Labour Leaders Bring the Big Buns On the Remain Side

This is the seventh installment of my continuing yet irregular series on the British referendum to Leave or Remain in the European Union. Here are the first six posts I have written. The referendum will be held on 23 June.

As more polls show Leave in the lead (Isabel Hardman, who once rather brilliantly described the Remain theme as “Vote Remain or the puppy gets it”), Labour leaders (who back Remain) were given the stage nearly all to themselves today to make the case to their voters (nearly half of whom would prefer to Leave if we believe the polling – if….).

Jeremy Corbyn himself stated the case, followed by his Deputy Tom Watson – and that’s where things went wrong again for the “Remainians” (hat tip to Michael Deacon at the Telegraph for that one).

Watson decided the best way to win over voters to a side preaching the need for the certainty of the EU was…to make life in the EU suddenly more uncertain (Hardman again).

The first is that it is strange to be talking about a future renegotiation when the Remain campaign does still occasionally try to persuade voters that they are voting to stay in a reformed European Union. By talking about what more needs to be done, Watson is effectively dumping all over the renegotiation that David Cameron has already carried out, saying that there will need to be another one. He told the BBC today that ‘with freedom of movement, it’s one issue that’s coming up on the doorstep. A future government – whether it be Labour or Conservative – has to hear what voters are telling them and if you look across the continent of Europe, voters are telling political elites the same thing.

‘So to me it’s inevitable that whoever wins the next General Election will have to make it their negotiating position when it comes to future European reform and David Cameron has the opportunity to do that as Prime Minister now if he makes it the priority for Britain’s leadership of the presidency of the EU next year.’

The second reason that it is odd that Tom Watson is making these comments is that it is surely impossible for any government, even one that puts more effort into its renegotiation than David Cameron did into his, to fundamentally reform a fundamental part of the European Union such as freedom of movement. So why start promising it?

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The effect of promising more changes in future will surely be that voters wonder whether staying in the European Union is riskier than leaving it, the risk being that no government will ever be able to secure the changes that voters want. If David Cameron couldn’t do it, how can anyone else manage it? Remain needs something seriously potent at this stage to change the debate – and this isn’t it.

Of course, if it were just Watson, it could be seen as a one-off, but with former Brownite heavy Ed Balls using the same line, it’s fairly clear that Labour is deciding that the best way to sell staying in the EU is to promise that the EU will get better. Dan Hannan easily skewered that in the Spectator debate.

I heard the single worst argument today for Remain, and it came from Ed Balls. Vote to remain and then reform it, he said. Why has nobody thought of it before?

But we can’t reform the EU. We can’t change it into something different to what it was designed to be. Think of the last two years. Cameron tried to get a better deal. He came back with nothing – not one power was repatriated, no pennys, not even a new treaty. The EU is unable and unwilling to make concessions.

Ask yourself one question – if this is how it treats us now, when we are about to vote, how will we be treated the day after voting to stay? Voting to stay in is not the same as voting to stay put. It means acquiescing to everything the Eurocrats sight as their goal: plan for total political union. We would have just had our best chance to get reform – and we failed.

So, with nine days to go, it’s doubtful that Labour Remainers moved the needle as they would have liked. That doesn’t mean they can’t do over the next week and two days. Leave is perfectly positioned for a second-look-effect fall – where voters backing a perceived underdog come to grips that their “side” is going to win, and start to wonder if they really have the courage of their convictions. It won’t affect many Leave voters, but even 1 in 15 would be enough shift things in Remain’s favor.

As Hardman notes (first link), Leave is doing well and has spring in their step, but as a wise man once said, “a week is a long time in politics”…

…and that particular wise man was a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.