Unleashing Demons: the Inside Story of Brexit
by Craig Oliver
(Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99)
Craig Oliver, who directed the ‘Stronger In’ [the EU] campaign’s ‘air war’, has written a searching enquiry into his side’s defeat. He addresses the obvious question: was it even necessary to hold the referendum in the first place? He argues that it was, although, as Cameron predicted, ‘it would unleash demons’.
The issue of membership of the EU was proving so divisive, within the Conservative Party, and the country as a whole, that only a vote could settle it.
The pro-Europe mandate given by the British people in 1975 also required renewal.
The next question is: how could a loose coalition of the country’s main parties, with a message based on solid research, lose?
The Leave side had more money to spend, for one thing; for another it had the support of influential newspapers: “We had no champion in the press,” Oliver complains.
Critical
He is highly critical of the BBC and its ‘slapdash’ production. Throughout the campaign, he alleges, the corporation broadcast inaccurate reports gleaned from partisan newspapers, which a phone call or two would have disproved. The corporation seemed to give as much time to baseless assertions as it did to evidence-based arguments.
Oliver claims that Stronger In fought a clean fight, relying on facts, informed analysis, and expert opinion. He is convincing in his condemnation of the unprincipled campaign conducted by his opponents (he uses the term ‘lies’ repeatedly). British voters heard many strange things from them: if Britain remained in the EU, the British army would be subsumed into an EU army; Syria and Iraq were poised to join the EU – so was Turkey, and after it did, millions of Turks would flood Europe.
Stronger In received only tepid support from influential politicians. Jeremy Corbyn’s uninspiring words of support for the EU left many Labour voters confused about where the party stood on Europe.
Home Secretary Theresa May treated the referendum campaign as a means for her political advancement. She said little during it, positioning herself as the neutral candidate who could unify a divided party after it. Oliver and Cameron nicknamed her ‘Submarine May’ because ‘she kept disappearing’.
Leave disproved the tired old political dictum that ‘it’s the economy, stupid’.
Stronger In marshalled the economic arguments; it enjoyed the support of business, industry and unions; it had respected academics and policy experts on tap; it even had the imprimatur of President Obama – and yet it lost.
Neither side appears to have given much thought to the consequences for Ireland (North and South) – and Scotland – of a vote to leave the EU.
The Irish economy may well be the first victim of Cameron’s rampaging demons.