Anglia Ruskin and the Sandberg Instituut