𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The seeds of Brexit were sown when Daily Express journalist Patrick O’Flynn arrived back in his office at the end of the 2010 political recess. The fallout from the global financial crisis two years earlier was still reverberating around European capitals, and the EU was in a mess. As the paper’s chief political commentator, Patrick had spent his summer break in part brooding over Britain’s struggling relationship with Europe.

From complicated, burdensome red tape to unnecessary and costly laws, Brussels had hijacked hundreds of thousands of decisions from Parliament. There was a sickening realisation in some quarters that an army of unelected Eurocrats in thrall to France and Germany now decided everything from farming to fishing to food safety.

The 27 separate EU countries – and economies – were creaking under the increasing pressures of Europe-wide integration. It simply could not continue. So Patrick had a suggestion for his editor Peter Hill when the two men sat down in the paper’s offices in the City of London – that the Express should become the first national title to advocate for Britain leaving the European Union and, furthermore, campaign hard to actually make it happen.

As he later noted, hard as it now might seem to believe, this was radical thinking at the time, viewed by the majority of the political class and Fleet Street as “way off beam”. “It’s a nice idea,” one Fleet Street veteran told Patrick. “Of course, it’ll never happen.” But Patrick, who lost his life to cancer at the tragically young age of 59 in May last year, knew Express readers. He knew the British. He strongly suspected many people had had their fill of the faceless EU superstate. And it turned out he was right.

“The EU was failing and nothing good for Britain was going to emerge from it,” he would recall. “I knew our readers were intensely Eurosceptic. Frankly they did not like being ruled from Brussels. Now that the EU economy was so obviously failing, with the eurozone debt crisis in full swing, it was clear to me that the one pragmatic reason in favour of EU membership was fast disappearing.”

And so, on November 25, 2011, under the front page headline “Get Britain out of Europe: we want our country back”, the paper thundered: “From this day forth our energies will be directed to furthering the cause of those who believe Britain is Better Off Out,” read our leader column.

“The famous and symbolic Crusader who adorns our masthead will become the figurehead of the struggle to repatriate British sovereignty from a political project that has comprehensively failed.

“After far too many years as the victims of Brussels larceny, bullying, over-regulation and all-round interference, the time has come for the British people to win back their country and restore legitimacy and accountability to their political process.”

A petition was launched asking readers for their support and views. Unsurprisingly, many in Britain’s political and media establishment mocked the paper’s crusade as a “fringe” issue. Even Hill himself was initially a little sceptical that the campaign, though heartfelt, would amount to anything.

Speaking at Patrick’s funeral last year, he admitted it was the “perfect campaign” but that it still came as a shock when Brexit actually happened.

But as Hill soon discovered, the response from readers was extraordinary – with 99% of those who got in touch firmly backing leaving the EU and regaining control of our sovereignty. Within a few months, more than 375,000 people had signed the petition for a referendum on EU membership.

So on January 8, 2011, the paper launched another broadside under a front page cartoon of our iconic Crusader mascot towering above the symbolic White Cliffs of Dover. Inside, the paper thundered: “From the very start, and long before in the planning, those behind the EU have been intent on one goal: the creation of a single political and economic European state with absolute sovereignty over the nations under its control.

“In pursuit of this end, the traditional rights and freedoms of the peoples of Europe have been systematically swept away with a ruthless efficiency that would have been the envy of Napoleon and Hitler.

“At the heart of the EU lies an arrogant cadre of politicians and bureaucrats who scoff at democracy… I defy anyone to produce one single act or law of the EU and the European Court that has actually benefited Britain… and still they want more.”

As a result of years of campaigning, David Cameron finally made a manifesto commitment in the 2015 general election to undertake a renegotiation of the UK’s membership of the EU which would be followed by an in-out referendum. Cameron, who hoped the promise would help his party, as he put it, “stop banging on about Europe”, tried his best but was swatted away by Europe in his attempts to renegotiate British membership. In its supreme arrogance, the EU elite never thought for a moment that Britain would Vote Leave.

But the Express strongly suspected ordinary Britons were fed up.

And on June 23, 2016, the Express published its Referendum front page – a union flag emblazoned with the headline “Vote Leave Today”, telling readers: “The moment of destiny has finally arrived”. And it had. A lacklustre Remain campaign deployed “Project Fear” to try and keep Britain under the thumb of Brussels. They failed completely.

Six short years after Patrick O’Flynn – who in the meantime had left the paper and been elected an MEP for UKIP – walked into the Express offices with an idea for a campaign, the country voted 52% to 48% in favour of Brexit of a whopping national turnout of 72% – the highest ever for a UK-wide referendum.

Two days after the vote, writing under the headline “It’s taken years but we’ve got our country back”, Patrick addressed readers directly in the Express of the outcome: “It has been the greatest privilege and honour of my life to play my part. And together we have done the greatest thing that any of us will ever do. We have, as the now famous slogan goes, got our country back.

“We must now prove that the fears of the Remain voters are ill-judged… We do not want to be Little England but truly Great Britain trading with the world and serving as a beacon for democracy and freedom. This isn’t the end of all Britain’s problems, just the start of being able to tackle them ourselves. And it feels great.”

Ten years on, the Express is still fighting for a Proper Brexit. We won’t give up because we know you won’t.