The EU IN/OUT referendum: strategy and tactics for those who want to leave the EU

[RH]

The EU IN/OUT referendum: strategy and tactics for those who want to
leave the EU

Posted on March 31, 2013by Robert Henderson


Robert Henderson

The general strategy

It is essential that the Europhiles are not allowed to make the debate
revolve around economics. If they do it will effectively stifle
meaningful debate. As anyone who has ever tried to present economic
ideas to an audience of the general public will know it is a soul-
destroying experience. Take the question of how much of UK trade is
with the EU. The debate will begin with the stay-in camp saying
something like 45% of UK trade is with the EU. Those wanting to leave
the EU will respond by saying it is probably less than 40% because of
the Rotterdam/Amsterdam effect . They will then be forced to explain
what the Rotterdam/Amsterdam, effect is. That is the point where the
general public’s concentration is lost and the debate ends up proving
nothing to most of the audience.

But although nothing is proved to the general audience by detailed
economic argument , that audience will remember certain phrases
which have considerable traction. In amongst the serious debating on
the issue of trade there will be phrases such as three million jobs in
Britain rely on the EU and dire threats about how the EU will simply
not buy British goods and services any more. This is nonsense but
fear is not a rational thing and many of those who vote will enter the
voting chamber with fear of losing their jobs in their heads
regardless of what the OUT camp says if the debate is predominantly
about economics. Shift the debate away from economics and the fear
inducing phrases will be heard less often. If the BIG LIE is not
repeated often enough its potency fades.

How should those wanting to leave the EU shift the focus of debate?
They should put the matter which is really at the core of the UK’s
relationship with the EU – national sovereignty – at the front of
the OUT camp’s referendum campaign. Campaign under a slogan such as
Are we to be masters in our own house?

Making national sovereignty the primary campaigning issue has the
great advantage of it being something that anyone can understand
because it is both a simple concept and speaks directly to the natural
tribal instincts of human beings. Being a simple concept readily
and naturally understood, it is a far more potent debating tool than
arguments attempting to refute the economic arguments beloved of the
stay-in camp. The fact that the natural tribal instincts have been
suppressed for so long in the UK will increase its potency because
most people will feel a sense of release when it begins to be catered
for in public debate.

The appeal to national sovereignty has a further advantage. Those who
support the EU are unused to debating on that ground. That is because
uncritical support for the EU has long been the position of both the
British mainstream political class as a class and of the mass media.
That has meant that the contrary voice – that which wishes Britain to
be independent – has been largely unheard in public debate for thirty
years or more. Where it has been heard the response of the pro-EU
majority has not been rational argument but abuse ranging from
patronising dismissal of a wish for sovereignty as an outmoded
nationalism to accusations that national sovereignty amounts to
xenophobia or even racism. These tactics – of excluding those who
want to leave the EU from public debate and abuse substituted for
argument – will no longer be available to the pro EU lobby.

Immigration

The prime subject relating to the EU for the general public is
immigration. The public are right to identify this as the most
important aspect of our membership of the EU because immigration
touches every important part of British life: jobs, housing,
education, welfare, healthcare, transport, free expression and crime
besides radically changing the nature of parts of the UK which now
have large populations of immigrants and their descendants.

The public rhetoric of mainstream politicians and the media is
changing fast as they begin to realise both what an electoral
liability a de facto open door immigration policy is as the effects
of mass immigration become ever more glaring. The argument is
shifting from the economic to the cultural. For example, here is the
Daily Telegraph in a leader of 25 March:

“The fact is that, for many in Britain (especially those outside the
middle classes), it is not just a matter of jobs being taken or public
services being stretched, but of changes in the very character of
communities. Those changes may not necessarily be for the worse: as
the Prime Minister says, Britain’s culture has long been enriched by
the contributions of new arrivals. But as long as ministers treat
immigration as a matter of profit and loss, rather than the cause of
often wrenching social change, they will never be able fully to
address the grievances it causes.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/
telegraph-view/9952717/Immigration-and-the-limits-of-the-
possible.html)

This new frankness in public debate means that the OUT camp can use
the immigration argument freely provided they keep the language within
the confines of formal politeness. The subject will naturally dovetail
with the emphasis on national sovereignty because the most important
aspect of sovereignty is the ability to control the borders of the
territory of a state. It is also probable that the mainstream UK
parties will be content to go along with ever more frank discussion
about immigration.

The economic argument must be kept simple

It will not be possible to avoid economic arguments entirely. The OUT
camp should concentrate on repeating these two facts:

- The disadvantageous balance of payments deficit the UK has
with the EU

- The amount the UK pays to the EU

Those are the most solid economic figures relating to the EU. There
is some fuzziness around the edges of the balance of payments deficit
because of the question of where all the imports end up (whether in
the EU or outside the EU through re-exporting) , while the amount
the EU receives is solid but it has to be broken down into the money
which returns to the UK and the amount retained by Brussels.
Nonetheless these are the most certain economic figures and the least
susceptible to obfuscation by the stay-in side.

