27/05/2015
In my view, the "out" campaign must have three things in order to do its job effectively. It will need to have a case for leaving the EU (why we should leave), a statement of what we aim to achieve by leaving (our "vision") and the exit plan (how we leave).
I have likened this to a three-legged stool, where the three "legs" must be in balance, and complement each other, in order to provide a stable platform from which to fight. There is no point, for instance, is making the case for leaving because of "excessive" EU regulation if we then say that, in order to leave, there will be little relief from regulation.
Even then, these intellectual properties will not in themselves win the referendum for us. They are essentially a
sine qua non, so we must move on from there to build the structure of the campaign, acquiring the resources need to fight, and devising the tactics.
There is a linkage, though, between our "three-legged stool" and our tactics. Specifically, in making the case for leaving, we must identify the group (or groups) of people we most need to convince, and tune our message to make sure it convinces our target audience.
As one might expect, we are not alone in thinking in these terms. Peter Wilding, director of the Europhile
British Influence is also ruminating along similar lines.
Interestingly, he has come to the conclusion that economic arguments alone "will not be enough to persuade British voters that the country should stay in the European Union". They are, he says, increasingly being dismissed as scaremongering. The case for EU membership has to be part of a "far bigger story" about Britain's future.
Thus, Wilding believes the "yes" campaign has to go "beyond the economic". The message, he says, "has to be that Britain is a leader in Europe and must get stuck in: Complete the single market, create jobs for our children and grandchildren. It's about emotion â people are proud of their country, they want it to do well â and hope for the future, not fear".
We can take some comfort from this, as we're obviously having an effect in neutralising the FUD. On the other hand, though, our own "side" is not up to speed, still focusing on the economic issues, trying to make this an issue all
about business.
In fact, this is a path down which we don't want to travel. The very last thing we want to do is get embroiled about whether business does or does not support membership of the EU, or whether they want reform and, if so, what reform issues they will accept. Some do want to leave, some don't. Some want reform, but few can say what exactly it is that they want or will accept. These are arguments we can't possibly win, as a "yes" campaign is clearly indicating.
In other respects, the "yes" campaign is also getting its act together.
British Influence and two other leading pro-EU groups,
Business for New Europe and the
European Movement, are working together as an embryonic "yes" campaign. The anti-EU movement is very far from forming a single group â and probably never will.
Wilding acknowledges that the polls have swung steadily in his favour over the past couple of years from "the largest gap in favour of leaving, to the largest gap in favour of staying". Yet the country is still divided in three: solidly pro-EU, definitely anti and undecided.
"The battle will be won or lost in the middle", Wilding says, "and it wonât be an easy one. The 'out' camp has developed an attractive narrative â here we are, shackled to a corpse, and we'd be better off out. I wouldn't presume to be confident of the result of this vote".
Says the
Guardian, observers also point out that EU fatigue â witness last year's European elections â is, broadly, on the rise and recent EU referendums on the continent have invariably resulted in no votes. The paper also thinks that Britain "boasts both a largely anti-EU (or at least, highly critical) press and a partly 'europhobic' governing elite".
Factors that could play in the "yes" camp's favour include anxiety about a possible breakup of the UK. "One in five people say they'll change their no [anti-EU] vote to a yes if Britain's exit from the EU also means Scotland leaving the UK", Wilding says.
That is where we need to be, assessing specifically what it will take for our target groups to support us. But above all else, we need to define our positive "vision" and get the other two "legs" of our stool fully in place. Obsessing about what business wants is a distraction â that much we can learn from the "yes" campaign.
