Leading the Referendum Campaigns

As the  EU Referendum Bill moves forward:

The most difficult decision for the Electoral Commission and anyone trying to ensure that the EU referendum is seen as fair and effective may be to rule on any dispute within the "In" and "Out" camps on who gets to lead each campaign.

There is polling evidence to back up the view that if you wanted to sabotage the "Yes" campaign to stay in the EU, the most effective tactic would be to appoint Tony Blair to lead it - and if you wanted to sabotage the "No" campaign to leave, the most effective tactic would be to appoint Nigel Farage to lead that campaign.

Of the politicians who included in a recent survey of who the public trusts on EU membership, there were only two who were trusted by more than distrusted them, and those were David Cameron and Boris Johnson. But the really interesting thing was who trusted who.



DC, Nigel Farage, and Tony Blair had completely different patterns of trust.

Unsurprisingly, trust in  Nigel Farage is directly proportionate to how committed a voter is to voting to leave the EU. He enjoys a high level of trust among those who are already committed to voting for Brexit and is trusted by a majority among those who are leaning that way, but is strongly distrusted by those who are leaning toward a "Yes" vote and completely distrusted by those who are strongly inclined that way.

Equally unsurprising is that trust in Tony Blair varies in the opposite direction, though it is much lower. He is not trusted by a majority even of those who are committed EU membership supporters, though they distrust him least: floating voters distrust him a lot more and those strongly inclined to an out vote distrust Mr Blair almost as strongly as those equally inclined to vote to stay in distrust the UKIP leader.

David Cameron, however, while not trusted by a majority of those strongly committed to either side, gets his overall positive rating because he IS trusted by those who have not definitely decided.

I hope someone has shown these figures to Jean-Claude Juncker, Angela Merkel, and other EU leaders because it means that the PM is in one sense in quite a strong position.

Farage cannot swing the referendum because the people who trust him are the ones who have already decided to vote "No," but the floating voters the "No" campaign needs do not trust him.

Blair cannot swing the referendum because nobody trusts him. (Further proof that most of the electorate isn't stupid.)

DC could swing the referendum because most of the people who have not made their minds up do trust him. If the EU offers him some reasonable concessions - they will have to be a lot less cosmetic than the ones that Wilson got in 1975 but I think that some real progress can be made - and if DC recommends a "Yes" vote on that basis, he will probably win, especially if he has Boris onside.

If I had to guess, I'd say that is the most likely scenario, though it is by no means certain.

But if the EU offers the Prime Minister nothing substantial and he decides he has to recommend a "No" vote, especially if Boris goes the same way, that is the most likely pattern of events which could lead to Britain leaving the EU. And it could happen.

Repeating Wilson's trick of dressing up negligible reforms as a major change to win a referendum will not work again: but of course, different people may have very diverse ideas of what constitutes real change.

We all know perfectly well that if the EU gave firm commitments to double the British rebate, pay an additional £100 bonus directly to every UK voter, ensure that the Eurozone is not run in a way which damages the interests of non-Eurozone countries such as ourselves, and give Britain complete control over immigration, there would still be plenty of people who said that this was completely inadequate and they still wanted to leave. That is of course their right. Many of those people, including some in the Conservative party, are already preparing the ground to take that position and suggesting that David Cameron is not seriously negotiating for change.

There are plenty of other people who would never vote to leave under any circumstances and, as is their right, are already banging the drums about how catastrophic it would be for the British economy if we left. Usually rehearsing pretty much the same arguments the same people put forward fifteen years ago about what an economic disaster it would be if we didn't scrap the pound and join the Euro. A minority of them have even thought to try to explain why having been completely wrong about this in the past they should be taken any more seriously now.

Personally I am in neither of those camps. I'd like to see the PM negotiating as hard as possible for a Europe of co-operating but independent nation states.

A few years ago I quoted a couple of passages from Margaret Thatcher's Bruges speech to a friend who worked at the House of Commons as describing the sort of Europe I wanted. He replied,

"Ah, I see. You support what was actually said rather than what was meant."

