Meet the Midlands man who invented the word Brexit
He invented the word “Brexit”, saw David Cameron ignore his advice on how to win the EU referendum, and now Peter Wilding is on a mission to help the region’s firms flourish as we leave Europe.
The word Brexit has come to dominate British society. It is a commonplace part of everyday conversation and peppers news reports.
But the word itself originated in an article written by 54-year-old solicitor Mr Wilding in 2012.
Mr Wilding, who has just taken up a post as Brexit Director at Black Country and Shropshire law firm FBC Manby Bowdler, is named by the Oxford English Dictionary as the man who first used the phrase. He describes it as a “sad word”.
From Grexit to Brexit
At the time of the Greek economic collapse Peter wrote a piece about Britain’s own changing relationship with Europe, and borrowed from the term that was being used to describe Greece’s own crisis over the EU.
He said: “It was a time when the Greeks were having a big issue about whether they would stay in Europe and the word then was ‘Grexit’. It just so happened that I was writing an article and then wrote a ‘B’ instead of a ‘G’ and you have Brexit.”
By coining a pithy term to describe Britain’s break from Europe, Mr Wilding has been credited by some with helping the leave campaign.
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The word, they say, provided an easy catchphrase for people to identify with. It’s a theory Mr Wilding agrees with.
“I think there are leavers on record as saying had we not got that catchy word it would have been more difficult for them to have sold their concept,” he said. “So yes, Brexit was definitely important as a catchphrase for the leave campaign.”
Since coming up with the term the solicitor, who has specialised in European law, working in London, Brussels, Gibraltar and the Channel Islands, has seen the country vote to leave the EU, and is now working to help businesses navigate the change.
Mr Wilding, who has 25 years’ experience of working in European affairs, has a unique insight into the lead-up to the referendum having worked as Media and Policy Director of the Conservative Party in the EU between 2005 and 2008.
He also worked as Europe Director for BSkyB, a job he left to campaign for Britain to ‘take back control of Europe’ through his think-tank, British Influence.
'The only person who wanted this was Cameron'
He explains how as David Cameron prepared to call the vote that would ultimately lead to his resignation, he rejected the chance to campaign on a positive footing, and instead embraced the tactics that had delivered a narrow victory in the Scottish independence referendum.
He said: “I was not in favour of the referendum. Nor was George Osborne.
“The only person who wanted to do this was David Cameron. What I said to him was “you have to roll the pitch before you hold the referendum”, and you have to have at least two years of saying Britain should be ‘leading not leaving’ the EU, which was also the phrase I coined in 2014.
WATCH: Peter Wilding on inventing the word Brexit
“The catchphrase of Brexit was “taking back control”. Ours would have been ‘leading not leaving’ but the problem was that David Cameron had won the Scottish referendum on fear and the economy and the General Election on fear and the economy so he felt, ‘I will win the referendum on fear and the economy’.
“I told him ‘we will lose the referendum if that is the game you are going to play’.
“Him and his pollster said we do not have the time to portray a positive message so the only alternative is to put the fear of God into people.”
He added: “He said it is about ‘tactics not strategy for me; and I remember him leaving the cabinet room whistling, immortally.”
EU leadership
Mr Wilding, who was a remain campaigner, said that successive governments had failed to capitalise on a wish of the majority of British people for the country to take the lead in European politics.
He said: “The British government never took a leadership role in the EU.
“61 per cent of the public wanted the British government to take a leadership role in the EU. They wanted us to play attractive continental football rather than putting 11 men in the penalty box.
“The inevitable result of that is it left the door open for the leave campaign to say we are not leaders in the EU, we are losing, and they capitalised on that.”
Mr Wilding said he also felt that not enough had been done to explain how Britain had played a key role in shaping the EU, and how it had been a positive force for the country.
He said: “I think it has been good for Britain and I think it could have been better for Britain had we taken the leadership role that our allies craved us to take.
“The real tragedy is the fact that we called the shots but nobody knew.
"We did what Churchill wanted us to do, which was to unite the EU economically around a single market, and unite a continent politically after the enlargement to the east but we never told anyone this was a British achievement so we never knew.”
'Deal the best of a bad job'
Mr Wilding does not shy away from his support for remaining in the EU, but says the task now is just to make sure the country is best prepared for leaving.
He said: “For businesses selling goods, which also includes farms, Theresa May’s deal is the best of a bad job because for two years, at least two years, it is just the same, just as a new trade deal is being negotiated.
“But the problem is the vote today is only the end of the beginning. Should that go through the even more difficult task of negotiating a trade deal then begins.
“The first problem right now for the business community is they do not have the information.
“In Ireland and Holland the government has given businesses vouchers so they can get advice to be prepared.
“Businesses here got their first advice from the government last week.”
Poor preparation
Mr Wilding, who lives in Shropshire, said businesses are now focussed on making sure they are prepared in time for the country’s exit from the EU.
He said “Information has been bad, preparation has been bad. Businesses have not been able to carry out commercial impact assessments because they have not had a clue what will materialise.
“Most importantly businesses have not been able to take action, that is why I am here. To help farmers, manufacturers, people in the leisure industry, to prepare better so they’re not crucified by Brexit.
“We are being inundated with requests for information and more.
“Shropshire and the Black Country have been kind of ignored because you have a big farming community, small manufacturing and there has not been the centre where people can come and get immediate useful help.
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“In our manufacturing, engineering, automotive and aerospace industries we benefit from seamless single market supply chains and skills. Everyone needs to think about their commercial contracts, data, employment and property issues now to avoid trouble tomorrow.
“Advice is good but it has to go hand in hand with action. Businesses do not know where to go and that is where we come in.
“We are launching a website with free advice for business. Secondly we have got facilities to give an online check-list for business so they can identify their Brexit check-list and see what they have done.
“What we want to do is give these businesses peace of mind. They need to know whether they need surgery or a plaster and today they do not know.”
Mr Wilding said that the referendum has re-shaped the political landscape, making it unlikely that Westminster will be able to return to “business as usual”.
He said: “It is epic in that it is equivalent to the Corn Laws as a huge division in the country. It is equivalent to the tariff reform by Joseph Chamberlain or appeasement in the 1930s.
“They are core issues that define a country emotionally.
“I think the problem with Brexit and other instances historically is they all ended up with a major political revolution in which parties split and a new alignment emerged from those and I think Brexit will be one of those.
“It is unlikely that we will have business as usual after this is finished.”
