THE EU REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN – THE RHETORIC AND THE REALITY Andrew Grice, The Independent Although the title of this talk was fixed months ago, it was prophetic. We certainly had a lot of rhetoric in the EU referendum -- and now we are certainly experiencing the reality of what Brexit means. Just to introduce myself, I’m a long-term inmate of the Westminster institution, having worked there as a political journalist since 1982.

I’ve been a journalist since 1974, when I started on local newspapers. One of the first political events I covered was the 1975 referendum on whether we should remain in the European Economic Community, as it was then. Comparing that to what we have seen in the last few months, 1975 really does feel like a different age. Then, there were plenty of long, well-argued speeches by the leading players on both sides. In this year’s referendum, there were fewer big set piece speeches but, inevitably, lots of made-for-TV soundbites. In 1975, I remember what a sensation it caused when two Labour Cabinet ministers – Tony Benn, who opposed EEC membership, and Roy Jenkins, a strong supporter of it – clashed on television.

Little did we know then that, the next time we would hold a referendum about our place in Europe, we would have weeks and weeks of so-called “blue on blue” attacks in which Conservative ministers and MPs criticised each other in public. And a Prime Minister accused of being “demented” and not trusted to tell the truth –by so-called senior Tory “colleagues”. As they repeatedly said inside Downing Street:

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” When David Cameron gave his ministers permission to campaign for a Leave vote – free from the normal rules of collective responsibility which would mean supporting the Government’s position of Remain –he told them in a personal note to act as a

“united, harmonious, mutually respectful team.”

Well, that went well, didn’t it?

Ministers campaigning for Leave even trashed their own Government’s record – on issues like the NHS, school places, the national living wage. The common thread to these criticisms was the impact of immigration and our ability to control it while we remained in the EU.

When the Leave campaign seemed to be losing the argument on the economy, it went hard on the risks of uncontrolled migration. Now I’m afraid there wasn’t much fine oratory to report for those of us covering the campaign. A lot of it was very crude. This is from a speech by Priti Patel, the Employment Minister and a leading Out campaigner

“Our membership of the EU is putting the NHS under threat….What we get back from the EU is a city the size of Newcastle (population 288,000) of new immigrants to the UK every year.”

By the way, she didn’t mention the 135,000 EU “migrants” who keep our health and social care systems going – but never mind

Then there was a controversial Vote Leave poster saying: “Turkey (population 76 million) Is Joining the EU”

IS? Well Turkey has been joining the EU since negotiations began in 2005. But not very much has happened since…

Michael Gove claimed that up to 5.2 million people could come to Britain by 2030 – many from Turkey, even though there is no prospect of that country joining the EU by 2020, as Vote Leave assumed in its calculations. Even if other countries in the queue to join like Serbia and Montenegro joined by then, there could be transitional limits on free movement for seven years. So the rhetoric about five million EU migrants bore little relation to reality. Then, of course, there was the infamous Ukip poster unveiled by Nigel Farage, headed “Breaking Point” Showing a queue of dark-skinned migrants The implication was that they were trying to get into Britain. In fact, the photo was taken on the border between Croatia and Slovenia. Even some Conservatives who backed Brexit have since expressed alarm about what they now calle the “send them home rhetoric” during the campaign. Clearly, it has left a legacy of tension and distrust in the community and, sadly, we have seen a rise in racist attacks

So in my view, there were two Project Fears in this referendum Yes, there were lots of scare stories from the Remain campaign about what Brexit would mean, particularly for the economy But there was also a Project Fear about immigration from the Leave campaign

Arguably, both sides overdosed on the rhetoric So David Cameron was accused of warning that we would have World War Three if we left the EU. He didn’t actually say those words. But in a speech, he did say: "The serried rows of white headstones in lovingly tended Commonwealth war cemeteries stand as silent testament to the price this country has paid to help restore peace and order in Europe. "Can we be so sure that peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash as to make that assumption." Not to be outdone, Boris Johnson played the Hitler card. He said that European history had seen repeated attempts to rediscover the "golden age of peace and prosperity under the Romans". "Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.”

Even some of his allies in the Leave camp did not support the use of such rhetoric.

The post – referendum rhetoric has been revealing too. As soon as the referendum was over, some people seemed to be trying to rewrite history. Boris Johnson argued in The Daily Telegraph that “It is said that those who voted Leave were mainly driven by anxieties about immigration. I do not believe that is so. After meeting thousands of people in the course of the campaign, I can tell you that the number one issue was control – a sense that British democracy was being undermined by the EU system, and that we should restore to the people that vital power: to kick out their rulers at elections, and to choose new ones.”

Interestingly, Boris was contradicted immediately by Arron Banks, the millionaire backer of Nigel Farage in the rival Leave.EU campaign. Banks, who carried out extensive opinion polling, said immigration was the number one issue for the white working class.

Although some polls suggest that “democratic control” was a bigger issue overall for people who voted Leave, there is no doubt that immigration persuaded working class voters who felt left behind by globalisation to Vote Leave. The rhetoric may have been nasty. But it worked.

