EU Referendum: more unpredictable than ever

20/01/2016

One of those is the Spectator hack Isabel Hardman, who adds her considerable lack of weight to a rehash of the arguments between Vote Leave and Leave.eu, falling for the trap of believing them to be a name-calling "squabble".

This is entirely to be expected of the issue-free hackery that we're getting from the legacy media, joined most recently Sam Coates for The Times. Demonstrating the classic herd instinct of the London-centric media, he stays within the media comfort zone and labels the competition as "toxic infighting". With that, he claims that the groups are in "disarray", offering no evidence whatsoever to support his contention.

Focusing entirely on trivia, Coates completely ignores the substantive points of difference, and specifically the most recent and potentially catastrophic intervention of Dominic Cummings over the application of Article 50. The significance of this seems to be way above Mr Coates's pay grade, who merely observes without comment that Vote Leave is accused of wanting to keep Britain in the EU.

Coates is another of those journalists who is unable to cope with the concept of a "leave" vote and, like Hardman, refers to an "out" vote. This in the hands of Vote Leave, he allows, "would lead to a second referendum", but he does not state that the outcome - as proposed by Vote Leave - would result in the UK remaining in the EU, without Article 50 being invoked.

Sadly, Mr Coates is far from being alone in failing adequately to report on the substantive issues. His tiresome focus on trivialities is mirrored by the entry-level superficiality of the Spectator in the thrall of its "soppy Europhile" editor Fraser Nelson.

And, as the theme is picked up with glee by Peter Wilding, the Spectator's Hardman compounds her inability to offer any serious political analysis with a "tee-hee" supposition. What she insists on calling the "in" campaign, she believes, has stolen a march on us by sending out ten million or so propaganda leaflets setting out their case for staying in "Europe".

Her conclusion here is based on the idea that the referendum may be imminent but, leaving that aside, voters' sentiment is unlikely to be materially – if at all – affected by such low-grade, derivative propaganda. Most reliable indicators suggest that the referendum will turn on the outcome of Mr Cameron's "renegotiations".

As such, it is most probable that the initiative, by the "Britain Stronger in Europe" will prove one of the most spectacular wastes of money in the history of campaigning.

This will be more so if the Prime Minister fails – despite the expectations to the contrary by so many – to confirm a June referendum after the February European Council. As Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond points out, there is but a very small window of opportunity. He rules out July or August and says that it would be "odd" to hold a vote in the first half of September "when people have just come back from holidays".

In the end, he says, the timing of the referendum will be determined by when an agreement can be reached with the rest of the EU. "We're in the hands of our partners", he reminds us. "Our preference is to get this done as soon as we can after getting a deal agreed. Once we've got a deal agreed, we can make a decision on making a recommendation. We will then move as swiftly as we can to a referendum".

Not by any means can that be considered a firm commitment to a June referendum. All it needs is for one or more eastern or central European members to throw a wobbly and the timetable will be set back months. Predictably, No.10 is saying that what matters is getting the right reforms, which " would be driven by substance not by schedule".

On that basis, it remains theoretically possible to hold a June referendum – although hugely risky. And with Mr Cameron apparently seeking some form of associate membership, in a two-tier "Europe", he is going to have problems getting consensus in the short time available.

As it stands, there are four weeks to the February Council but, in the nature of things, time is running out to agree a deal. Because of the need to translate UK proposals into the remaining 23 of the 24 official and working languages, and then to allow Member States to consult and deliver their own responses, which must also be available in all 24 languages, the British paperwork must be on its way to Brussels before the end of the month.

For reasons which could be entirely unrelated to the UK proposals, any Member State could pull the plug, with Poland high up in the list of expectations. As the dispute with the Commission over its new media law escalates, either Polish President Andrzej Duda or Prime Minister Beata Szydlo could use the British Question as an opportunity to make a point. All too often, that is how Community politics work.

Unsurprisingly, Council President Donald Tusk is warning that the chances of a deal are "more unpredictable than ever", which could even be taken as a hint that he is preparing the ground for a failure of the talks in February.

Much will depend on how Mr Cameron wants to play the meeting. In the event of a failure, this will be known before the prime ministers and heads of state actually leave for Brussels – with the communiqué, as always, written in advance.

Thus, Mr Cameron can go for a "soft" let-down, as he did in December, signalling that nothing would be achieved, or – as long as the "colleagues" are prepared to play – he can stage a biff-bam drama and flounce out in the wee small hours to announce the "collapse" of the talks, giving something for the hacks to gossip about.

Either way, the refugee crisis is likely to dominate the European Council, which means that the British concerns are, essentially, "noises off". Although there is some greater recognition of the possible harmful impact (to the EU) of a British departure, a review of continental media does not indicate that Brexit is a big issue in the rest of the European Union.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, the Constitution Unit in the department of political science at University College London, which claims to be the UK's "leading research body on constitutional change", has shredded Dominic Cummings's manic idea for a second referendum, entirely vindicating the stance taken by Arron Banks - something which hasn't begun to register with the legacy media.

So much therefore for the trivial approach of Isabel Hardman and her like, people who lack the depth of knowledge even to understand what they are observing, much less report intelligently. Interestingly, these are the same people who have been consistently predicting a June referendum, as indeed they were relying on the polls to predict a general election result "too close to call".

For my money, as regards the referendum date, Tusk may have the measure of the moment, with the chances of a deal "more unpredictable than ever". If you pinned me to the wall on a date, I'd still plump for October 2017, even if one has to have contingencies in place to guard against the unlikely possibility of an early poll.