The best way of presenting the money paid to the EU is simply to say
that outside the EU we can decide how all of it is spent in this
country and to illustrate what the money saved by not paying it to the
EU would pay for.

It will also be necessary to address the question of protectionist
measures the EU might take against the UK if the vote was to leave.
It is improbable that the EU would place heavy protectionist barriers
on UK exports because:

1. The massive balance of payment deficit between the UK and the
rest of the EU which is massively in the EU’s favour.

2. Much UK trade with the EU is heavily concentrated in certain
regions of the EU. The effect of protectionist barriers would bear
very heavily on these places.

3. There are strategically and economically important joint projects
of which the UK is a major part, for example, Airbus, the Joint-
Strike Fighter.

4. the Republic of Ireland would be a massive bargaining chip for the
UK to play. If the UK left and the EU rump attempted to impose
sanctions against Britain this would cripple the RoI because so much
of their trade is with the UK The EU would be forced to massively
subsidise the RoI if protectionist barriers against the UK were
imposed. The EU could not exempt the RoI from the sanctions because
that would leave the EU open to British exports being funnelled
through the RoI.

5. The EU would be bound by the World Trade Organisation’s
restrictions on protectionist measures

The economic issues which are not worth pursuing in detail because
they are too diffuse and uncertain , are those relating to how much
the EU costs Britain in terms of EU-inspired legislation. It may well
be that these load billions a year of extra costs onto the UK but
they are not certain or easily evaluated costs, not least because we
cannot in the nature of things know what burdens an independent UK
would impose off its own bat. Getting into detailed discussions
about such things will simply play into the hands of the stay-in camp
because it will eat up the time and space available to those promoting
the OUT cause.

Before the vote

It is important that all the parties likely to have seats in the
Commons after the next election are publicly and relentlessly pressed
to give at least a broad outline of what action they would adopt in
the event of a vote to leave. Left with a free hand there is a
serious danger that whatever British government was in charge after a
vote to leave would attempt to bind the UK back into the EU by stealth
by signing the UK up to agreements such as those the EU has with
Norway and Switzerland which mean that they have to (1) pay a fee to
the EU annually, (2) adopt the social legislation which comes from the
EU and (3) most importantly agree to the four “freedoms” of the EU –
the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour throughout
not merely the EU but the wider European Economic Area (EEA).

It is probable that the Westminster parties will all resist this, but
that would present them with two problems. First, a refusal to do so
would make them seem untrustworthy; second, if one party laid out
their position but the others did not, that would potentially give the
party which did say what it would do a considerable advantage over the
others which did not. If no party puts its plans before the public
before the referendum, there should be demands from those who want
the UK to leave the EU that any new treaties with the EU must be put
to a referendum and if they are rejected the UK will simply trade with
the EU under the WTO rules.

Supporting the negotiation of a new relationship between the UK and
the EU before a referendum is mistaken because it would seem to many
to be giving tacit approval for renegotiation and legitimise the
possibility of the UK remaining within the EU. It is also rash
because the likelihood of the EU giving nothing is probably very
small. Indeed, they might well give something which is substantial,
because the UK leaving the EU would be a very great blow to the
organisation. The UK is the country with the second largest population
within the EU with , depending on how it is measured, the second or
third largest economy and the country which pays the second largest
contribution to the EU budget. For the EU to lose the UK would not
only be a blow in itself, it would also create a very strong precedent
for every other EU state, especially the largest ones. If the UK
left and prospered the temptation would be for other EU states to
leave.

But even if negotiation produced nothing of substance as Harold
Wilson’s “renegotiation” did in 1975, it would be a mistake to imagine
that it would not influence the referendum result. The electorate is
divided between the resolute come outs, the resolute stay-ins and the
wavering middle. A claim by the stay-in campaigners that something
had been conceded by the EU, however insignificant, would provide
the waverers with an excuse to vote to stay in because they could
convince themselves they were voting for change.

it would be also be a mistake to see the EU offering nothing at all
as a gift for the OUT camp. This is because the waverers might simply
see that as evidence that the EU was too powerful to oppose and shift
their votes to staying in.

Those who want the UK to leave should unambiguously put the case for
no renegotiation before the referendum. Dismiss anything Cameron (or
any other PM) brings back from the EU by way of altered terms as being
irrelevant because the EU has a long record of agreeing things with
the UK and then finding ways of sabotaging what was agreed. In
addition, a future British government may agree to alter any terms
offered at the time of the referendum. The classic example of this
changing of agreed terms happening in the past is Tony Blair’s giving
up of a substantial amount of the Thatcher rebate in return for a
promised reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a promise
which was never met. That episode produced my all-time favourite
amongst Blair’s penchant for lying. Two days before he went to the EU
meeting at which he gave away a substantial part of the rebate he
declared during Prime Minister’s Questions that “the rebate is not up
for discussion – period”

It is difficult to envisage any British prime minister not trying to
negotiate with the EU before a referendum, but it might just
ostensibly happen if whoever is in power when the referendum is
announced were to be told privately by the major EU players that
nothing will be given and the prime minister of the day concludes it
would be best to pretend that a decision had been made not to
negotiate rather than risk the humiliation of getting nothing, perhaps
not even a pretence of negotiation before nothing is given. Why would
the EU do this? They might calculate that it would be a gamble worth
taking to send a British PM away with nothing whilst hoping the
referendum vote would be to stay in because then the power of the UK
to resist further integration would be shot.

