04/12/2015
In the wake of our piece
yesterday on Tusk's comments on the timing of an agreement, we see a report by
Vote Leave Ltd, relying on the single source of the
Guardian, asserting the following:
The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, has revealed that both he and David Cameron are keen for EU leaders to strike a deal on the UK's renegotiation at the EU Council meeting next week. This would enable the Government to call a referendum for June next year, which is the preference of many ministers including George Osborne. This rush to reach a quick deal provides further evidence that the PM has given up on the renegotiation. He is more concerned about getting an early referendum than achieving the "fundamental reform" he used to promise.
Over at Vote Leave Ltd, they would rather poke their eyes out with knitting needles than actually read EUReferendum.com, but if they had looked at my post, based on my general appreciation of the situation and a report from
The Times, they would have avoided making yet another error. They would have seen that Tusk was, in effect, saying that there was unlikely to be a deal either in December or in February.
This is entirely as one would expect. David Cameron cannot bounce the European Council into a deal. To expect otherwise is simply not credible â as Tusk points out. Furthermore, Mr Cameron dare not go to the country without a bankable deal, otherwise
the indications are that he will lose the referendum.
Thus, any rational analysis would rule out the prospect of an early deal, and with it an early referendum. But then, when it comes to Vote Leave Ltd, rationality is not on the agenda.
From the very outset, its campaign director Dominic Cummings has been obsessed with the idea that George Osborne has given up on the idea of negotiating changes, and is keen to get the referendum "over and done with" as soon as possible.
This conviction is apparently shared by the
Telegraph which, in a
politically illiterate piece asserts that the Prime Minister is demanding European leaders grant him a new "protocol" to the EU treaties that will enable Britain to discriminate against workers arriving from Poland, Hungary and other poorer EU states.
As Tusk points out, though, this is simply not procedurally possible, but that does not stop the
Telegraph claiming that Mr Cameron was planning "to force a deal from EU leaders with a take it or leave it offer at a Brussels summit in two weeks' time". That, said the paper, "would open the door to a referendum as early as next April, or more likely, June".
This is what passes for serious political comment, these days, from what purports to be a grown-up newspaper. But no sooner is this latest stupidity given an airing than we get an
official statement from No.10 (above). In it, the Downing Street spokesperson says:
The Prime Minister called the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, this morning to talk about the renegotiation of the UK's membership of the EU ahead of the December European Council.
They discussed the significant and far-reaching reforms that the Prime Minister has proposed to address the concerns of the British people. They agreed that good progress had been made since the Prime Minister's letter to the President of the European Council but that there remain difficult issues to resolve.
The Prime Minister explained that his priority is to get the substance right, underlining the need for legally binding, irreversible changes. He noted that the scale of what we are asking for means we will not resolve this in one go and consequently he did not expect to get agreement at the December European Council. Instead, we should keep up the pace of discussions and use the summit for a substantive discussion of the proposed changes in each area. Chancellor Merkel agreed with this approach, emphasising her commitment to finding solutions that will address the concerns of the British people.
Not only does this contradict the
Telegraph, it totally demolishes the blathering from Vote Leave Ltd, which once again has called it wrong, adding to the
cascade of errors that has plagued the campaign from the very start.
This operation, which has ambitions of becoming the lead campaigner for the "leave" proposition, is now building an
unenviable track-record for getting it wrong. On the other hand, we have
consistently argued that the referendum will be later rather than sooner and, with every passing month, our predictions look more sound.
Bluntly, the "leave" campaign cannot afford the degree of amateurism coming out of the high-profile players, signalled by
Vote Leave who, on being blown out by the Downing Street statement, pontificate without so much as a blush that: "This whole renegotiation process is just a PR smokescreen".
Nor â as events are increasingly confirming â can we rely on the legacy media to keep us informed. Again and again, they have been
calling it wrong, and are showing no signs that they are capable of sensible reporting on this referendum. Within less than 24 hours of publishing its last report, the
Telegraph is effectively having to
retract it.
Once again, we have to say it, but if you want decent analysis, you need to read the blogs.
