Morally, the Remain campaign deserves to win. Tactically, it only knows how to lose.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Remain campaign has economic sense, political reality and moral righteousness on its side. Sadly, this won’t stop it from losing its protracted battle to prevent the UK leaving the EU.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that its tactical ineptness and catastrophic misreading of politics mean that it probably deserves to lose.

Take the most recent hullabaloo over Boris Johnson and the perplexing decision by a district judge that he must appear in court over the claims he made during the referendum campaign. Even setting aside the legal rights and wrongs – it’s hard to imagine any precedent for ‘misconduct’ actually being extended to include campaign sloganising – the celebrations among Remainers are completely premature and misplaced.

If I were a hard Brexiter, I would love the court case. It would confirm all my narrative about the political and legal system doing everything in its power to obstruct the ‘will of the people’. It is icing on the populist cake, as it shows the determination of the so-called ‘liberal establishment’ to bring down people who speak out against the EU. The fact that the decision was taken in the early stages of the Tory leadership contest will fuel crazy conspiracists.

Let’s go back a stage to the European elections.

Again, Remainers – and a large portion of the British left – celebrated the throwing of a milkshake over Nigel Farage. They thought it oh-so-funny that a man whose opinions they rightly despise should be targeted in such a way. The concerns of Brendan Cox – widower of the murdered MP Jo Cox – that there should be zero tolerance for attacks in the street? They fell on deaf ears. Milkshakes weren’t ‘violence’!

A few days later, Farage came top in the Brexit polls, much as predicted. His dry-cleaning bill had gone up, but his credibility hadn’t gone down.  In fact, his folk-hero status among a third of the population was probably enhanced.

Of course, you wouldn’t know that Farage had won the election if you read the tweets or emails of the Remain campaign. They are in a world of blissful denial, as if they might have puffed on some Iranian opium in the manner of Tory leadership hopeful Rory Stewart.

Desperately, they tot up the votes of people who voted Green, Lib Dem, Change UK, SNP and Plaid Cymru, to demonstrate that more people support staying in the EU than embrace Farage’s vision of British nationalism. They can do maths, but they can’t do politics.

If they want to compete with The Brexit Party, they need to get all their pro-European canards in a row and stand as a single party. But they couldn’t manage it in the European elections and haven’t managed it in the forthcoming Peterborough by-election either.

Even more desperately, Remainers start calculating the number of people who didn’t vote and claiming that Farage’s success was built on a tiny proportion of the electorate. They forget that elections – and referendums, for that matter – are won and lost by people who do vote, not by those who don’t.

Let’s go back another stage and look at the way the Remainers attack the Leave campaign.

Sometimes, it’s quite specific, as in David Lammy’s mistaken comparison between the European Research Group and the Nazis. The ERG that counts Sajid Javid and Suella Braverman among its members? Lammy’s comments were not only highly provocative and counter-productive, but also defy all historical analysis. The cranky and outspoken free-marketers in the ERG wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the Third Reich.

Sometimes, the attacks are more generalised, but equally undermining to the Remain cause. Leavers are frequently patronised, labelled as stupid and as people who need to be ‘educated’. Labour MP Lisa Nandy, for instance – who is a genuine thinker and by no means a Corbynista – has been attacked for daring to oppose a second referendum. Her ‘job’, according to supercilious FPBE types on Twitter, is to explain to her constituents in Wigan why they are so hopelessly wrong about Brexit.

Let’s be clear. When Corbyn tries to avoid a second referendum, he does it out of fear that Brexit will be reversed. He has always opposed the EU and is completely disingenuous in all his pronouncements. Nandy, on the other hand, is someone who speaks from the heart and deserves to be treated with respect. Instead, she attracts contempt and opprobrium.

If we do get the point of a second referendum and there's an option to stay in the EU, I'll vote once again to stay. It's my belief that the big issues facing us - climate change, control of multinational corporations and finance, international security - can only be tackled at a transnational level. The EU is an imperfect institution, but one which has, on balance, been overwhelmingly positive. 

I believe, however, that a second referendum is becoming less and less likely and that a no-deal nightmare looms. If a new poll does go ahead, the result is highly unpredictable. But I would bet that if the tactics of the Remain campaign don’t change radically, Farage will end up having the last laugh.