A FAMOUS writer called on pro-EU campaigners to ‘drag’ those who voted against Brexit into the fight for a second referendum.

A C Grayling said the key to reversing the Brexit vote lies in winning over ‘soft’ Remainers and Leavers, during a speech at The Cube, in Malvern.

Dozens of people attended the talk, which was organised by West Mercia European Movement.

Mr Grayling told the crowd: “Soft Remainers think ‘I’d be better in the EU but it’s all over now, we are going to leave’.

“They must be dragged by the neck and brought back into the fold. We have got to get those soft Remainers back into the fight. It’s not all over, we can stop this.

“The really important people are the soft Leavers. They are changing their minds. We are going to be joined by people who don’t want a soft Brexit to happen."

Mr Grayling, who chairs a 'coordinating group' of grass-roots Remainer organisations, including Best for Britain and the European Movement, said the push for a second referendum is gathering strength.

He compared the government's current approach to negotiations with leaving a club and demanding continued access to the swimming pool and tennis court.

The writer also issued a warning about the impact of the Leave campaign’s use of social media on the outcome of the Brexit vote.

Mr Grayling said: “Every single time you use one of these services you are giving information to providers.

“They amass it and analyse it with psychological profiles.

“We have stripped ourselves naked for the view of any public or private agency that wants to follow us."

He added that the Leave campaign had targeted undecided voters on social media in an attempt to win their votes.

In a final warning to the audience, the campaigner predicted that Brexit would almost certainly lead to the break-up of the UK if it went ahead.

Speaking to the Malvern Gazette after the meeting, he said that the activists at pro-EU meetings represented just the 'tip of an iceberg'.

He also lambasted the former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who recently resigned over the government's 'soft' approach to Brexit.

Mr Grayling said: "Boris Johnson's main interest is Boris Johnson.

"It doesn't surprise me that he has resigned. Whatever he had done would have been predicated on some judgement he made about his own interests."

Mr Grayling, who frequently contributes to the Literary Review, Observer, Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman, delivered the speech on July 12.