And that was probably fair comment. But for the moment I want DC to have the strongest possible negotiating hand - and that has to mean the EU leadership taking seriously the possibility that Britain might leave.

Comments

Jim said…
what exactly would he renegotiate?

You cant "renegotiate" a supranational government to not be a supranational government. So there is no time to sit on the fence and wait and see what the "renegotiation" (meaning article 48 TEU fudge to part III TFEU) will bring, if you do that then you are already on the back foot before you even begin.

for your quote, I do find it quite fitting as I dont think the "leader" of the NO campaign should be a politician (it would be a stronger campaign faught as the people vs the establishment) nor should it be someone from business (trade is not the issue, NO must be very clear on the fact we can keep the single market trade bit), how we are governed is not the business of business.

instead my vote would go for someone like Robert Oulds of the Bruges Group.
Chris Whiteside said…
There are lots of supranational organisations and many of them I would want to be part of - NATO, the UN, and the World Trade Organisation to name but three. I was under the impression that you thought Britain should still be in some of those too, such as the WTO.

The real question is not whether an organisation is a supranational administration, but this: does it do more good than harm to a sufficient extent that it is in Britain's interests to belong.
Jim said…
Hmmmmm, i see three options here.

1. You are being deliberately obtuse
2. You are ignorant of what the EU actually is
3. You want me, in my own words to explain the difference to others.

I am happy to give you the benefit of the doubt (and for what its worth in my opinion the most likely and go with option 3)

Yes there are many supranational organisations, but there are not so many supranational governments. Now the WTO may set global regulations (of which when set most nations have a seat at the top table, incidently we dont as the EU take it so we have 1/28th of a seat) but anyway, these regulations will stipulate certain things, lets take for an example building a car that is to be sold. now they wont tell you if its to be a left hand drive or a right hand drive model, as both are required globally. but they WILL state things like: "the clutch pedal must be the one on the left, the brake is the one in the middle and the throttle is the one on the right" - and afterall it would be a blooming stupid world if that was not the case.

what the WTO will not do is set things like a tax which must be paid by all people, and set certain levels (which our national government can not overrule) also the people can not vote out said people. Things like VAT and VAT rates and why you can only have 3 rates of VAT, and why it cant be scrapped.

Now i could, if i really felt so inclined, build a car with its pedals in the wrong place, its just i cant sell it as it does not meet regulatory standards. Thing is I cant avoid paying VAT on the fuel it uses.
Chris Whiteside said…
Thank you, yes, I wanted a clarification.

What I would ideally have liked to seen was the EU adopt clauses like those in the US constitution which reserve powers, including any not otherwise specified, to "the people" or "to the states alone."

I would not have been opposed to an EU constitution if it was written like that (though I was strongly opposed to the one which became the Lisbon treaty with cosmetic changes.)

On your terms I can see advantages to Britain in being part of a "light rein" supranational government limited to specific areas of competence which does not try to interfere in internal matters. I don't want to be part of a superstate which is constantly trying to increase its' powers.

It is also my view - and remember, I'm an economist by profession - that the economic arguments both for and against membership are much stronger than the hardliners on either side would have you believe.

Many of those who are arguing for a "Yes" vote on economic grounds do not appear to have noticed that they are actually thereby damaging that case, because much of the electorate has a long enough memory to recall the same people using the same arguments fifteen years ago to suggest it would be a catastrophe if Britain did not join the Euro.

(Rolls on floor laughing.)

However, that does not mean the economic case for EU membership is non-existent, and in my personal view it is far stronger than the case for British membership of the Euro ever was.

Which does not mean there is no economic case for exit. I remember while I was a final-year undergraduate and a member of the University debating committee. This was at a time when my views were far more pro-European and far less Eurosceptic than they are now, but I had to speak against the pro-EEC views I held at the time to fill in the speaker slots for a competition debate, and with zero notice. I was remember astonishing myself with how strong an economic case for exit I came up with - and it would be stronger now.

I will pick a side when the referendum campaign gets under way in earnest, and I will be influenced by what DC can get in negotiations in terms of greater subsidiarity and concrete measures to prevent the centralising and controlling tendency in the EU from fouling up the British economy.

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