27/08/2015
It is a truism that no (battle) plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. On the other hand, no one will make the mistake of going into battle without a plan. The successful general will craft his plan in relation to the enemy he is facing. And, if the conditions change, he will change the plan to meet the new realities on the ground.
Eurosceptics, however, seem determined to ignore the art of war. Instead, they want to fight on their home turf, obsessing about familiar issues, against an enemy of their own imagining rather than seeking out the voters whose support they need to win the referendum.
That much Peter is
pointing out in his new blog, making these crucial observations:
Eurosceptics are going to have to bin all the arguments they have rehearsed for decades. The world has changed, the battlefield has changed, and more to the point, these same arguments didn't work the last time we have a referendum. The opposition knows what to expect of us, it knows our arguments as well as we do, and it's not the burning issue that eurosceptics believe it is. If we don't have something new to sell, it really is game over. Adapt or die.
Despite this reality, the respective "yes" and "no" campaigns still seem determined to gear up for a private battle, even if there is no shortage of advice from the Fourth Estate. For instance, the
Guardian is telling us that the EU referendum "won't be decided on the Eurostar but in the pub", while the
Times warns that the "politics of fear will rebound on referendum rivals".
Nevertheless, both campaigns are wholly mistaken in assuming that their preoccupations have any relevance to the coming battle. They are like two squabbling native tribes on a 1941 Pacific island which is about to be invaded by the Japanese Imperial Army intent on fighting a completely different war.
Clearly, the squabblers don't even begin to realise that they're not even in that war, the real war. This is being mounted by the EU, which faces an existential threat in the referendum, fronted by David Cameron and his government. They will be fighting for the hearts and minds of the British people, seeking their support for continued EU membership, and are not interested in engaging in the private squabbles.
Only those who recognise the real enemy and who are prepared to mount counters, directed at the enemy action, are going to be in the battle. And to prevail, their tactics will have to be closely attuned to the enemy's situation.
Here, the prattle about the cost of the UK contributions, the "over-regulation", the loss of "sovereignty" and the many familiar mantras which sustain the EU "debate" are simply not going to be part of the discourse. They will have minimal effect on the outcome of the vote.
And that is the point of the Sun Tzu. If we are to succeed in gaining victory, we need to be acutely conscious of the enemy's plans. We need to respond to them, and they become the drivers of our strategy.
In this context, it was said of Mao Tse-tung that he preferred striking only after the enemy had made the first move in order better to ascertain its weak points. This will have to be the way we work. There will be no choice about whether the enemy makes the first move: Mr Cameron has the initiative. It is for him to announce the outcome of his so-called "renegotiations" and for us to respond. But if we leave it entirely to his good offices, it may be too late to affect the outcome.
Thus, the essence of our strategy must be to identify as early as possible his likely moves, and then to prepare ourselves to act the moment his intentions become clear, pre-empting his strike(s) if at all possible.
The best possible guess, as it stands, is that the Prime Minister will want to leave his announcement as late as possible, giving us very little time to act. And if he makes his pitch on a new relationship with the EU, as we expect, then we could be in for a very difficult time.
The essence of his offer could be based on the new relationship amounting to the fabled "associate membership". But the trap is that Mr Cameron could then offer us a second referendum to approve the terms of the arrangement, making it effectively a risk-free choice for the electorate.
We do not know this to be the case, but it is a possibility and one that looks plausible. Guided by Sun Tzu, our "water strategy" should be focused on devising an effective counter to our best guess as to what the enemy's intentions might be. At the same time, we should be watching for an other surprises that Mr Cameron might spring on us.
In other words, our strategy should be focused on the enemy's intentions. What we should not be doing is obsessing about the things that interest us, with no reference to what the enemy is doing, or plans. We certainly should not be attempting to repeat the self-same arguments that eurosceptics have been rehearsing for the last twenty years or more. They haven't convinced people in the past, and they are not likely to do so in the future.
In order to win, therefore, we need to develop the art of winning. That requires strategy, based on what the enemy is likely to do, not on obsessing about the issues we feel to be important.
