It is no good for Scotland and London to complain loudly and ask for their own independence referendums; that is like my household, a Remain stronghold, arguing for independence from our street. As the saying goes, ‘we’re all in this together,’ and this referendum result is simply the return on a political culture within our party, and beyond, that has been entirely focussed on Scotland and London for as long as I can remember. Now, the lost goodwill of the towns and cities in between must concentrate minds, and demand a new way of engaging politically.

It is not just the traditional working class Labour areas that voted Leave either. It is Tory areas, Liberal Democrat areas, and swing seats too. Places we need to win to form a government, places we hope never to lose, and places we have never had a chance of winning before.

But the prospects of achieving anything have not got off to a good start. Talk of forming city states, and condemning the bulk of Britain for being backward and racist, is not a great way of winning hearts and minds. What we have to do is ditch the echo chamber politics.

It is telling that even in my Lincolnshire community that was split roughly 60:40 for Leave, most of the people I speak to in my daily life were for Remain. That 40 per cent of voters moves among, and interacts with itself. We are the internet enabled, globally connected group of small business people, professionals and public sector workers who talk politics, and attend the same social gatherings. But what of the others? They voted leave.

It is imperative that we go the extra mile – sometimes literally – to connect with the voters that are difficult to reach. Taking the easy option of tweeting our views, and then grumbling when we get the wrong result just is not good enough anymore. There simply are not sufficient people out there to win over by those means.

Yet that is all that ever seems to be done. Rural areas and ex-mining towns are not reached by internet campaigns and social media blitzes. It is good old fashioned foot-slogging, speeches and rallies that get the attention and votes round here. We need poster boards in the fields; they had them, we didn’t. And this despite the fact that on this occasion many of the farmers were on our side.

Around here we never saw the national Remain campaign. There were no visits from any big-name Remain campaigners. Not even any of the numerous Tory politicians fighting on our side, stopped by to chat with voters. There was no discernible Britain Stronger In Europe campaign here either, but Vote Leave were holding rallies, and visits every few days, with several of their much smaller pool of high-profile politicians making visits.

Sure, the local Labour party pulled the stops out as far as we could. I have still got the blisters to prove it, but what we could muster paled into insignificance compared to the Vote Leave forces ranged against us. All we had was the same four or five dedicated activists with our own cars, and a big box of leaflets, trying to cover four hundred square miles of dispersed villages and towns. Our core supporters were busy at work, whilst Vote Leave’s were mostly retired.

And yet, still, 40 per cent of our electorate backed Remain. That is a fantastic result in a seat where the local member of parliament was for Leave, and the bulk of the campaigning was for Leave.

So there I was watching on Twitter and Facebook as London activists walked round in packs, drumming up votes among an educated and young electorate who were most likely going to vote Remain come what may, whilst all our voters ever got was the constant bash, bash, bash of the right-wing message on the television and in the press.

This was a two-way referendum, not a general election. Every vote counted, and there was no excuse for the level of neglect. Tory voters were as likely to vote Remain as any. Plenty of them came out and thanked us for the work we were doing.

If you want to win votes like this, we need help. Elections are decided by peer groups. If all the people you know and socialise with vote one way, you do too. That is why London, Edinburgh, Manchester and Oxford voted Remain. It is also why Lincolnshire voted Leave.

So instead of forever asking our small number of activists to abandon our own communities and help out in the nearest big city, why not arrange to come and do campaign days with us? How about a programme of twinning constituencies and pooling activists? The price of not doing so is painfully apparent right now.

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Christabel Edwards is a Labour party activist. She tweets @Christabel321

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