In danger of turning out to be a gamble too far by Cameron – he should
have known his party better and maybe even the people! There’s been significant
and increasingly vociferous anti EU element here ever since the late 80’s-
When in January 2013 DavidCameron promised that in the event of the Conservatives winning the 2015
General Election he would hold a Referendum on UK’s membership of the European
Union.
There was no general clamour in
the country at large for a referendum but pressure had been building up inside the
Tory party over membership of the EU and he succumbed and he also delighted UKIP
along with some others
He did it with two real motives
in mind, the first was to attempt to wrong foot UKIP and the other was to
pacify the anti EU wing of his party and thereby keep the party united. On both
those counts he has clearly miscalculated.
Evident that Cameron did not
think the whole issue through and the final outcome of his negotiations with the EU leaders did not impress a big part of his party.
A year ago I warned that if this referendum
goes wrong then David Cameron will go down in history as the Prime Minister who
was instrumental in the UK leaving the EU and also over a period of a few years
after bring about the end of the UK Union.
Although initially in the late
1970’s and for a few years after Margaret Thatcher was in favour of the UK remaining
in the then European Community and indeed played a big part in bringing about the
Single Market she became increasingly Eurosceptic during themed – late; 1980s
especially when the EU moved towards implementing the Social Chapter.
The manner of her demise from
power was full of drama as the pro-Europeans inside the Tory party had their
pound of flesh! – particularly Heseltine, Geoffrey Howe, Kenneth Clarke and
indeed Nigel Lawson who was pro the EU in those days.
However those people were never
forgiven by a significant section of the party and throughout John Major’s
premiership they were a constant thorn in his side on EU matters.
After the loss of the 1997
General Election the Euro sceptics started getting the upper-hand as William
Hague, Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard became leaders of the party.
Although Hague is now in the Remain camp now, back then he most certainly was
an Euro sceptic.
Without expanding further suffice
it to say if David Cameron ever thought that calling a referendum would smooth
the waters he has without doubt miscalculated badly and never properly
understood the mood of his party in Parliament and the country. After all in 2016
almost half the MPs and several senior members of the Government are in the Brexit camp
Central to this story of course is
not just the right wing of the Tory, the Referendum Party and the rise of UKIP
along with strident voices of the far right National Front, BNP and so on have
played their part in fashioning a good percentage of peoples’ opinions towards
the EU.
Complicit in where we find
ourselves today – a week before polling – has been the ineffective performance
of the Labour opposition and Trade Union movement in the early stages of the
Referendum campaign. I won’t pursue that line in this post but it has taken
them a long time to wake up to the dangers of a Brexit victory.
Now they have in the last few
days and thank God they have because it is only a strong vote to Remain in the
EU by Labour supporters that can save the UK and Cameron now in this Referendum.
Another difficulty has been the sad
and serious decline of the Liberal Democrats – for decades the most pro-EU
party of all. In the good days from mid-80’s to 2010 it gathered over 5 - 6
million votes in General Elections until the debacle of 2015. At present its
voice and influence has been greatly marginalised and pretty much ignored in
Parliament and the media. However the fact remains that even with 2.5 million
votes there is no doubt that their support too is needed now in order to win
this Referendum.
But as important is the overriding
impression I have had from speaking at several meetings, following social media
comment and the rest that a significant body of the voters are just not listening.
Despite a daily diet of facts on
the key issues being daily made available to them on a wide range of key issues
there is distrust, cynicism if not disbelief in the air. This is particularly
the case amongst working class people and those less well-off.
Too often have I been told and
read
‘I don’t want to be governed by
Brussels’
‘We are being told a bunch of
lies’
‘We want our country back’
Many people have bemoaned the current state
of the campaign. The regularity with which facts are either not being believed
or distorted, others not checked with what is viewed as ‘inconvenient facts’
are routinely dismissed as exaggerations and downright lies. The a lot of speculation is being presented as
hard evidence and most certainly the references to Hitler and so on all inhibit
and divert attention from having a proper debate about the costs and benefits
of EU membership.
Furthermore the social media has resulted in people
being surrounded with voices expressing similar views to their own.
But why has all this happened?
Well similar things are happening
in other parts of the world – with right-wing populists movements across
Europe and in the USA are trying to make their country great again by arguments
for ‘keeping immigrants out’, clamouring to ‘have their country back’ and propounding
falsehoods on matters such sovereignty and democracy
After the 2008 financial crash and subsequent austerity years people
are poorer than they expected to be so they are looking for someone or
something to blame and they don't feel like being generous to immigrants
anymore or supporting international aid.
The current social, economic and political climate is fertile
for politicians that often target migrants already here, who often subtly rail
against the ‘elites’, the ‘fat cats’ and cleverly peddle an ‘anti-parliament,
anti-politics’ line. All this is done by
people such as Farage, Boris and Gove who epitomise privilege. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove voted for the austerity that is punishing
working families, while Nigel Farage has argued for privatising the NHS.
The difficulty all of us who
support the European Union have is that working class families, low income
earners and those caught in a poverty trap are angry with how this country has
been governed for a decade and more
They are right to be angry and agitated
about such grotesque inequalities, low wages, poor jobs, bad housing, can’t get GP appointments, hospital waiting lists lengthening, the NHS in
a bad state, schools full and struggling while the richest can afford to pay
for private medical care and education.
But all of this is not the
fault of the EU but to try and convince them otherwise is proving difficult
because, as I have said earlier, they are not in the mood to listen or believe.
They blame the EU, or ‘immigrants
getting everything first’.
Indeed even if the prospect of
what a Boris Johnson/Michael Gove government would do they don’t seem to be particularly
troubled at the moment.
So with a week to go the
challenge is a serious one and it is one the Remain campaign really cannot afford
to lose not just for the sake of the country but also for the sake of all those
very people who will be most affected should the UK end up outside the EU.
Then here’s another thought could there be after all a ray of
hope? What if the result is close? this referendum is not legally binding but that topic is for a future
post!
