EU Referendum


EU referendum: writing on the wall?


02/07/2014



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With Labour's biggest union backer, Unite, expected to approve a motion at its annual conference calling on the Labour party to offer an "in-out" EU referendum, one wonders whether there is a realisation here that a staunchly "eurosceptic" Conservative Party could be a vote winner.

If that is the case, and we see the Labour Party move to adopt an EU referendum as a part of its manifesto, we could be seeing a partial re-run of the 1997 general election campaign where, under pressure from the Jimmy Goldsmith's Referendum Party, we saw the parties commit to a vote on the single currency.

Whether Ed Miliband moves in this direction will, no doubt, depend – in part at least - on what the polls are telling him. If he becomes convinced that he cannot win the general election without committing to a referendum – and thereby neutralising the Conservative vote – then reason would suggest the adoption of a commitment by Labour.

Such a development could very well bring us close to a dream scenario: a referendum campaign played out with a mid-term and increasingly unpopular Labour government in office, supporting the "in" proposition, against rampant Conservative fighting on the "out" ticket – all without Mr Miliband having secured any worthwhile concessions from Brussels in Wilsonian-style renegotiations.

Under these circumstances, provided we can actually structure an effective campaign, and it doesn't get hijacked by the Tory Boy think-tankers, then we could be onto a winner. The logic is then that a triumphant Conservative Party then storms to a landslide victory in the 2020 general election, ready to negotiate a successful departure from the EU, excluding Labour from office for a generation.

Given this electoral calculus, of course, UKIP has one last hurrah next year, but will likely suffer in a classic, two-party squeeze, then to gradually decline as the referendum agenda takes over. By 2020, with the UK on its way out of the EU, the party will then have all but disappeared.

But if Labour does make a firm commitment on a referendum for this coming parliamentary term, perhaps UKIP has one last service to offer, in helping as far as it can to keep the Conservatives out of office in 2015, all to pave the way for a greater and more enduring Conservative victory in 2020 and our final exit from the EU.

And then its work will have been done.

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