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Set in response to the Brexit referendum, the “Remainer” newspaper is about rebranding its compensation as a new world, as it seeks to widen its focus nine years after the UK voted to leave the EU.
Starting within days of the 2016 poll to fight for the UK location in the EU, the weekly magazine endured beyond its original plan to become a temporary title.
It is moving into a magazine format and is about to expand its coverage. The new name illustrates the ambition to move beyond the original European focus to tackle global political and cultural issues.
Kelly still covers the UK’s relationship with the EU, but “recognizes that Brexit really is the beginning of a much larger phenomenon spreading around the world – Peril’s sense of nationalism and democracy.”
He added: “We need to fight for liberal, progressive ideas (and demonstrate) that there is an alternative to corrosive, petty nationalism.”
“We will always be very passionately anti-expansion, very internationalist, liberal democracy,” he said. The focus will tell a broader story about issues such as politics and culture when many UK-based journalism appears to be focusing on inwards.
He added that the brand’s brand is the result of how the world has changed since it was launched.
“When we started our paper, you could never have predicted (where we were),” he said. “We’re just looking at the US. We wouldn’t have predicted that Ukraine and Russia would fight a war on the edge of Europe. A lot of things happened – that reflects that.”
However, he said, “I will never resist in terms of Brexit being the biggest self-harm we have inflicted on ourselves and certainly the greatest self-harm of my life.”
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The title generated around £2.6 million in revenue last year behind roughly 35,000 subscribers. The revenue is almost entirely made up of subscriptions, with newsstand sales of around 4,500 sales per issue, with no advertising or additional grants.
Kelly said revenue was three times higher than when he took over the company in 2021, but subscriptions rose four times higher. He added that the business was broken last year as well, but was currently trading at a small loss given the investment costs of the next stage of its growth.
“We achieved our original goal, which is to make our business sustainable,” he said.
The title raised funds from subscribers and other individuals in 2022, with 2,200 people giving £1 million and valuing the group at just over £6 million.
