I remember standing here a year ago – for in fact the second time – and telling you all about 2017, and the limbering up of Article 50 and then the snap election. Not to mention the marches and talks we attended, and it all seemed good and in great spirits. Whilst I knew it was going to a tough year, none of us could have put our money on just how exacting and distressing 2018 would be.
So buckle up and join the ride back through last year!
In foggy January 2018, we were coming round to the first January since the gun of A50 had gone off, and we were looking at hosting the Great Eastern March only 10 weeks later. As I recall, within only a moment of the AGM, we hosted Robert Peston a few nights earlier giving a talk in Woodbridge, and cheekily got our banners up outside, giving the town a run for its Brexit money! He, like us, then and now, can’t understand why we are pushing on with Brexit.
It was at the same time we joined forces – so to speak – with Christina Burt and the Open Britain crew at Bury St Edmunds, and since that time we have seen the Bury group grow from strength to such strength. They’ve just challenged the Borough of St Edmondsbury to a Brexit-loaded question based on their research that people in the town of Bury want a People’s Vote.
Back to the Alliance. In January we started back on the street with a windy old day in Ipswich. We whizzed over to Cambridge for a spot of AC Grayling and his wonderful vision on how this might all end, and then the diary says we were back on Southwold High Street singing the song of remain on another blowy Saturday!
Come February, in fact one snowy night, we started our outreach events and held a meeting at the Swann in Halesworth. It was rammed, with people sitting on the bar when they didn’t have chairs! This again brought great exposure for the Alliance and new members and followers joined in their dozens. One of them was Andrew Borham, a Suffolk-born press release editor for the European Parliament in Brussels – his mum being sent to check us out!
From there we were flat-out getting ready for the Great Eastern March – Saturday 24th March. It was a fabulous experience c/o Suffolk Uni. We had an indoor Euro Market full of music, merchandise and EU materials, closely backed-up by the Lecture Lounge where great speakers such as Jessica Simor QC and regional LibDem chair Jo Hayes shared their perspective on Brexit. Meanwhile, the infamous Tim Evans in his Union suit, who is one of the main characters from the Remain theatre of characters, came along and helped support the outside stage. There, Alex Mayer MEP, Daisy Cooper – the LibDem prospective parliamentary candidate, Jack Abbot, a local Labour Councillor, among many others, all spoke. It was here indeed that the dear undergrad, Jack Dart, made his maiden speech. With pizza and fresh coffees, they were getting our young and stoic – as it was cold — to start to think in a more contemporary way about Brexit: its impact and how to stop it. I’m glad to say we had a snippet of TV fame, and good press coverage, even if the march that we could afford only went round a very large block! Dear goodness the spirit was willing of those thousand or so people!
Now around this time we started some letter-writing to local MPs, and our writing circle on the East Anglia Daily Times became more prolific. I want to especially acknowledge the skills of Mike Burt, who came to the fore and has helped develop the political writing group which now plays Brexit ping-pong on the editor’s page with some 30 very skilled letter-writing contributors from our membership. Also Richard Hare, who came forward and offered to take the Event projects in hand with his skill of handling the press professionally for me on such occasions.
Around this time, we cranked up our formal writing to the MPs, and its fair to say that Coffey, Poulter, Aldous and Cartlidge and the rest have had a good few hundred letters from members and followers of the Suffolk EU Alliance. We have kept up this habit of emails and letters challenging and questioning why our MPs wish to promote Brexit at any cost – even a hard Brexit it seems. Our MPs have rarely answered, and when they do it is generic spin and remains “the will of the people”.
Our meetings this year have barely touched the floor of the Cherry Tree as they have, for the greater part, been held at the more spacious Seckford Golf Club in Woodbridge. There, Jackie has kindly arranged for supper at 6.30pm for those who want it, where members and followers have duly pitched up and enjoyed the fellowship, gossip, speakers and political views of each other. This will go on every other week until we feel otherwise!
So just as our group meets every other week, so do the Committee. In-between, we have held numerous street stalls and Brexitometers all over the county, bringing voters to the table to open up and talk about Brexit. Whilst there have not been pistols at dawn, it hasn’t been all been plain sailing either, with the cheeky names of “Golden Boots” and “Super Gammon” on the tip of our tongues with whoever has turned up to challenge us – and wow haven’t they just! But we’ve got through it all, whatever the weather.
Now in the middle of all of this – somewhere about halfway through the year – two important things took place: the invention of the “Brexitometer”, which is a question and sticker visual poster that lifts up the bonnet on the status of Brexit to anyone walking by. Also, very significantly, it opened up the second important thing – the concept of the “People’s Vote”, with its alternative look and logo of purples and greens. To facilitate this new movement, we saw the coming together in Millbank, Westminster, of the many Remain steering groups under one roof. The People’s Vote has become the focus brand for rebel MPs, celebrities and the public alike to consider and discuss where this whole Brexit process is going and whether on reflection some two and more years later we should have another vote – a People’s Vote!
Facebook has been a great platform to launch this, and for the public it all looks pretty plausible. Back in the tent here in Suffolk we know it’s a different story, and we protect you from the confusion of how this all runs by saying to you and all the political parties of the county – Suffolk EU Alliance is the representative to People’s Vote in Suffolk…apart from Bury!
This year Jackie coordinated some of the thousands of sheets of signatures on the petitions of people looking for a People’s Vote, and I was lucky enough to go with a group to No. 10 to witness the People’s Vote team take the count through the gates and up to the black front door to hand over the many boxes of petitions. Mrs. May knows very well that the People’s Vote exists.
