For pro-Europeans, the referendum defeat happened overnight but it took years. The six-month-long series of warnings about the cost of leaving the European Union was overpowered by a wave of Farageist sentiment, built up over two decades in which anti-European arguments were the background hum of political discourse at Westminster and in the country.
Britain Stronger in Europe, the failed campaign to secure a Remain vote, only cranked into uncertain life on 12 October 2015, when an unexpected coalition of old Labour hands, television presenters from the mid-2000s and a former head of Marks & Spencer were recruited. Meanwhile, the Leave campaign was, in effect, born on the morning of 23 July 1993, when the Maastricht Treaty finally passed through the House of Commons, following close to a year of Conservative infighting.
Content from our partners
