EU Referendum


EU Referendum: the theatre continues


22/05/2015



000a Independent-022 song.jpg

We could go to sleep for the next two years and wake up in May 2017, just in time for the start of the referendum campaign. And we'll be hearing exactly the same things then as we're hearing now. The Prime Minister is simply ramping up the theatre, all in preparation for his "Heston moment" when he can grandly declare, "I have in my hand a piece of paper", as he brings home his treaty from Brussels.

The man is playing us, and he is so confident in his "play" that he is even telling us the script, as he arrives at Riga, for the start of informal negotiations.

There, he tells us: "All I'd say is that there will be ups and downs, you'll hear one day this is possible and the next day something else is impossible". He then goes on to declare:
But one thing throughout all of this that will be constant, is my determination to deliver for the British people, reform of the EU, so they get a proper choice in the referendum that we'll hold, an in out referendum, before the end of 2017, that will be constant. But there will be lots of noise, lots of ups and downs, along the way.
One wonders whether the media even realise they are being played – or, indeed, whether they even care. After all, they are in the entertainment business, and not one of the hack-pack has shown any sign of being able to understand the issues – much less report them intelligently.

Certainly, Farage is being "played", walking "eyes wide shut" into an elephant trap so wide and deep that even a blind man in a coma could see it. Suckered in on immigration, Farage will find his legs cut off at the knees, as Cameron brings home his treaty to limit migration (or so it will be presented), leaving the Ukip leader with only bleeding stumps to stand on. 

000a heston-000.jpg

Those of us who know the history of the EU recall the great "reconciliation" between Pompidou and Heath – another event that was outrageously stage-managed, with the communiqué written before the meeting was even agreed.

And there is the point. All of this talk of reform is carefully staged theatre, designed to distract the gullible media from the central point that nothing very much is on offer, and nothing of any substance can be delivered.

The one thing we are seeing, though, is a gradual recognition that there is not going to be a referendum next year. There never was going to be one – because the procedural steps can't be completed in time. But that didn't stop the ignorant hacks speculating – it gives them something to occupy their dim little minds with.

But now it comes clear that Mr Cameron is going to let the play run its full course, the media are rowing back.

This, though, is the level at which the coming "renegotiations" are going to be reported – with the media claque lining up to report events as if they were serious matters, dealing with anything of substance. And when we do get that "Heston moment", they'll be all over Cameron, applauding his persistence and skill, as he takes them for the fools that they really are.

The sad thing about all this, though, is that too many of our fellow citizens will be taken in by it as well. Mr Cameron is staging this charade because, by and large, this sort of thing works.