Guido can reveal that the hardcore anti-Brexit campaign founded by Gina Miller, Best for Britain, have been sending around a begging letter in the name of arch-elitist Lord Malloch-Brown to various FTSE CEOs in the hope of raising a staggering £500,000 in the next two weeks. You read that right – half a million pounds in two weeks.

Best for Britain describe how “generous support, both corporate and individual” has got them this far, enabling them to use “fact-based advocacy” to show how “views have been shifting across the country”, while “promot[ing] truthful common sense analysis of the issues” and funding “a range of smaller organisations across the country ensuring a wide range of voices have been heard in this debate”. Who could they possibly mean?

Now they want bags more of corporate cash to have the “greatest possible impact” over the “critical coming weeks”, using both “digital and traditional campaigning” targeted at “local constituency level”. Sounds an awful lot like that micro-targeting stuff that only evil Brexiteers use…

They even encourage donations from foreign corporations, reminding the CEOs that “while we are not in an election period we can accept donations from individuals and companies based both in the UK and abroad”. If this was a pro-Brexit group or a free market think tank, Peter Jukes and the Open Democracy crowd would already be having the mother of all tinfoil hat parties by now…

Ultra-Remain spin shop Best for Britain are spending half a million pounds putting these posters up in Leicester Square, Westfield and Canary Wharf, and buying adverts in the FT, Guardian, Evening Standard and Metro. Way to reach out beyond your base…

The poster campaign purports to represent people “from all walks of life”. It is accompanied by a quote in the press release from Mark Malloch-Brown, the Cambridge-educated millionaire former lobbyist, World Bank vice-president, Economist journalist, friend of Bono and vice-chairman of Soros Fund Management.

Whether it’s spurious court cases or pointless poster campaigns, Remainers are great at wasting other people’s money.

Remainers have been looking for a new figurehead to unite their various factions and form a coherent campaign to reverse Brexit. They have chosen the person possibly least likely to change voters’ minds in Sunderland or Boston: Gordon Brown’s old mate Mark Malloch-Brown. He announced his appointment last night by calling Brexit a “betrayal of our country”. His CV is like a parody of the archetypal metropolitan elitist Remainer…

• Marlborough College and Cambridge educated.
• Former Economist journalist.
• Lobbyist for Sawyer-Miller and FTI consulting.
• Member of the Guardian’s global advisory panel alongside Bono.
• Vice-President of the World Bank.
• Kofi Annan’s Chef de Cabinet at the UN, who he defended over the oil-for-food scandal.
• Consultancy at scandal-hit oil firm Vitol.
• Currently holds six directorships, including two oil and gas companies and an asset management firm, and declares six other sources of remunerated employment, including a political consultancy, private equity firm and insurance company.
• Vice-chairman of Soros Fund Management. That one will really set off the conspiracy theorists. 

The decision of pro-Remain group Best for Britain to give the role to Malloch-Brown is causing ructions among Remain supporters:

The recruitment of @malloch_brown to win public opinion back to Remain is the best news the Brexiteers have had since June 23, 2016. The very incarnation of what made people vote Leave in the first place https://t.co/AD8YIkk5Mf

— Matthew d’Ancona (@MatthewdAncona) December 17, 2017

Open Britain’s attempts to block Brexit are being bankrolled by City PR firms, lobbyists and investment bankers, now Best for Britain is being led by a multi-millionaire former lobbyist, Economist journalist and friend of Bono who currently has 12 jobs. The Remainers just don’t get it…