05/10/2015
Jerry Hayes is not normally a name in the front of my mind, but a link to
his blog caught my eye, taking me to a diatribe on the state of the EU referendum contest.
Says Hayes: "The right are horribly divided but spend more time indulging in insults than trying to gain a narrative with the electorate". He adds that, "It's just a screaming match and a jockeying for power by some rather unpleasant people. A psycho drama between Dominic Cummings and Aaron Banks who are the sort of relatives whom you would normally lock in the attic".
With that under his belt, Hayes then feels entitled to come to some conclusions, thus gravely informing us that, "rather than there being a seamless robe of Eurosceptics united in their zeal to remove Britain from the wickedness of Brussels they are a complete shambles".
For sure, the campaign is a shambles, but not for the reasons Hayes makes out. Intellectually, it is a train wreck and, unless we get our collective acts together, this campaign is going down the pan.
Organisations are a different issue. The two main groups,
Leave.EU and
Campaign to Leave have set up their offices, appointed some staff and are pulling their administrations together. They are both thinking about strategy and are both working up applications to put to the Electoral Commission in the hope of gaining lead designation.
What seems to offend Mr Hayes, though, is that there are
two operations. That, to him, makes for the shambles. One assumes that, in his tidy little world, there should be just one campaign â and no Second Cummings or Arron Banks.
Tim Montgomerie in the
Times is similarly offended by the "simmering civil war" amongst Leave supporters, which he thinks has "bubbled to the surface" in the last 24 hours, personified by the spat between Nigel Farage and Lord Lawson.
Then the famous Matt Goodwin is also on the case, again in the
Times, opining that the "Eurosceptics risk shooting themselves in the foot". With the same amount of prescience he applied to
his analysis of Ukip, he concludes that "things within the Eurosceptic camp are not well".
Definitely in "no sh*t Sherlock" territory, this great sage goes on to comment on the Ukip conference in Doncaster, remarking that "a few Eurosceptic groups, including some of the most prominent, were not there". As an "outside observer", this to him "seemed bizarre", as he records that Carswell and Arron Banks spent much of the time briefing against one another.
Goodwin, however, describes the differences as "infighting", suggesting that it is "not just about strategy" but also "wrapped up in long-held grievances, personality disputes and rivalries". Those tensions, he says, "are now organised around one question in particular â what to do about Nigel Farage and Ukip".
This lightweight analysis is entirely typical of Goodwin, perhaps explaining why he is such a favourite of the media, his only reference to the rival Elliott/Cummings group being made in the context of Ukip risking alienating those expressing their allegiance to it.
To Goodwin, therefore â who also notes that the polls seem to be shifting towards "leave" proposition â it is evident that eurosceptics do not yet have a viable collective strategy for taking advantage of the shift. "Unless they find one", he opines, "they risk shooting themselves in the foot".
Nowhere from Goodwin or any other legacy media pundit is there any hint of the personal tension between Banks and Elliott, or of the
growing reservations over the role of Elliott and his commercial interests â especially in view of his
dubious behaviour during the No2AV referendum.
On that basis, Goodwin has got it spectacularly wrong. Far from risking "shooting themselves in the foot", Banks supporters are aware that the referendum is almost certainly lost if Elliott and his mercenary group get the lead designation, and are trying to rescue the campaign from certain disaster.
Furthermore, it is not only the commercial interests of Elliott's group that are likely to interfere. With its predominantly Conservative make-up, the tribal loyalties of the group will prevent it mounting a full-frontal attack on Mr Cameron when he delivers the results of his "renegotiations".
No one could say, on the other hand, that Mr Banks would be in any way constrained, making his group a natural ally in what is an increasingly tense battle to keep Elliott from getting the designation.
With Banks
now securing the support of Toby Blackwell and the Bow Group, he is possibly edging ahead in the designation stakes, although Elliot's
Campaign to Leave - another of his group of companies - is scheduled formally to launch later this week when,
we are told, it will announce a new raft of Conservative donors.
Elliott has the further advantage of being treated as the heir apparent by the media, being awarded a slot on the Marr Show
next week, arguing against Will Straw's ill-named "in" campaign - a "clash" that promises to be an exercise in applied tedium.
Nevertheless, by this means, the media is hoping not only to frame the debate but also define the protagonists - thereby controlling the agenda. But the crucial battle is not between the "remain" and "leave" groups, but between Elliott and Banks, the victor of which will have to take on the real enemy â David Cameron.
As always, the media is misreading the signals.
