The “Out” campaign are on a hiding to nothing unless they can make their argument in terms of ordinary people’s lives
If eurosceptics of the better-off-out variety are going to win the EU referendum in 2017, then they are going to need to decide on an over-arching core message. What follows are a few ideas, probably better described as intuitions that I believe the “Out” campaign need to take note of when they determine that message.
I’m going to start by laying my own cards on the table. I am a eurosceptic. If a referendum were to be held tomorrow on whether to keep the current settlement or to leave the EU, I would vote to leave. I am currently taking a wait-and-see approach on deciding which way to vote on 2017; if, as I believe he has the best chance of anyone of doing, David Cameron can secure an acceptable settlement with the EU, I would vote to stay. Failing that, I would vote to leave. I’m an active member of the Conservative Party, and am involved in running CF in London. I believe that UKIP, as the only entirely eurosceptic party in Britain, must have a role in the “Out” campaign, but that role is not necessarily in leading it.
My first thought is this: the “Out” campaign are on a hiding to nothing unless they can make their argument in terms of ordinary people’s lives. It’s all very well talking about creeping eurofederalism, or the democratic deficit, or the evils of the Common Fisheries Policy, but for most people, that’s just stuff they hear about from talking heads on BBC News. Make it personal, make it about them, the people. Explain how EU regulations impact their wages, their fuel bills, the price of their weekly shop; tell them how the democratic deficit signs us up to bad laws that can’t be changed by Parliament. Psuedo-academic arguments about fairness and sovereignty and parliamentary supremacy won’t turn heads, and they won’t convince the bulk of undecideds. Simple, everyday arguments just might.
Secondly: if “Out” is to win, then they need to explain not merely why the EU is bad, but also why leaving is better. Jacob Rees-Mogg is in the habit of pointing out that “in constitutional referenda, the status quo usually wins”. There’s a good reason for that: voters, by and large, like certainty and familiarity. Plenty of them already know and accept that a lot of what the EU does is silly, wasteful, or outright harmful, but it is at least familiar and relatively predictable. Those voters who are directly affected by the EU know how it impacts them, and they already know how to live with it- they’re doing it right now. Being outside the EU brings uncertainty and unpredictability; unless “Out” can explain to those people why leaving would be better, they’ll likely stick with the devil they know. If “Out” can convince them that their solution is not the devil they don’t know, but not a devil at all, they’ll vote for “Out”.
Thirdly: following on from the why, “Out” must also explain the how. By this, I mean that “Out”, as well as explaining why leaving would be better, must explain what Britain would look like after Brexit; how things would work. How is very closely related to, but not identical with, why. They are bound up together, and it’s not really possible to answer one without the other. Following on from my first point, Owen Paterson-esque talk of seats at trans-national governing bodies will be all well and good, but unless “Out” can convince the electorate of how that will affect their everyday life and make it better, “Out” won’t convince anyone who’s not already made up their minds.
Finally, “Out” cannot write off the business community. Their judgement is crucial, since the vast majority of people work in the Private Sector, and workers will base their view of their job prospects in or out of the EU on what their bosses think. This seems, prima facie, to be a problem for “Out”; a great number of businesspeople are pro-EU, and the prevailing narrative is that Brexit will be bad for UK businesses (and, by extension, people’s wages). I think that’s an uncharitable view of businesspeople. Firstly, they are not a monolithic bloc, and they are not all uniformly europhiles in the Ken Clarke mould. Secondly, most of the europhiles in business are motivated not by some high moral principle, or even by base profit-grabbing greed, but by a sense of pragmatic conservatism. The sense that I get is that many businesspeople are anti-Brexit for the same “stability and certainty” reasons that most constitutional referenda return a result for the status quo. Business is familiar with the EU, understands how it behaves, can plan for the future in that knowledge. “Out” needs to make the how case to Business probably more than it does to the general population, but if it can, it will reap the rewards.
Obviously, there are no guarantees that any of these thoughts are going to be anywhere near close to the mark; I’m a philosophy student, not a political strategist. That said, I have given this some careful thought, and I hope that it stirs up a decent debate about how best to make the case for Brexit.
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