Sir Humphrey on Europe
The frightening thing about this scene from "Yes Minister" is that the late Sir Nigel Hawthorne as Sir Humphrey Appleby actually made a more coherent argument about whether Britain should be part of the European Union that much of what he might have called the "egregious" material from either Britain Stronger in Europe, or from either of the rival "Leave" campaigns have managed ...
Now, I'm not saying I agree with this spoof view of British policy, but it was certainly explained far more clearly than most of the rubbish in the papers and the twitter feed from either side. If Sir Nigel were still alive you can bet all three campaigns (if they had any sense) would be falling over themselves to recruit him ...
Comments
Sadly no one in side the bubble, - Media, politicians, or either of the "3" campaigns, seem to be able to tell the difference between an election and a referendum. Its very simple really, to win an elction you need to get more votes than any one else in a small area, then win most areas.
to win a referendum you need 50% of the national vote +1
That is the key point, that is why the leave campaigns are failing so badly, its pretty simple to turn this referendum into a People Vs Establishment battle, then see how the numbers crunch, but the current 2 leave campaigns are not able to do that. there is no stragegy to their workings, and there is no coherent message.
I think a lot of this battle will actually be faught on t'internet.
The bizarre thing is the very people in Vote Leave who supposed to know how to win a referendum based on their track record in the last two seem to be trying make as many enemies as possible.
I am trying hard to keep my mind open until we have a clear idea what the choice actually is and have to keep reminding myself that a vote to leave the EU is not the same as electing the shambolic circus who are running the rival leave campaigns to run the government.
Not that BSE are much better, but equally fortunately, a remain vote isn't electing them to run the government either.
The big advantage of the remain side is that they appear to have the support of most of the newspapers, but that doesn't mean what it once did. The BBC would deny that they are biased towards "remain" but I think they have a mindset in that direction so strong that they themselves do not even realise it.
A lot of the debate will indeed be played out on social media. The trouble is that only those who care about the EU will pay attention. And to be honest, that is a lot less than a third of the electorate.