Every speech, statement and interview by the Vote Leave campaign included the slogan “Take Back Control.”

It was a brilliant piece of rhetoric, perhaps the best in the entire referendum campaign. The man who coined it was Dominic Cummings, a close adviser to Michael Gove and who was the campaign director of Vote Leave. Incidentally, when Cummings wrote a proposed campaign blueprint for the Leave group in 2014, he said it should not play the immigration card because that could repel swing voters. In effect, they should leave that to Nigel Farage But, at some point, Vote Leave changed its mind. The pledge to “Take Back Control” worked on several levels – it applied to our laws, our courts but the words that were ALWAYS mentioned after it –were “our borders.” It was also about getting back control of the money we send to Brussels. As you know, that “£350 million pounds a week” slogan was painted on the side of the Boris battlebus, alongside a pledge to spend it on the NHS instead. The £350 million-a-week figure was misleading because we only “hand over to Brussels” about half of that.

The interesting thing is that the Vote Leave campaign didn’t care that their figure was wrong – or that it was criticised by independent figures including Andrew Dilnot, who chairs the Statistics Authority. Why didn’t they care? Well, they were quite happy to have a row about how much we send to Brussels because it reminded voters that we send something. Millions of pounds a week, in fact. But it was an interesting insight into modern campaigning that the people behind the message did not care whether or not it was accurate.

There was another very clever piece of rhetoric from the Leave camp. Michael Gove said: “I think people in this country have had enough of experts.” This played into the anti-politicians, anti-establishment feeling amongst voters and perhaps diluted the impact of the torrent of reports predicting a very big economic downside if we voted for Brexit. I don’t think it was a pre-cooked piece of rhetoric. Rather, it was a clever piece of thinking on his feet. Gove had his back to the wall in a Sky News interview, when he was asked to name a single economic authority in favour of Brexit.

Now, the winners of the referendum have the task of turning their campaign rhetoric into reality Already we can see how difficult that is going to be. Some of those who campaigned to Leave think that we may have to accept some level of free movement from the EU in order to retain our access to the European single market. And there are mixed signals about when – or even whether – the NHS will get all that extra money we currently send to Brussels. Of course, politicians may judge that it is worth using exaggerated rhetoric during the course of an election or referendum campaign in order to win it —if necessary they will cross the bridge of reality when they get there. That’s certainly how it felt when I was writing about this referendum. There was a genuine appetite – and a clamour from the public --for

“THE FACTS” and clearly there was a lot of confusion about the benefits of the EU – notably the single market-- and the risks of leaving it.

Perhaps many voters were genuinely torn and were looking for a single killer fact that would enable them to make up their mind. Holding the referendum did create an opportunity to engage the public but sadly that may have been largely missed. Yes,

there was a high turnout of 72 per cent and of course that is a good thing. But the campaign was often based on misinformation rather than information – on both sides. For example, one piece of rhetoric from the Chancellor George Osborne was that the economy and individuals would take a “HIT”

after Brexit – for example, his claim that every household would be £4,300 a year worse off. Or that: “Average wages would be HIT by almost £800 a year if we leave the EU. Not a price worth paying for working families,” Osborne said. That word “HIT” is a revealing one. It was chosen carefully. It’s an old political trick. It might sound the same as a “LOSS” but the reality is that it’s not. So, what the Remain campaign was actually saying was that the economy would grow LESS QUICKLY after Brexit – NOT that it wouldn’t grow at all.

But it didn’t sound like that when the rhetoric was delivered. And that the losses faced by families were relative – not a MINUS figure or a wage CUT but just that incomes or wages would rise less slowly if we left the EU. Of course it was impossible to know – and still is – whether all of the rhetoric on both sides was based on reality. Three words that politicians never like to use are: “I don’t know.” They like to deal in certainty. Especially in the heat of battle. In this referendum the stakes were so high, that there was little room for nuance. To some extent, that was always going to lead to a crude campaign on both sides. That’s one downside of referendums, of offering people a binary choice – in this case, Remain or Leave. The decision we reached was to vote AGAINST something – EU membership—without knowing what we were voting FOR. Perhaps, with hindsight, those of us in the media should have pressed much harder to find out whether the Leave camp had a real plan for what to do after a Brexit vote, and what Brexit would mean for our country Because now it seems that even THEY don’t know. Which is a bit worrying, because they are in charge now – or soon will be.

There were very few real FACTS in this campaign

–even though the public wanted them – because predicting what would happen after Brexit was based on guesswork, particularly when you remember that some of the economic forecasts that featured in the campaign went up to the year 2030.

As Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons Treasury Select Committee, said:

“Lurid claims and counter-claims by both sides are impoverishing political debate.”