During this time another phenomenon has grown, and that is the group known as ‘SODEM’ – run by the illustrious Steve Bray. He has been protesting outside the Houses of Parliament for months and months – every day that Parliament sits – with his big blue and yellow hat and flags, sharing his enthusiasm to Remain with both foreign tourists and Lords and Ladies alike. With banners on long sticks – and even a ferry I note this morning – he has plagued the TV media – and got their attention! It is here, on College Green, that most of the madder and badder events have started or finished, including the big yellow B*****ks to Brexit bus!
Madeleina Kay, the EU Supergirl, and the plumpish Faux BoJo, all hang out at SODEM. Similarly our members have spent hours with them all flying the Suffolk banners whilst singing songs of hope.
SODEM photos of all of this and more have gone onto our newly developed website designed by Anna Damski who joined the committee mid-year. The website was on the to-do list last year and came off nicely. It is more functional – useful and informative – and dare I say it, profitable, because it does attract a stream of donations, where people can say ‘thank you for keeping up the pace – I can’t be there but I can help the cause’ and they give!
There were of course two superb Remain marches in London – one in June, which was in the glorious summer sunshine, and the latter one on the 20th October which was mind blowing for its size and full of creative vigour and love. We marched as some 700,000 through London, and regardless of what Richard Tice of Leave Means Leave says now, we were the many!
Jason Hunter, from the Three Men In A Pub videos, dropped by for a visit. He came to an open event in Saxmundham on a miserable October afternoon – it really was a case of if you can do it there, you can do it anywhere! Although the room was packed – around 80 in all – mostly of Remainers, we did have Brexiteers there too. Dearest John, an old vet, came up to us after and said, ‘I have realised that I got my vote so very wrong.’ And from that event a little splinter group called BrexSax has also started to grow.
We’ve also pushed for two other interventions to be strategically in place. As your Chair I would be livid if I were to be sat on my hands when the vote comes along and we’re found to be not ready. So I have started the orchestration of pulling together two areas: the first being East Anglia and how it handles the People’s Vote – and so is PV ready. Anna and Colin Hopkins have supported this progress. The second – and this is important – we have given the local political parties a chance to hook in with our work, with Roger and Philip helping me in this, so that we are now very much in touch with them. What now happens is that the SEUA advertises and delivers the event, and the parties come and help out with their foot soldiers, because for sure if we get the chance of another vote, the campaign can’t be as messy as it was before. Only the Conservative party will not pass on the message to their members.
To wrap up the year we had seasonal winter events: the most charming, yet harrowing, film from David Jones about Brexit – Postcards from the 48% –- organised by Philip and presented at the Cut in Halesworth; we’ve demonstrated in random places and shocked our local MP for Suffolk Coastal by turning up ‘on song’ with flags and fervour; stalls and even events – wherein we wrote letters to all the significant players in the EU and Parliament to ask for them to understand how frustrated we were – Barnier did reply, and understands that we are hostage. All topped off by a wonderful Christmas dinner organised by Jackie and finished off by a European-themed quiz by Colin.
We also made great strides with a formal letter prepared by our writing circle that discussed our concerns at to the infamous Meaningful Vote. It was addressed to the 7 MPs of the county and was taken to the House of Commons and delivered to each of the MPs by hand. A copy then went to the East Anglia Daily Times, and another went to Endeavour House where Suffolk County Council sit – outside of which we held outside the ‘Avenue of Flags’. We were greeted outside by LibDem and Labour councillors, before Jackie and I went in to the building to meet the other Councillors of the County. Let me tell you that we will never, ever forget the arrogance of the Conservative Councillors as they said they were Brexiteers and spat the letters back at us. Remember this is a council that has no cash – so how it will afford Brexit? I know not.
Our final event almost on Christmas Eve was the B2B bus which dropped into Ipswich for an hour and caused quite a stir as the Alliance sang a robust version of We’re Not going to Brexit!
On the formal side of all of this, with the funding, the planning, the safety, the outcomes, is an Alliance that is working 24/7 for the cause. We know firstly this is not futile, and that we are not alone – there are hundreds of groups around the four countries of our union doing the very same, giving the same amount of time, devotion and dedication – battling with their constituents, their MPs and their local business to have the remain voice heard. And be assured there’s just as much going on in Europe, with our UK citizens there, as here.
Now you may well ask, what has the SEUA done for this remain campaign? What has it really achieved? Well you could ask this of the House of Commons too! By being here, we have made a difference. As a grassroots group we are acknowledged, we have great currency, and through our affiliation to the People’s Vote we are a force to be reckoned with. In Suffolk we are the place where people who voted differently can come to: we are the diffusers, we are the educators, we are the listeners, we are the guides, we are the activists, we are the scrutineers. We are Europeans who wish to remain. Thanks to the work of Philip and Richard Hare, to the press we are now the voice of Suffolk: to the BBC and ITV we are their calling place for local contributions. For many we are sanity: somewhere to rest, to chat, to discuss, to despair. Somewhere to believe.
You see 2018 was Year 2 of our national emergency, and here at the Suffolk EU Alliance we have done our part to ensure that voters will NOT BE FORGOTTEN over government whims, and we insist on the best outcome to remain close to Europe, but better still – let’s remain in it.
Julia Ewart
SEUA Chair
7 January 2019