After the vote

Ideally the government which deals with the EU after a vote to leave
will have committed themselves to a plan of action before the
referendum vote. However, as described above, it is quite possible
that this will not happen because the UK’s overwhelmingly Europhile
political class will try to re-entangle the UK with the EU. To prevent
them doing so there should be a concerted campaign after the vote to
ensure that the British public understands what is being done on
their behalf with a demand for a further referendum to agree any new
treaty.


Read more at
http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/the-eu-inout-referendum-strategy-and-tactics-for-those-who-want-to-leave-the-eu/

[Andy Wainwright]

Trouble I see is there's too much rightwing domination of the "no" camp.

UKIP's actually been hit very hard by the "you can judge a man by the
company he keeps" mantra. In addition, a lot of the campaign has been
negative in general- being negative will win a few votes short term but
requires almost no original thought and doesn't contribute anything
constructive to the wider political debate.

Sure I think Brussels has too much power, I think Westminster has too
much power as well. One lot of liars and cheats is no better than the
others- instead of taken power off one and giving it to the other, take
the powers off both and give them back to the people.

[Weary]

On 31/03/2013 23:41, Andy Wainwright wrote:

>
> Sure I think Brussels has too much power, I think Westminster has too
> much power as well. One lot of liars and cheats is no better than the
> others- instead of taken power off one and giving it to the other, take
> the powers off both and give them back to the people.
>
>

What exactly, does that mean?

[Mel Rowing]

On Mar 31, 10:11 pm, RH <anywhere...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The EU IN/OUT referendum: strategy and tactics for those who want to
> leave the EU
>
> Posted on March 31, 2013by Robert Henderson
>
> Robert Henderson
>
> The general strategy
>
> It is essential that the Europhiles are not allowed to make the debate
> revolve around economics.   If they do it will effectively stifle
> meaningful debate. As anyone who has ever tried to present economic
> ideas to an audience of the general public will know it is a soul-
> destroying experience.  Take the question of how much of UK trade is
> with the EU. The debate will begin with the stay-in camp saying
> something like 45% of UK trade is with the EU. Those wanting to leave
> the EU will respond by saying it is probably less than 40% because of
> the Rotterdam/Amsterdam effect . They will then be forced to explain
> what the Rotterdam/Amsterdam, effect is. That is the point where the
> general public’s concentration is lost and the debate ends up proving
> nothing to most of the audience.

In other words duck the issue! That's a real tactic to impress.

What an excellent way to lose a good campaign!

There will be many issues and the economic effect of leaving will be
one of them.

Of course we can always point to Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain,
Portugal and now Cyprus to illustrate the beauties of life in Euroland
proper. The system is falling to bits anyway.

Closer to home we can point out that nobody makes any serious argument
that we should stop trading with Europe. We always have! OTOH we do
run currently a trade deficit with Europe and so if it came to it, and
there is no reason why it should, I think people would appreciate
that there is nothing we can buy in Europe that we can't source
elsewhere. I think further they would understand that European
businesses need customers also.

At the end of the day trade will always endure so long as somebody has
to sell what others want to buy and that's a situation that
politicians can do anything about one way or the other.

Over and above the economy here are other issues. The Democratic
deficit, sovereignty, immigration, border controls.

All in all the Euro-sceptics have a bloody good case. No matter what
the enemy wants to talk about, take them on!

[R. Mark Clayton]

"RH" <anywh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:6c3a0164-dfda-46f7...@t5g2000vbm.googlegroups.com...

The EU IN/OUT referendum: strategy and tactics for those who want to
leave the EU

Posted on March 31, 2013by Robert Henderson

SNIP Long complicated ramble

The economic argument must be kept simple

It will not be possible to avoid economic arguments entirely. The OUT
camp should concentrate on repeating these two facts:

- The disadvantageous balance of payments deficit the UK has
with the EU

I remember the 1960's BEFORE the UK was in the EU. Our balance of trade was
terrible then and only kept from serious consequences by "invisible
earnings" (principally insurance)

- The amount the UK pays to the EU

The EU spends money here....

SNIP

The OUT campaign appeals on a lot of criteria - pride, nationalism,
independent spirit, prejudice (against all those Johnny foreigners wanting
to come here), xenophobia etc., but logic isn't one them...