At some point after the Brexit vote in 2016, many Brits seemed to think it possible, perhaps even likely, that a second eu referendum would take place. Leave’s victory was not just slender, it had also been delivered by something that was, prima facie, unachievable. Making good on those promises wouldn’t just be a disaster, it would be impossible, since the business of trade, treaties and technocrats was a world away from napkin-scribble soundbites delivered by Leave’s foremost proponents.
The official story of Leave’s victory is that it came down to Dominic Cummings’ data-happy deployment of catchy falsehoods, mass-targeting their dodgy promises at swing voters via social media. Why then, couldn’t Remain profit online via these same platforms, once each of those promises fell apart? They’d lost the online war, but they might still win the peace, and lead a chastened nation to accept the error of their ways.
So how did the rush to rejoin end up beached on digital sands, with the country’s trajectory toward the hardest possible Brexit still fully on course, all under the stewardship of a clown?
What led us down this nightmare path? What happened to the #fbpe dream?
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In the days immediately after the referendum, some strange things happened. Nigel Farage resigned from ‘frontline politics’, and Boris Johnson was a non-starter in Tory leadership contest that had been spurred by David Cameron’s own resignation. Having promised a glorious, golden future, it seemed like Brexit’s biggest blowhards wanted no part in the fiddly difficulties of actually making it happen. If a lack of conviction was apparent on the victors’ side, perhaps it’s not surprising that prominent Remainers were doubly afflicted. Faced with a stunning defeat and the sense that the country had moved drastically away from the interests of any of the country’s mainstream parties, most fell into line, went quiet or, if they spoke at all, did so in bland platitudes about ‘the will of the people’ or ‘the best Brexit possible’.
There were some notable exceptions – the Europhilia of Tory stalwarts Anna Soubry and Dominic Grieve would effectively end both their political careers – but the political landscape of post-vote Britain was characterised by an absence of resistance. In this vacuum, an army of agitated Remainers surged online, and it seemed like it might build up enough momentum to strike a counter-blow in the social media information war. In one of those quirks of the time-hole in which we now live, the #fbpe hashtag only dates to the 25th October 2017, fully 17 months after the Brexit vote. Its first use was also unrelated to the uk referendum, sparked by a more generalised profession of pro-eu sentiment from Dutchman Hendrik Klaasens. ‘#Proeu tweeps organize Follow Back Saturdays!’ he wrote. ‘Type #FollowBackProeu or #fbpe if you want to get more #Proeu followers. Let’s do this!’
This received an enthusiastic reception from Remainers, who adopted it as a badge of honour and a practical way to identify, and accumulate, fellow travellers on their respective timelines. Sometimes their accounts would spell out the hashtag itself for clarity – elsewhere it was amended to From Britain, Proud European as a further punt at localisation, but ‘#fbpe’ was the clarion call that suffixed their posts and bios. Soon it was to be seen alongside the familiar surfeit of Union Jacks, Saltires and Welsh dragons – sometimes all at once – now accumulated beside the eu halo on their usernames.
As a show of numbers, it was heartening to the faithful. It coalesced Remainers into a single, recognisable bloc. It was also a convenient vehicle for signal boosting their collective message, useful in a British media environment incapable of skewering the lies, false promises and outright incompetence of Leave and the uk government. #fbpe was a megaphone chain of users, on hand to amplify facts unmentioned in the starkly Leave-leaning printed press, or stories inadequately covered in the more sober, balance-obsessed broadcast media.
