Where Now for Remain? The Grassroots for Europe Conference 2020

General Election Aftermath

It goes without saying that we are all devastated by the result of the General Election on 12 December.  Clearly, we need to absorb the implications and to discuss the situation with our fellow Remainers, before picking ourselves up and working out how to move forward.

Where Now for Remain?

However, we cannot afford to let the disillusionment of our supporters turn to disengagement.  We have built an extraordinary movement over the last 3 years - the strongest pro-European movement in Europe.  We must preserve what we have built and move quickly, but with care, to providing a new sense of purpose for our campaigners.

The Conference

With this in mind, we have arranged a national day-long conference, to be held at Central Hall, Westminster, London on Saturday, 25 January 2020 - to which all pro-European organisations and individual campaigners are invited - to take stock and start to formulate a strategy for our movement going forward.

We are making contact with all of the other pro-EU campaign organisations, including the European Movement, Best for Britain, the People's Vote constituent organisations - as well as non-aligned campaign groups.  We want to bring all stakeholders together.

Programme Contents

During the conference we are planning to cover the following topics:

• What Were They Thinking? – public attitudes to Brexit and Boris Johnson
• How We Lost Again, What Can We Learn? – the grassroots view of the post-referendum campaign
• A Hostile Environment – defending EU citizens in the UK & UK citizens in the EU
  
• Brexit Isn’t “Getting Done”! – exposing Brexit’s lies & failures
• Let’s Stay Friends – building new links & partnerships with Europe
• Getting Ourselves Organised – who is going to lead the pro-EU fightback?
  
• Democracy In Crisis – how do we achieve a parliament that represents all the people?
• The Post-truth Age – how can we bring trust & honesty back to politics?

The programme is still subject to final adjustments, but hopefully the above gives you an idea of the ground that we are hoping to cover.

Speakers

We are carefully selecting speakers, not on the basis of celebrity, but on the basis of their ability to help us to achieve our objectives i.e. contributing insight and practical ideas for the way ahead for our movement.  Speakers confirmed so far include:

• Naomi Smith, CEO of Best for Britain
• Dominic Grieve QC, Former Conservative MP & Minister
• Will Hutton, Columnist, The Observer
• Irina von Wiese, Liberal Democrat MEP (London)
• Polly Toynbee, Columnist, The Guardian
• Steve Bray, Campaigner, SODEM
• Professor Michael Dougan, University of Liverpool
  
• Stephen Dorrell, Chair, European Movement UK
  
• Ros Taylor, Remainiacs Podcast & LSE Brexit Blog
• Denis MacShane, former Europe Minister
• Elena Remigi, Founder, In Limbo Project
• Mike Buckley, Director, Labour for a Public Vote
• Professor van Deurzen, Voices for Europe
• Dr Mike Galsworthy, Scientists for EU
• Henry Stannard, Project Marshall
• Sue Wilson, Chair, Bremain in Spain

Our Sponsors

We are grateful to both the European Movement UK and Best for Britain for their generous sponsorship of this conference, without which it would not have been possible to hold in this form.  It is vital that the pro-EU organisations are able to collaborate effectively in the years to come.  The enthusiastic backing being given by these two national organisations for this grassroots-led initiative augurs well for the future successful joint working of the various components of our movement.  Thank you EM and BfB!