For Those Interested in Doing Good, Not Just Looking Good

Attention all activists! This piece by Dominic Cummings -- centrally involved with Vote Leave in Britain -- illustrates how evidence-based issue campaigning looks different from the more common talk-the-good-talk-and-get-your-face-on-TV variety: https://dominiccummings.com/2017/01/09/on-the-referendum-21-branching-histories-of-the-2016-referendum-and-the-frogs-before-the-storm-2/

Non-British readers may find the following glossary helpful:

No10 — 10 Downing Street — the PM’s office

Downing Street — Cabinet more generally

Westminster — the government

SW1 stands for Southwest London. Broader than the government, includes the media, probably even more

N1 — north London. I don’t know what it signifies.

“Vote Leave” (VL) is the name of the campaign he ran. It had some official status. There were several leave campaigns. This campaign was officially nonpartisan. Several Labour politicians were involved in it, but there was another Brexit campaign, “Labour Leave” that was partisan. The UKIP (i.e., the tiny party wholly devoted to Brexit) had its own campaign, Leave.EU. Grassroots Out was yet another campaign.

GOTV — Get Out The Vote

NHS — National Health Service, government run medicine in UK

HQ — the people running VL?

MP — members of parliament, often MPs affiliated with VL, but not involved day to day

backbencher — junior MP, ie, not in cabinet (nor shadow cabinet)

IN — the campaign to remain In, as opposed to Out of the EU.

I’m not sure whether he means this informally, or specific groups.

The main group is "Britain Stronger in Europe,” aka “The In Campaign”

ECJ — European Court of Justice in Luxembourg — judges EU law

ECHR — European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg — technically not EU

EEC — European Economic Community — predecessor to EU

Purdah — 6 weeks before the election, in which the government is constrained

Here are some people. He sometimes refers to them by given name and sometimes by surname.

David Cameron — Tory Prime Minister (PM), opposed to Brexit.

George Osborne — 2nd most powerful Tory, anti-Brexit

Ed Miliband — head of Labour until shortly before campaign, anti-Brexit

won that position by defeating brother David

Jeremy Corbyn — head of Labour during campaign, anti-Brexit

Boris Johnson — cabinet Tory, pro-Brexit. celebrity face of Brexit

Michael Gove — cabinet Tory, pro-Brexit.

Nigel Farage — head of the tiny UKIP (i.e., the Brexit political party)

Malcolm Pearson — former head of UKIP, formerly Tory MP

Dominic Cummings is the author. Not a politician, i.e., not public figure.

Previously worked for Gove.

Gisela Stuart — Labour MP, pro-Brexit, chair of VL.

During the Blair government had been involved in renegotiating EU.

Kate Hoey — Labour MP, pro-Brexit, involved in VL, not mentioned in essay

Steve Baker — backbench Tory MP, previous IT career

Jeremy Heywood — head civil servant

Ed Llewelan — chief of staff for Cameron

Craig Oliver — head of PR for Cameron

Jean Monnet & Jacques Delors — architects of the ECSC/EEC/EU