Mud, mud, glorious mud
In the first blog I wrote for Views on Europe when the referendum was announced in February, I said that I would not decide how I would vote until the day before the ballot. That day has come, and to be honest, much of the election campaign has been as clear as the mud the politicians are slinging at each other. My personal campaign awards are as follows:
Fear factor: Remain score a strong 8/10 for “Economic collapse and dismemberment of the UK”, just edging out Leave’s “Turkish immigrants will steal your job”.
Trustworthiness: Difficult choice. David Cameron vs Boris Johnson is like Dick Dastardly vs Muttley in suits.
Comedy performance: A clear win to Leave. They have Nigel Farage; no-one else comes close.
Lord of Darkness award: Peter Mandelson on one side and John Redwood on the other. Too close to call.
Campaign cock-up: A surprising win for the Electoral Commission’s IT department.
Lost leader award: Apparently Jeremy Corbyn does have an opinion on the referendum
All of which goes to show that if I rely on the soundbites, whichever way I vote will lead to the end of Britain as an independent country, the fall of civilisation, the collapse of the Galaxy into a massive black hole and even the end of Radio 4.
The shock murder of a fantastic MP put a brief pause in all this madness, and perhaps took the edge off the more extreme claims and counter-claims in the last few days, but by then I’d already had enough. There’s definitely a part of me that just wants to walk away and not vote at all. I won’t, because I believe the issues are too important to do that, but the people driving the arguments are also driving me nuts.
So what should I do?
Thankfully, the internet is a big place and there are places to get a more balanced look at the issues, and all credit to the BBC’s Reality Check website for scrutinising the claims from both sides.
Here’s my entirely personal, totally unscientific internal ponder over the key points:
Economy – Remain say that the economy will take a major hit, an argument supported by the large majority of external commentators. Leave disagree, though if pushed accept the possibility of a short period of uncertainty. Several commentators include a degree of precision to their estimates of economic woe which would not pass muster in an undergraduate thesis, and the assumptions you start with are everything. The UK will have an additional amount of cash to spend from not paying the EU subscription (albeit somewhat less than the figure painted on the side of the Leave bus) – is that in any way compensation for an economic hit, or a tiny drop in a recessionary ocean?
Migration – the Leave campaign make much of the inability to control UK borders, and it’s clear that free movement of people is a non-negotiable part of the single market. Remain point out (but not very loudly) that migration is an economic benefit to the UK, although have little to say about the strain that migration has played on public services in certain areas. Is this just a problem of redistribution, investing in those areas suffering most from migrants? Should we be celebrating the benefits migration brings? Or are there larger and longer term effects - is a flood of incomers changing the country forever? Will further expansion of the EU make this difficult problem worse? And what will the future be for EU citizens already living here, and Brits living overseas – lots of talk but no real answers on that one.
Democracy – Leave want the UK Parliament and UK courts to remain supreme, with the UK making its own laws. An unelected Commission is a democracy deficit. Remain counter that to sell things to the EU, we would have to enact many EU regulations anyway, but outside the EU we’d have no say on them, representing a greater democracy deficit. Who is right? And what laws have the EU made that are so bad that we don’t want them?
Who needs who? – Leave say that the EU members really need to continue trading with and partnering with the UK, so it will be very much in their interests to sign a deal with us. Remain – and many in Europe – say that it is certainly not in their interests to give us as good a deal as now. No-one really knows what would happen, so my guess is as good as anyone else’s.
I started confused, and I have ended up uncertain. I’m not sure any of the politicians have helped unmuddy the waters, but I think I have made up my mind – though I still have a few hours to mull it over. See you at the polling station…..
Gavin Costigan
Director of Public Policy|Southampton
