EU Referendum


EU Referendum: a blind leap into economic uncertainty?


11/06/2015



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If we didn't know better, we might think that Hammond's shopping list on EU reform, published yesterday, was a deliberate attempt to throw the game. Considering that this is supposedly the government's secret weapon that is going to keep us in the EU, all we're getting is a woolly mixture of fond hope and tired clichés.

When yesterday, Quentin Letts wrote a sketch on the second reading debate, he called Hammond's offering "as unexciting a piece of work as an unbuttered ham sandwich", sparing us from describing his speech at length, "as some of you later today may be operating machinery".

Into that category also comes his "four-point package for EU reform", partly analysed by Complete Bastard. It is of such banality and tedium that one supposes Hammond plans to spray it over the European Council in the manner of Goldfinger and Fort Knox, stealing way with a deal from the somnambulant "colleagues".

But the clever thing is that Hammond and his master in crime, David Cameron, are not out to win the game. They do not need to. Their strategy is simply not to lose it, presenting a sufficiently plausible "renegotiation" deal to the voters – to the accompaniment of grand theatre. By this means, they hope to inspire a majority of the electorate to feel less uncomfortable about voting "yes" than they do marking the ballot "no".

One of those who has divined Mr Cameron's strategy is Rafael Behr in the Guardian, who rightly argues that the prime minister's best asset in this battle is public opinion. "There is not much love for the EU in Britain", he writes, "but ardent desire to quit at any costs is a fringe position. A referendum on existing membership terms could be won by the yes camp if the alternative looks like a blind leap into economic uncertainty".

Slide across now to Stephan Shakespeare, he of YouGov fame, the pollster which so brilliantly predicted (not) the Conservative victory at the general election. Pointing to his company's most recent poll on the EU Referendum, he tells us that the "yes" camp enjoys a 10-point lead over the "noes", standing at 55-45 after removing the "don't knows" and the "wouldn't votes".

Shakespeare notes, however, that "the biggest driver will be risk aversion – and leaving the EU must be deemed a massive risk however attractive it may be to lovers of derring-do freedom". And this is re-iterated by the Telegraph which has the pollsters suggesting that for many, "the prospect of leaving is deemed too big a risk, however attractive it might be to go it alone".

This is precisely why we wrote Flexcit. Its purpose is to provide reassurance to those contemplating voting in the EU referendum that leaving the EU is not a leap in the dark. It spells out in detail why no harm will come to them or the nation as a result of a managed transition from full EU member to independent state.

Nonetheless, we have Kenneth Clarke, "informed" by Business for New Europe, who decided to hold forth in the second reading debate on what "out" means, and what a "no" vote mean. His "eurosceptic friends", he claims, have always given different answers. Douglas Carswell, for instance, has a quite different view of what a "no" vote means compared with some of his no-voting colleagues on the government back benches.

Clarke went on to ask whether "no" meant the "Norwegian option" or the "Swiss model", or whether eurosceptics wish to go into the wide blue yonder and leave the trade area altogether. Needless to say, he did not refer to Flexcit, but then neither do many of the eurosceptic "aristocracy". They, as we have remarked earlier, are so obsessed with their own individual "plans" that they have not even begun to focus on what will prove the Achilles heel of the "no" campaign - the lack of a coherent definition of "out". 

As I write, though, the Guardian has published an exposé from Raheem "x-box" Kassam, who tells us the Ukip is "full of 'rag-tag, unprofessional, embarrassing people'", who "hampered" Nigel Farage's election campaign.

Of this I might write more later, but suffice it to be said that this is the same organisation which now, with its leader, wants to take a lead role in fighting the EU referendum. The really scary thing, though, is that, with some honourable exceptions, Kassam could be describing the "no" campaign as a whole, albeit that some have better suits and posher accents.

If we carry on this way, it won't only be a flat in Ramsgate that "looked like a Damien Hirst exhibition" because it was so unkempt, so much as the "no" campaign as whole. Unless the precious ones can get their heads round Flexcit and start behaving as if they want to win, Rafael Behr's prospect of a "blind leap into economic uncertainty" will give Mr Cameron an easy victory.