Britain’s band of Brexiteers like to complain that the battlefield is stacked against them, and they’re right. On the side of staying in the European Union you have Britain’s four living prime ministers, the International Monetary Fund, the Treasury, the vast majority of the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties, the Trades Union Congress, the CBI, Britain’s three largest trade unions, and the President of the United States. Leave has Boris Johnson and the contested ghost of Margaret Thatcher.
Yet few people (except bookmakers) expect as overwhelming a victory for Remain as suggested by the balance of forces arranged on either side. Why not? Well, as one Conservative politician quipped, it’s “hard being on the left” – and Remain, despite securing the endorsements of a number of Conservative politicians, has all the challenges usually faced by leftwing political campaigns.
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