14/07/2015
Last Thursday saw advertisements in the
Daily Telegraph and the
Daily Express for Arron Banks's bid for the EU referendum "no" campaign, launching an as-yet inactive website under the title
TheKnow.EU.
In the
Telegraph, we also saw
an article telling us that the campaign was to be backed by multi-millionaire Jim Mellon, with the offices due to be opened in Millbank Tower in Westminster in a fortnight. An interim chief executive had been appointed while the campaign searches for a full time leader.
In principle, of course, we would welcome any allies to the fray and, on the face of it, Mr Mellon is a useful addition. Said to be worth £850 million, he claims to have donated in the "large five figures" to the campaign, adding: "I suspect I will be asked for more in due course. This is the early stages of this".
Mr Mellon, 57, who is resident in the Isle of Man but has investments in the EU, says Britons would most likely have to "be brave" and vote to leave the European Union at the referendum. He says, "I think it is going to be a much narrower vote than expected because as we get closer to the referendum the arguments to be made by the 'no' camp will be very powerful".
He then goes on to say: "I think the principle argument is 'let's just be brave, let's go into the unknown and see if we can't become a rapidly growing country like in the Far East'. I don't think there is anything to stop us from doing that".
At this point, though, the welcome mat suddenly looks a bit frayed, as we contemplate the enormity of this statement. For some years now, we have been working on developing the message to potential "no" voters, carefully crafted to provide reassurance that leaving the EU is not a "leap in the dark".
In one fell swoop, therefore, we have this man, so fabulously rich that he can afford to "be brave", blundering into the campaign to tell us that we should venture into the "unknown" â precisely the message we've been seeking to avoid at all costs.
As if this was not bad enough, we have a campaign which, according to the
Express is seeking to recruit other "leading business figures", and is talking to sports stars and celebrities "to try to give the campaign broad appeal".
On this, however, we have a study on referendums which
indicates that when élites take strong positions at the beginning of referendum campaigns, the reaction is often negative, as "voters instinctively recoil against being told what opinions to hold".
Thus, the very last thing we need for the "no" campaign is the rich and powerful business élites, backed by phalanxes of slebs and sports stars, telling us what to think.
According to the referendum study, a more effective dynamic is to frame the campaign as a battle of the people against the establishment. Active entry into the campaign of groups that do not normally play an active role in election campaigns should be encouraged, and establishment groups should be avoided.
Far from assisting in a campaign, there is good evidence that such groups can actually contribute to the defeat of a proposition.
As it stands,
TheKnow.EU has apparently attracted funding pledges of £7 million and is looking to build a war chest of £20 million. But, as Jimmy Goldsmith demonstrated when he reputedly spent £22 million on his Referendum Party, money doesn't buy votes. In the 1997 election, the party polled a mere 810,860 votes and finished fourth, with approximately three percent of the vote.
Thus, an élite campaign, no matter how well funded, could do more harm than good. We neither want nor need a
business campaign and should be leaving it to the people to make the running. With the polls already against us, taking on the Prime Minister and the might of the establishment, a "people's campaign" is probably the only chance we have of winning.
