Brexit is losing its media support as People’s Vote and Revoke grab the momentum Two former high-profile Brexiteers are now so thoroughly disillusioned that they want it called off

Just as part of the popular press helped decide the EU referendum in 2016, so now the news media is slowly undoing Brexit with its relentless coverage of the failure of its implementation.

LBC talk show host Nick Ferrari and Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne, two former high-profile Brexiteers, have covered the project’s tortured journey in minute detail and are now so thoroughly disillusioned that they want it called off.

“Individual media influencers are losing faith” i's opinion newsletter: talking points from today Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription. Ian Burrell

The pair have been on the frontline of an all-encompassing story which has become the journalistic equivalent of the CIA psyops ruse of playing Queen’s ‘We Are The Champions’ on repeat at full volume for 30 hours at a time.

Changes to the United Kingdom’s relationship with Europe will shape the life prospects of generations yet unborn. Today’s 24-7 media demands that such an epic story be constantly updated.

Rolling news channels field a constant procession of talking heads on Westminster’s College Green, chewing over rumours and hypotheticals. The Brexit debate on Twitter and Facebook, like a harassed member of Theresa May’s Cabinet, never goes to sleep.

Westminster’s impasse is amplified

Yet the story itself has hardly moved on in nearly three years.

This hiatus is the antithesis of what today’s news media craves, as it seeks to tug our sleeves with phone-based notifications of “breaking news”.

If this was a different issue – the meltdown in Venezuela, say, or plastic waste in the oceans – the fickle media would have passed its boredom threshold and put coverage on hold.

But with Brexit that’s not an option. So BBC Radio 4’s Today programme breathlessly bills almost every day’s discussions as momentous in the evolution of the UK’s parliamentary democracy. We receive ‘alerts’ on our mobile devices from news outlets, generated by political correspondents who feel they are part of history and must say something. And still the deadlock prevails.

Westminster’s impasse is amplified by a round-the-clock media echo chamber which is compounding a sense of inertia. Business leaders cannot escape the constant hum of negativity.

The global influence of UK media and London’s position as an international news hub ensures that our standing as a political basket case reverberates each day around the world, from New York Times newsletters to satirical slots on German TV.

Leavers less leav-y

“A drumbeat of Brexit stalemate and delay. It is corrosive to the Leave cause, undermining the sense of empowerment felt by its supporters three years ago” Ian Burrell

None of this helps Brexiteers. Two of the Leave campaign’s biggest media cheerleaders, the Daily Mail and Daily Express, long ago softened their editorial positions on Brexit, following a change of editor at the Mail and a change of ownership at the Express. Both sound exasperated, appealing to MPs to back Mrs May’s unpopular deal and to allow the country (and news cycle) to move on.

Now individual media influencers are losing faith. Writing in a personal capacity for the Open Democracy website this week, Oborne, former chief political commentator of the Daily Telegraph, declared that Brexit had “gone sour” and that he and fellow Leave voters need to “swallow our pride, and think again”.

Soon afterwards, Ferrari, the “man-of-the people” breakfast presenter on national radio station LBC, told his 1m-plus audience he has had “enough” of Brexit. “Just bloody stay and we’ll move on to other things,” he said, citing the need to cover issues such as knife crime, “under-performing” schools and an NHS which is “creaking at the seams”.

Media professionals are not immune to the tedium of Brexit, even political junkies. Journalists get an adrenaline rush from the unpredictability and diversity of news. It’s why many chose the job.

Corrosive to Leave’s cause

It’s true that a significant niche audience is energised by the current political drama and can’t get enough of it. Some news outlets are selling tickets for live Brexit debates.

But mass media products like the Mail and The Sun are well aware that many readers are frustrated and bored by the topic. The print editions of both papers preferred the story of Darcey Bussell’s departure from Strictly Come Dancing to Mrs May’s latest expedition to Brussels.

These papers played a crucial role in 2016. Years of stories on Brussels bureaucracy (and immigration), set the scene for Vote Leave’s ‘Take Back Control’ campaign on Facebook.

Today’s UK news output is a drumbeat of Brexit stalemate and delay. It is corrosive to the Leave cause, undermining the sense of empowerment felt by its supporters three years ago.

The media momentum is now with Remainers. While the Brexit press once rallied readers with calls to break the status quo, it is social media hashtags demanding a #PeoplesVote or #RevokeArticle50 that now benefit from a sense of taking action.

There is a new Twitter hashtag #RemainerNow for those who have switched sides. And it celebrates Oborne and Ferrari’s change of heart because it knows that, ‘people’s vote’ or not, there are many who look to media opinion formers for their lead.