EU Referendum


EU Referendum: opposing for the sake of opposition


12/01/2016




Whatever your views about David Bowie, I have yet to talk to anyone who is anything other than scandalised by the BBC devoting the first 15 minutes of the national news at 6pm to his death – half of the entire bulletin.

This is a classic example of how the media have lost it – their sense of proportion has totally deserted them, whence their news values have become grotesquely distorted.

In another, related example, we see John Simpson, crime correspondent for The Times respond to the pre-publication of tomorrow's front page of the Financial Times by complaining about the "boring" headline about David Bowie, ignoring the powerful lead story which tells us that Toyota will stay in the UK even if we leave the EU.

A wider story that is being ignored by almost the whole of the legacy media, though, is the growing controversy over the failure of "leave" groups to produce their own exit plans.

Wading into the debate was Open Europe which had Raoul Ruparel responding to Matthew Elliott's comments about the failure of the government to produce a contingency plan.

"I can't help", he said, "but get a significant sense of hypocrisy from those backing Brexit calling on the government to outline a plan when they are yet to do so themselves. As we have said before the onus should be on both sides of the campaign to put forward their clear visions for the UK inside and outside the EU, or at the very least have a discussion of how it might look".

Ahead of the game, though, was Leave.eu, which has electrified the debate with its initiative on Flexcit, in the space of 72 hours receiving over 3,000 e-mails responding to the news – the preponderance being wholly supportive of the idea.

Nevertheless, it is jumping the gun to say that Leave.eu has adopted Flexcit. Their use of the plan was always subject to a re-branding exercise, and I wrote recently clarifying the situation, stating that I had submitted a draft, under the title "The Market Solution". Its status remains as a submission. Leave.eu will look at it, I wrote, "and then we will discuss changes".

However, Leave.eu have issued further clarification, stating that a final decision had not been made on what their final plan will look like but, recognising the urgency of having a plan, felt it was "essential" to start immediately on developing a plan.

There is no question that Leave.eu is committed to producing an exit plan, and I have been retained as a consultant to assist in that process. Thus, jointly, we will be the first major leave campaign to commit to such a plan, with Vote Leave still floundering in its own intellectual backwater.

Inevitably, there are issues to resolve before the Leave.eu is able to offer its own completed plan, and it was always going to be the case that there was going to be hostility to anything which didn't commit to a departure within 48 hours of the referendum result, using the WTO Option of some such.

But, as Pete points out in this You Tube video, compromise is going to be needed if we are to produce a credible plan. Furthermore, we cannot allow the vocal minority "tail" to wag the dog. Volume does not make up for credibility.

As an example of how the debate is moving, just over two years ago Ukip's Gerald Batten was totally opposing the use of Article 50, while Nigel Farage was only tentatively allowing himself to be associated with the article.

Despite the strenuous opposition from a group whom I called the "Praetorian Guard", there is now scarcely any opposition to Article 50 and it is taken as read that this will set the procedure by which we will leave the EU.

Similarly, it is only going to be a matter of time before it is recognised that the push for "control of borders" is a red herring. With 34 million foreign visitors to this country each year – many of them coming in from Europe without visas – the net outcome of more stringent entry controls will simply been more people overstaying illegally.

This is such a well-known and established phenomenon, that no one other than the most superficial of pundits will seriously argue that tighter border controls will have any significant effect on the movement of people from EU member states.

Any restriction on freedom of movement will require a raft of administrative controls and systems, applied as post-entry controls by a range of authorities. They will also require private sector cooperation, from the likes of banks, landlords and employers.

The essence of this, therefore, is not a matter of border controls, but the ability to determine immigration policy, and then to match resources and enforcement to the need.

But then, we also need to address the migration issues mandated by the ECHR and the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees, and – as White Wednesday pointed out - look again at some of our bilateral agreements.

As with the Article 50 controversy, these issues will be resolved by discussion and argument, largely without media participation, only journalists such as Booker taking an interest.

But we do see people locked into their obsessions, which tend to take them further and further from reality. The mantras assume lives of their own, with their advocates losing sight of their own objectives, as the obsessions take root.

Fortunately, though, we find that such objections – lacking a credible evidential base – tend to evaporate as fast as they take root, when exposed to enough scrutiny and debate. There are enough people who do realise that compromises are necessary in the real world, and that the need to leave the EU outweighs the doctrinaire obsessions of the vocal minorities.

The clamour for an effective Brexit plan is being more widely heard, from multiple sources, which means that the obsessive will no longer be able to dominate the argument. Equally, there are alternative voices being heard on immigration.

As outsiders then start recognising the points, we will get to the situation where sense prevails and nobody will even admit to having opposed that which becomes the received wisdom.

It is a pity that we have to expend the energy going through this tiresome routine, but it seems to be an inescapable part of getting any new ideas lodged. There will always be those who oppose, merely for the sake of opposing, and they will demand their 15 seconds of fame before they disappear into the obscurity where they belong.