I can’t be the only one who’s stared out of the window lately and wondered what I could do to stop Brexit happening, before being crushed by a feeling of insignificance. In more desperate moments I try to reassure myself that somewhere someone in a position of authority must be trying to stop this madness. Millions of us are like sleeper agents, just waiting for a resistance movement to join and co-ordinate us. Now maybe that moment is here.

Nick Clegg book will reveal How to Stop Brexit Read more

Nick Clegg is releasing a handbook called How to Stop Brexit (And Make Britain Great Again). Hopefully the sub-title is the only thing borrowed from Donald Trump, otherwise liberals across Britain are going to be shocked. “Crikey, Clegg’s changed his tune, he says the best way to stop Brexit is build a wall, launch nuclear weapons at North Korea and employ white supremacists. Still, at least he’s more progressive than Tim Farron.”

According to the publisher, the book empowers us to prevent Brexit by taking “simple, practical, effective measures, including step-by-step plans”. Which makes it sound like a guerrilla training manual for miffed liberals. Presumably we’ll be drilled on how to hijack polite conversation and convince our friends that Brexit must be stopped. Maybe this is just the first step, and next year Clegg will open training camps, where instead of uphill runs we’ll face uphill struggles, and where an assault course is replaced with a conversation course. Of course, maybe it really is a manual for a would-be militia, though that’s as likely as armed insurgents moving to leaflet-based campaigning.

Clegg has correctly identified a problem though – there is a genuine need for leadership against Brexit and it’s not coming from the leaders of our two major parties. Both apparently wanted to remain in the EU and both are now fully signed-up members of the Brexit club, a situation I find eye-rubbingly stupefying. If they’re going to desert a cause they believed in little over a year ago, then the rest of us are going to have to organise outside the traditional political machinery. Everyone else is doing it.

For the 48%, this was a day of despair | Jonathan Freedland Read more

Both the hard right and hard left have set up their own media and are savvy social media operators. Remainers should learn from them. It’s important to learn the right lessons, though – rapidly rebutting incorrect stories and creating shareable graphics are great, but let’s not add to an already toxic atmosphere by abusing opponents or relying too much on clickbait. I’ve never seen pro-EU clickbait, but even the idea of it makes me cringe. “EU negotiator offers his seat to a pregnant woman. What happens next will blow your mind AND THE INTERNET.”

Hopefully the book will help rally the 48% and provide a more coordinated approach to opposing Brexit, because things feel more desperate by the day. There’s a small part of me that hopes that it’s all a bit of a wind-up, and that it turns out to be one of those ironic advice books where all the options are completely futile. There could be a chapter called “How to Change the Mind of the Prime Minister” where it simply says: “Forget it. Try doing what I do every night – cry yourself to sleep and hope that one day you’ll wake up and it was all a bad dream.” Or every page just says “YOU CAN’T”.

• Matt Forde performs A Show Hastily Re-written in Light of Recent Events – Again!, daily at the Edinburgh festival fringe until 27 August