I have to agree. I have covered every general election since October 1974 and I think this referendum was more negative, ill-tempered and nasty than the campaigns in any of those elections. Of course, we live in a very different world to the one that existed the previous referendum in 1975. Today, people don’t queue in draughty halls waiting to hear a politician make a carefully-crafted, hour-long speech. The 24 hour news channels and the internet have made politics a much faster game. That doesn’t leave much room for the great orators of the past. Speeches are often briefed to the media before they are delivered and so the event itself receives little attention as it is “old news” by then. I have even known speeches be spun to the media in advance and then not even delivered! Politics has been professionalised, not always for the better. Some of the participants seem to see it as a game. So over the

top rhetoric is just another tool in their box. The growth of social media has made it much more aggressive. There isn’t much scope for nuance in 140 characters. But there’s enough room for insults or even threats and intimidation, especially when it’s anonymous. Twitter has changed our political discourse – and not for the better. In my view, it creates an echo chamber where people’s views are reinforced and amplified by those who already agree with them – and often therefore see those on other side of the argument as “liars”. That’s not healthy debate.

I also think there was a contrast between this referendum and the one on Scottish independence in 2014. Although that saw a passionate debate with strong views on both sides, the voters seemed more engaged with real arguments…. Not least a genuine debate about national identity. In contrast, the EU referendum seemed to be more about simple slogans and scaremongering. The debate about immigration was often crude and nasty and appeared to scapegoat migrants, the EU – or both—as the cause of our problems.

So is all the rhetoric deployed in the Remain campaign’s Project Fear now becoming reality? Well, it certainly felt like on the day after the referendum, when the pound and the stock market both plummeted. Share prices have bounced back since but the pound is still down.

The truth is that there will be an economic shock, and possibly a recession as businesses put decisions on hold and consumers spend less, but we won’t know the full economic reality for some time. We’ll be in a better position to judge the impact at the time of the Chancellor’s autumn statement in November or December, when we’ll have a new set of forecasts from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. Finally I think the EU referendum raises big questions about the way we do our politics, and I think we need to learn some lessons. I was struck by an open letter signed by more than 250 academics criticising the “Deliberate misinformation” By both sides. It was co-ordinated by the Constitution Unit based here at UCL and published just over a week before the referendum

They pointed out that some countries – Ireland and New Zealand, for example -- have official bodies which regulate the truthfulness of claims made in referendum campaigns. In contrast, in our referendum, both sides sent misinformation to every household, paid for by taxpayers’ money, the academics said. Dr Alan Renwick, deputy director of the Constitution Unit, said:

“The referendum asks voters to make one of the most important decisions in the UK’s democratic history. “But the cacophony of misinformation – including that coming from the official campaigns – means many voters are likely to base their choice on beliefs about the effects of EU membership or Brexit that are simply wrong. “This subverts the whole democratic purpose of the referendum and could be a tragedy for the country’s future.” Well, his words were prophetic --- just like the title of this talk

The Constitution Unit is now calling for an independent inquiry into the conduct of referendums – including whether greater prominence should be given to impartial information and whether campaigners can be prevented or dissuaded from making false or misleading claims Of course, any attempt to regulate information in political campaigns would attract controversy and no doubt provoke claims that we are putting free speech at risk, and inhibiting healthy debate that is vital to our democracy. We don’t regulate political advertising in this country – it is not subject to the same “legal, decent, honest and truthful” rules as advertising for goods and services.

Perhaps that’s just as well: there probably wouldn’t be much political advertising left if it had to meet those criteria Maybe we should find a way to at least make political rhetoric pass some basic tests. When the head of the Statistics Authority says that a claim about the savings from leaving the EU is plain wrong, then surely the people behind the message should not be allowed to just ignore the warning and carry on using it? Perhaps the Electoral Commission, which supervises the running of elections and referendums, should be given more powers to step in when claims cross a line and are not just controversial but patently untrue. And, after all, how free was the debate we have just had when our best-selling newspapers supported Brexit and tailored their coverage accordingly? There was a lot of rhetoric from the newspapers as well as the politicians in this referendum. The Remain camp believes that papers like The Daily Mail and The Sun “poisoned the well” by pushing immigration to the top of the agenda, while filtering out the arguments for staying in the EU.

Typical of the coverage was a Daily Mail front page picturing a group of migrants who arrived in Britain in the back of a lorry.

“We’re from Europe – let us in!” screamed the headline.

The following day, a tiny correction on page two admitted the migrants were from the Middle East.

The Remain campaign felt that it was swimming against a media tide. Even when Remain had good ammunition, many newspapers turned it against it. When the widely respected Institute for Fiscal Studies did a report on the cost of Brexit

– a £30bn black hole requiring spending cuts or tax rises --

the anti-EU newspapers, turned it into an attack by Vote Leave on the “EU-funded IFS.”

Crucially, the agenda pursued by the newspapers undoubtedly influences the broadcasters, even though they have a duty to be impartial. The same thing happened at last year’s general election.

So, in conclusion, perhaps we as a country need to find a way to ensure that, in future, our political rhetoric bears at least a little more resemblance to the reality... So we have had the battle of the rhetoric in the referendum. And the rhetoric of the Leave campaign proved more

powerful --- largely, I think, because it was often about immigration – whether directly or indirectly. And, now, we must live with the reality.