Quote of the day 14th September 2019
"There are two common views among people who wanted to stay in the EU that I think are mistaken.
One is that David Cameron made a foolish and unforgivable mistake in promising the referendum.
The other is that the result was obtained by a campaign of lies."
"My contentions are that Cameron was forced to promise a referendum by the very democratic pressure that produced the vote to Leave, and that the referendum was about as fair as the rough and tumble of democracy usually is."
"One of the surprising things about the referendum was that we didn’t hear that much about Eurosceptic press barons dominating the debate. This may be because they didn’t. The media landscape in Britain has been utterly transformed by the internet – as I know well, working for the first national newspaper to go online-only."
"If you look at the readership of British newspapers, print and online, not only does The Independent have more readers than The Sun – not many people know that – but the total readerships of newspapers advocating Leave and Remain were about the same."
"All the same, there were claims made in the campaign that were – I prefer not to call them lies – not absolutely evidence-based. The most prominent was the claim by the Leave campaign that the UK sends £350m a week to the EU. We don’t. It’s about half that. The Leave people justified it by saying it would be £350m if we didn’t have the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1985. Their argument is that politicians will be tempted to negotiate the rebate away in future – Tony Blair, for example, allowed it to be diluted when new countries joined the EU in 2004."
"Most journalists reported that it wasn’t true. The trouble is that saying, “It’s not £350m a week it’s £180m a week,” didn’t really help the Remainers. It drove them mad because the Leavers kept on using the £350m, and the Remainers kept saying it wasn’t true, drawing attention to it, and reminding voters that we send a sum of money too big to be understood to the EU every week. Besides, the Remain campaign was putting out leaflets claiming that for every pound we put into the EU we got £10 back. I wouldn’t describe that as absolutely evidence-based either."
"I was a Remainer myself, although a reluctant Remainer (like the Prime Minister), but I don’t accept
(a) that it was foolish or mistaken to have the referendum, or
(b) that it was won by lies.
I think the decision to hold a referendum was right, unavoidable and democratic. And I think that the campaign may have been simple-minded and unedifying – although I don’t think it was as dishonest as Donald Trump's presidential campaign – but that is what democracy is like."
(John Rentoul, extracts from an edited version of a talk given at a conference on “Referendums and Democratic Politics” available online on the Independent site here)
One is that David Cameron made a foolish and unforgivable mistake in promising the referendum.
The other is that the result was obtained by a campaign of lies."
"My contentions are that Cameron was forced to promise a referendum by the very democratic pressure that produced the vote to Leave, and that the referendum was about as fair as the rough and tumble of democracy usually is."
"One of the surprising things about the referendum was that we didn’t hear that much about Eurosceptic press barons dominating the debate. This may be because they didn’t. The media landscape in Britain has been utterly transformed by the internet – as I know well, working for the first national newspaper to go online-only."
"If you look at the readership of British newspapers, print and online, not only does The Independent have more readers than The Sun – not many people know that – but the total readerships of newspapers advocating Leave and Remain were about the same."
"All the same, there were claims made in the campaign that were – I prefer not to call them lies – not absolutely evidence-based. The most prominent was the claim by the Leave campaign that the UK sends £350m a week to the EU. We don’t. It’s about half that. The Leave people justified it by saying it would be £350m if we didn’t have the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1985. Their argument is that politicians will be tempted to negotiate the rebate away in future – Tony Blair, for example, allowed it to be diluted when new countries joined the EU in 2004."
"Most journalists reported that it wasn’t true. The trouble is that saying, “It’s not £350m a week it’s £180m a week,” didn’t really help the Remainers. It drove them mad because the Leavers kept on using the £350m, and the Remainers kept saying it wasn’t true, drawing attention to it, and reminding voters that we send a sum of money too big to be understood to the EU every week. Besides, the Remain campaign was putting out leaflets claiming that for every pound we put into the EU we got £10 back. I wouldn’t describe that as absolutely evidence-based either."
"I was a Remainer myself, although a reluctant Remainer (like the Prime Minister), but I don’t accept
(a) that it was foolish or mistaken to have the referendum, or
(b) that it was won by lies.
I think the decision to hold a referendum was right, unavoidable and democratic. And I think that the campaign may have been simple-minded and unedifying – although I don’t think it was as dishonest as Donald Trump's presidential campaign – but that is what democracy is like."
(John Rentoul, extracts from an edited version of a talk given at a conference on “Referendums and Democratic Politics” available online on the Independent site here)
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