British PM Faces the Voters on Brexit

This is the second installment of a somewhat irregular series on the British referendum to Leave or Remain in the European Union. The first installment is here. The referendum will be held on 23 June.

David Cameron, Prime Minster of the United Kindgom and the de facto leader of the campaign to keep the UK in the EU, faced Sky News presenter Faisal Islam and an audience of ordinary voters.

It did not go particularly well for him. The Telegraph had a running account of the broadcast.

Islam asked questions for the first half of the program, and quickly accused the PM of waging a “classic Cameron fear campaign,” as well as being thoroughly disingenuous about what they call “net migration.” Cameron had promised to bring it under 100,000 during his first campaign in 2010. Six years later, it’s over three times that.

While the opposition Labour Party is officially pro-Remain, that didn’t stop Labour heavies from tarring Cameron’s performance. Here’s John McTernan, a Labour version of Karl Rove, weighing in (same link).

First, he found Faisal Islam far feistier than he expected – the combination of command of the facts, humour and a slight lack of respect for the office of Prime Minister unnerved Cameron. Someone in his office should have shown some of Faisal’s devastating interviews in the Scottish referendum.

Second, he found the issue of immigration harder to deal with than he should have – and that was entirely his own fault. He fell into the trap of defending government policy and, in particular, his unachievable target of reducing net migration to below 100,000. He should have hit hard on the referendum argument – free movement is the price of access to the single market and if Britain closes its borders our economy and our prosperity suffers.

But while the presenter may have been tough on Cameron, that was nothing compared to the audience – in particular, Soraya Bouazzaoui.

Ms. Bouazzaoui, who actually agrees with Cameron on the EU issue, took him to task for “nothing but scaremongering,” calling the pro-EU campaign “a complete shambles,” and pointedly asking the PM about Turkey, a nation navigating the process of joining the EU while simultaneously succumbing to a Trump-like President of its own (Recep Erdogan).

As Cameron tried to respond without answering, Bouazzaoui dropped a line that rose the hearts of liberal arts majors everywhere.

I’m an English literature student, I know waffling when I see it.

Ouch.

McTernan’s response: “Get that woman to stand in for Jeremy Corbyn and Prime Minister’s Questions.”

All in all, a good night English Literature Departments, but not so much for the PM.

McTernan again: “He will not have swayed many floating voters – and he knew it. You could see his discomfort – as you always can – by the way his face flushed red.”

As for the euroskeptic Tories, well, you can read them yourselves. Suffice to say, they were far less kind than McTernan was.

In short, the Leave campaign has a tremendous opportunity tomorrow night when they’re chief spokesman (Justice Secretary Michael Gove – yes, the British Cabinet is divided on this matter – takes the stage tomorrow night.

I humbly predict, however, that the opportunity will be botched.

Gove is a brilliant man – one of the smartest ministers in Cabinet – but he can also be remarkably tone-deaf politically. His tenure was Education Minister (2010-14) was notable for two things: (1) dramatic and purposeful reform of the education system for the better, and (2) almost no attempt to build popular or institutional support for it. It is thanks to the determination of the PM to keep the reforms going that they survived Gove’s deaprture from Education – itself forced upon him by the PM in the pre-election reshuffle. To an extent, Gove and Cameron share the same problem – a smug tendency to be dismissive of the hoi polloi, unlike, say former Mayor Boris Johnson. Of course, Johnson has played the man-of-the-people card so well that his own intellect gets lost in the presentation, but that’s something completely different.

All in all, a bad night for Cameron, but not a disastrous one for Remain. If Gove can exceed my expectations, then Leave will with the exchange of the interviews.

If…