How groupthink polarized Brexit

A new film about the U.K.'s 2016 EU referendum will air on Monday night. Watching the grueling, relentless campaign play out in Channel 4's Brexit drama, as I did at a pre-screening in December, brings to life the reality of a political campaign.

It also shows how bitter and divisive any second referendum could be. An out-of-control focus group scene captures perfectly the strength of feeling that existed then, let alone how it could be now.

As former deputy director of the Remain campaign, it also reminds me of the many things I wish we could have done differently: Successfully persuading more non-political national treasures to speak out; landing a relatable and tangible economic case against withdrawing from the EU; avoiding a popularity contest between Boris Johnson and David Cameron … I could go on.

But, as I relived the events of more than two years ago, one other question kept returning: Where are the women? As the only woman portrayed on the Remain side (and with just two featured for Leave), I found myself wondering what impact — if any — that had on our decisions, particularly as the majority of "undecided" voters we wanted to reach in 2016 were female.

With speculation growing around a possible second referendum, it’s worth reflecting on how well our campaigns — and those of our successors today — mirror the voting public they hope to persuade.

When we built the board of the Remain campaign, we were conscious that we wanted to be as reflective of society as possible

One hundred years on from female suffrage, we often hear how far we’ve come. After all, the managing director of the IMF, the German chancellor and the British prime minister are all women (for now). But when it comes to many of the rooms where the biggest decisions are made in politics and business, there is still some way to go.

Whatever your view of Theresa May’s handling of Brexit, it is impossible to unsee the arresting images of leading Brexiteers Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker surrounded by their fellow male members of the European Research Group of backbench Euroskeptic Conservatives and a largely male press pack braying outside parliament. They proclaimed it was time to take down May with an air of menace.

It is also hard to imagine some of the language used about “killing off” the prime minister being used about a man. Have male leaders faced warnings they should “bring [their] own noose” to a meeting, that they’ll be “dead” after the “knife gets heated, stuck in [their] front and twisted”?

Regardless of gender, politics is not for the faint-hearted. As Channel 4's "Uncivil War" makes clear, it can be those on your own side from whom you have most to fear, not the official opponents. It also gives the impression politics is largely male, arrogant and nasty, making it even less attractive for young women.

When we built the board of the Remain campaign, we were conscious that we wanted to be as reflective of society as possible. Our board was diverse and stacked full of amazing women such as businesswomen Karren Brady and Jenny Halpern Prince, broadcaster June Sarpong and arts director Jude Kelly. But the executive committee on which I sat was almost all male. Did that impact our decisions?

As Sarpong says in her brilliant book "Diversify," it’s the diversity — gender, ethnicity, sexuality and socio-economic background — that matters in order to reach the best decisions, as much as a diversity of views.

So, perhaps as important to the decisions we took was how like-minded we were and whether we had enough internal challenge to our thinking. Too many same-thinking people lead to narrow, untested courses of action. Thus the assumption that a campaign that rested on presenting the economic risk of Brexit would win was taken as read, after all these arguments won the 2015 U.K. election and Scottish referendum.

The IMF's Christine Lagarde famously asked how different the financial crisis would have been if "Lehman Sisters" had dominated the banking industry. I’m not sure gender stereotypes or imbalance either way are helpful — for every insensitive, aggressive man, there are women with those traits, as there are sensitive, emotionally intelligent men.

But men's and women's responses can be different. One possible campaign poster we considered left me cold. An image of a hand grenade with its pin poised and a joke aimed at women about “pulling out” was funny to some of my male colleagues. I didn’t like the idea of using such a violent image to land a bad joke. If you’re trying to win over the broadest possible audience to your campaign’s position, you should try to make sure the people in the room understand and empathize with the views of the people you’re hoping to reach.

My own theory was played back to me in a tense campaign meeting about who we were putting up for the big BBC debate on the eve of the vote. We had ended up with a plan for seven out of eight possible slots (three on the main panel and five additional experts) being filled by women. “We can’t have that,” was the view of one senior No. 10 figure. “Why not?” I responded. “We just can’t. It’s not serious,” he replied.

British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a press conference after attending a special session of the European Council over Brexit on November 25, 2018 in Brussels, Belgium | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

At first I was pretty peeved. For years as a TV and radio producer, I’d struggled to avoid the male-only "manel" on air, often the result of there being more men at the top of professions from politics, to business, science, tech and beyond. This was almost the reverse — and felt like a victory of sorts for the sisterhood.

After all, just weeks before we had fielded an ass-kicking, all-female side for an ITV debate (Amber Rudd, Nicola Sturgeon and Angela Eagle). But after huffing and puffing from me — and more subtly furrowed brows from female colleagues — we ended up with a four man, four woman mix. As it happened, we had reached the best possible team: A brilliant, diverse and top-quality lineup, reflecting all parties and a whole range of reasons to Remain, including a former supermarket boss, a trade union leader, the mayor of London, the leaders of the Scottish Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens, and a Scottish National Party minister.

As today’s pro- and anti-Brexit campaigns continue the fight, I hope they remember to listen to and reflect the country they seek to persuade, or British politics — second referendum or not — will remain every bit as divided as Channel 4's retelling of the referendum campaign suggests.