People sometimes ask what slogan could have swayed the Brexit vote: the opposite of the touchstone phrase ‘Take back control’.
There are many suggestions, my own being: ‘Don’t leave — it’s what the French want us to do.’ No Europhile committee would ever have approved a jingoistic slogan, of course; yet the feelings of committed Europeans are irrelevant. Those people will vote Remain in any case. Instead you need to reach the ambivalent, sceptical or mildly hostile.
This raises the central question about communication: do you want to feel good about yourself, or do you want to change the minds of others?
The art of sloganeering can serve two powerful ends — persuasion or cementing tribal allegiance. Usually you can’t do both. Since tribal solidarity was critical for most of our evolutionary history (‘slogan’ derives from a Gaelic word meaning ‘war cry’) we may be unduly drawn to arguments which are good for rallying the troops but useless at growing wider support.
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