19/01/2016
Some
very clever people have suddenly woken up to the idea of using a picture from the
Life of Brian and its People's Front of Judea skit as a rippingly funny and original comment on the schism between Leave.eu and Vote Leave Ltd.
However, like the newspapers who then report the proceedings as "
bickering" or simply refer to them in
biff-bam terms, or even talk of "in-fighting", they simply do not understand what is going on.
Those proceedings,
for the record, currently amount to a letter from Arron Banks to Matthew Elliott of Vote Leave Ltd, expressing dismay that VL members had recently advocated two referendums in order to somehow secure a better deal for the UK with the EU.
Firstly, wrote Banks, the Prime Minister has repeatedly said there will only be one referendum to remain or leave. observing that he thought that "we had both agreed to respect that outcome, whichever way it went".
Secondly, Banks added, we could be only six months away from the referendum and every second counts. When voters step into the polling booth, they must be presented with only two options: leave or remain.
The point that Banks then made is one we have
also made: we need to offer a focussed, clear and consistent message. Introducing "novel" ideas about process only serve to confuse and deflect from the real issues at hand. More damagingly, they suggest that a vote to leave may result in a vote to remain.
This narrative has been recorded by
Mr Brexit and, in respect of Daniel Hannan, by
Boiling Frog. Now Banks joins in. The idea that a leave vote is a vote for reform is counter-productive. It could damage the arguments campaigners are making for the UK being a strong, independent country outside of the confines of the EU.
There really can be no dispute about the further observation, that any uncertainty will only play into the "remain" campaign's hands. Thus Banks tells Elliott that the actions of his colleagues and previous historic statements suggest he is committed to staying in a reformed EU rather than campaigning for a leave vote.
On this point, Banks thinks it is "inconceivable" that the Electoral Commission could award Vote Leave the official designation while it is committed to reform through a second referendum.
Then came the crunch point. "As I have said previously", Banks wrote, "the only person apparently standing in the way of a formal merger is Dominic Cummings. With his latest comments suggesting the Prime Minister use anything other than Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to initiate our withdrawal from the EU, he has become a liability and a danger to both Leave campaigns".
Banks then reminds Elliott that he has stressed before the importance of having one united "Leave" campaign, believing it "counter-productive to the end goal that we are both deploying resources on grassroots activists and the media".
In closing, therefore, he extended his hand, again, for the two organisations to open up talks "about how we can move forward as one unstoppable campaign devoted to securing a Leave vote and only a Leave vote in the one and only referendum we will have".
Needless to say, a rebuff wasn't long in coming, delivered by a spokesman for Vote Leave, who said: "There will be no merger". A "senior source" at Vote Leave then accused Leave.EU of publishing "racist and homophobic jokes" on the internet and of "only publicly seeking a merger in a bid to win support at the Commission while opposing any tie-up behind the scenes".
If there is any truth in that last assertion, then it would be so easy for Mr Elliott publicly to call Mr Banks's bluff â but he does not. A clear favourite of the legacy media, Mr Elliott believes, in the style of "to the manor born" that he is entitled to the poll position of head of the official "leave" campaign.
And that sense of entitlement is, of course, one of the reasons why the spat between Banks and Elliott cannot be dismissed as "in-fighting" or simply "bickering". No one should be allowed to presume, by virtue of garnering support from wealthy donors, that they have an automatic right to assume the lead. Yet everything Mr Elliott does suggests a belief in his own personal entitlement.
Currently, though, the situation has deteriorated with the unwelcome intervention of Mr Cummings, who simply cannot be allowed unchallenged to muddy the waters with his perverse comments on Article 50, delivered in his customary
ex Cathedra style that suggests he is beyond criticism or even questioning from mere mortals.
Those thus question the energy spent on this issue need to realise that the chances of us winning the referendum are looking increasingly remote if Vote Leave gets the designation as lead campaigner for the "leave" proposition.
On that basis, as I was writing
last September, the battle for designation isn't peripheral to the main campaign â it is a central part of it. Getting it does not ensure we win, but it does stop us losing at the first hurdle.
Ideally, one would have hoped that the two organisations were going to work together but that was never going to be, not this side of the designation. But we should not regard this as a minus. Unlike the Europhiles who nurture leaden conformity, we are not dismayed by competition between ideas, and can relate to the idea of the best submission winning.
After that, maybe, all parties will work together, but even if they do not, we should not be too gravely disadvantaged as long as we get the right leaves on the line.
