[dazc]

No, you are correct and having a side, as such, was the wrong term. Swap 'his side' for people who were fed up of political posturing and just wanted to get things done. That thing was obviously Brexit, at the time, but I think it also applies to 'things' in general.

In other words, taking the Covid issue head-on and making decisions in spite of what the media reaction would be may be something that the same group of people could support?

What we have now is a PM and Govt being criticised from all 'sides'. A classic example of trying to please everyone and actually pleasing no one, if you like?

[rsynnott]

> In other words, taking the Covid issue head-on and making decisions in spite of what the media reaction would be may be something that the same group of people could support?

I don't think they would have, though, at all. The "get Brexit done" sentiment is mostly popular amongst people who discount the chance of Brexit having any significant impact on their lives (there's polling on this; the most pro-brexit people are also, oddly, the ones most likely to think that Brexit won't actually do anything much in terms of practical impact on their everyday lives). Whereas decisive action on covid would have been, in the short to medium term, far more disruptive than what has actually been done.

[thu2111]

How is that odd? Isn't that to be expected? The argument against Brexit made by the Remain campaign consisted almost entirely of very bad things will happen, the sky will fall, mass unemployment etc. If you don't believe that it's natural to be more pro Brexit.

Actually that last sentence may not be obvious. On his blog, Dominic Cummings made a rather important point about the UK and EU that largely escaped notice: the EU is broadly unpopular with a clear majority of the British population. The idea that the EU sucks is widely accepted. The referendum was a (somewhat) close match only because a significant proportion of the people who don't like the EU and would have wanted to leave feared the terrible consequences they were promised.

People who genuinely support the EU as a project has never really got higher than about a third of the population:

https://dominiccummings.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screensh...

This is why the EU/Remain strategy during the campaign was so unrelentingly negative. The message was consistently not the EU is great and we should stay because it makes sense, the message was the UK's nominal allies will inflict great punishment if it leaves. This was a rather cynical but understandable political calculation when you see the polls. Fear motivates. It nearly dominated and caused Remain to win.