How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
You're probably wondering which elephant. Is this the Elephant in the room of Brexit? Does this refer to the logo of a political party somewhere? Please don't let it be that! In fact, there's barely any room in the house anymore, with all these ruddy elephants jostling for position. And someone's got to clean up after them.
So grab your metaphorical shovel.
No, the elephant that we're ruminating on, is the jumbo sized undertaking of getting the British public “solidly, resolutely and dependably in a position of being in a two-to-one majority of wanting to go back to the heart of Europe.” (And there's me trying to cut down on meat.)
Sir Nick Harvey visited C4E to tell us how:
Chichester4Europe were privileged to host the CEO of the European Movement (EM) Sir Nick Harvey, who was another brilliant guest speaker in our "Insights Club" series of informal lectures/Q&A's from prominent figures in the EM and beyond.
“Our ultimate goal, and we make no apology for this, is to get the UK back to the heart of Europe, but we understand and accept that that's not something that is practical or achievable immediately, and so our strategy is to go at the task step by step, and as one Labour MP said to me, very wise, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!” And that is broadly what we are trying to do.”
“…we have been looking at the UK population and asking, how can we break this down into those bite-sized chunks? We're not trying to eat the population like I was referring to the elephant, but how are we going to tackle reaching them and messaging them incrementally and bit by bit?”
Sir Nick laid out to us the different segments of the voting public who we need to connect with “which elements of the population are reachable, which are not, which are somewhere in the middle and can be reached if you go about it in the right way.” and we’ll be hearing more about those at our, more informal, Euro-Café get-togethers, but can you guess any?
“Young people” did you say? Yes, absolutely. They are naturally with us and feel bewildered that such a thing as Brexit could happen to them, without them being consulted. As digital natives“They are instinctively much more pro-European because they are people who rate cooperative attitudes. It's just part of the way they look at the world. But they are not yet particularly engaged or interested and there is a lot more work to be done. We just have to stick at the task of finding ways of reaching them.”
Sir Nick also warned us against bringing up the old arguments of 2016:
“if we continue arguing in the 2016 language, we speak mainly to ourselves and to the Euro core. But if we pivot to focus more on growth, opportunity, Britain's future role, we begin to speak to our target audience. And that's why this year the European movement is launching Project Reimagine, and this is all about trying to change the frame. From ‘Was Brexit right?’ to ‘What does Britain need now and next?’ From ‘Who won?’ to ‘What's going to work?’
Because if we fight the last battle, we lose the next.”
“The world's becoming more dangerous and more competitive.
Mid-sized countries face a choice: Go it alone and accept reduced influence, which is precisely what we can see Donald Trump wants the countries of Europe to do, or cooperate at scale and shape the rules.
That's the fundamental puzzle. And the answer, quietly and pragmatically, remains the same. Britain's interests are best served in partnership with our European neighbours. Not because of nostalgia, not because of ideology, but because of power, prosperity and peace.”
C4E are extremely grateful for Sir Nick’s visit and talk, which was very well received by all present. Thanks to all who participated and, there’s plenty for us to get our teeth stuck into at our next Euro Café event. See if you can drag a youngster along, they could become a European “influencer”!
“Just a wafer thin slice of pachyderm with your croissant, madam?”
Selections from Sir Nick Harvey’s talk to C4E,
- James Wheeler C4E