The referendum ploy; Can Cameron make it work three times?

a reply to: DISRAELI

My gut instinct is that it will be a vote to stay in the EU, and this will be achieved by claims that the sky will fall if we leave.
That said though, I think it will hinge on the press and how they report it so it could be close and either way maybe.
I also wonder because Cameron is hated by many and advocating to stay, perhaps some will vote out just because it is opposite to what Cameron wants.
Way too many variables for me to call it lol, interesting times for sure though, oh and 'told ya so' to all those on ATS who said the referendum wasn't going to happen even up to only a couple of months ago lol.

a reply to: grainofsand
Thank you for that vote.
The "Stay" campaign seems to have a lot of catching-up to do at the moment.
But my best guess is still that there will be a last-minute push and they will probably get slightly ahead at the finishing line.

I wonder how accurate the polls will be. Traditionally, voters have been a little shy of admitting to pollsters that they were intending to vote Conservative, resulting in some last minute surprises. I think the same factor might have been operating in Scotland, leading people to underestimate the "Stay" vote. Perhaps (to a lesser extent) it might operate in this vote as well.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Well the polls got it wrong at the general election for sure so I do take them with a bit of a pinch of salt these days.
On a lighter note it is amusing to see Cameron and Sturgeon campaigning for the same cause, these next few months will be fascinating, especially since Murdoch who controls the Times, Sunday Times and the Sun supports 'out' plus the Daily Fail and the Express.

Those millions of folk who only believe their daily newspaper source of information could well tip the balance and we vote out.
...and on a side note, I'm so glad EU nationals living here do not have the vote, because, perhaps rather obviously, every single one of my EU friends would have voted to stay in.

a reply to: grainofsand
Sturgeon must be having mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, she apparently wants Scotland to stay in the EU, which involves campaigning for a "Stay" vote now.
On the other hand, if the UK votes "Stay", she loses her excuse for demanding another Independence referendum.
Ideally, she might like her people to vote "Leave" now, then vote "Leave" in another Independence referendum, so that they can "Stay" in the EU after all. But that kind of strategy would be convoluted enough to backfire.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The political intricacies in this EU referendum are pretty crazy.
I'm not sure I've known anything like it, especially as there is no official government line for ministers to toe now.

Anything could happen, UK leave the EU, England, Wales & N.Ireland leave the EU but Scotland leave the UK, collapse of the Conservative party, eccentric Boris as PM, UK stay in the EU then the 'deal' gets overwritten a couple of years down the road...it is certainly an exciting time for UK politics.

The only thing I actually 'know' right now is that I'll be voting out. I've been considering this for many years so unless something like the majority of major businesses in the UK state they will leave after an out vote, I can't see my thoughts changing.

originally posted by: grainofsand


My gut instinct is that it will be a vote to stay in the EU, and this will be achieved by claims that the sky will fall if we leave.

The buzz words started at the conference with someone (cant remember

who) said Britain was better off in the EU. (seeing as he wasn't British

how did he come to that conclusion?)

And the threat of no turning back if the vote comes to OUT.


I am sick of the buzz words and phrases already and its only day one!!


Look out for them ... David Cameron returned with

# *An historic agreement*

# *a remarkable achievement*

# *we will be in the part that works for us*

# *we are stronger and safer and better off* ????

# *in the national interest*

# *the threat to economic and national security

# *a big leap in the dark*


And no doubt a few lot more before 23rd June

a reply to: grainofsand
As far as I can recall, Wilson allowed his ministers to campaign for their own choice when he held the referendum on his "re-negotiated" treaty. For the same kind of reason.
In those days, of course, it was the Left who were hostile to the Common Market.

originally posted by: grainofsand


The only thing I actually 'know' right now is that I'll be voting out. I've been considering this for many years so unless something like the majority of major businesses in the UK state they will leave after an out vote, I can't see my thoughts changing.

Well HSBC who had threatened to leave the UK and relocate to Hong Kong

has changed its mind and that was before David Cameron and Brussels.

a reply to: eletheia

How the press report it could be the game changer though.
Murdoch's papers, the Times/Sun will be presumably hostile, alongside the Mail/Express of course. I'm wondering if Cameron is not going to get the propaganda opportunities such as he did with the Scottish referendum.
I hope so anyway

a reply to: DISRAELI

I was still pooing my nappy when that vote happened, it is a vastly different beast (the EU) since that early common market.
I imagine nobody who voted back then had thoughts of political union such as has crept up on us with our eyes closed.

The one thing I hope more than all is a massive turnout with a decent majority so it is decisive either way, unlike the continuing grumbling and whinging going on north of the border after their slim 55/45% vote.

a reply to: grainofsand
In 1970, I won our school's mock election as the Conservative candidate, and my speech included criticism of the "unimaginative" opposition to union coming from the left wing.
I must admit that in those days I did not realise that a more unified Europe would have a "democratic deficit", which is a key part of the modern problem.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Fair one, you've watched this develop from its first inception. I imagine I would have voted for the common market had I been able to back in 1975. Certainly not the political union we are looking at these days.

As a side note, if you see this wiki infographic map of the vote back then it is interesting to see that the Scots were less enthusiastic about it than they are now, if polls/SNP are to be believed at least.

originally posted by: DISRAELI


I must admit that in those days I did not realise that a more unified Europe would have a "democratic deficit", which is a key part of the modern problem.

The pathetic concessions brought back by Cameron can apparently be

overturned at any time. So whatever the result of the referendum on

June 23rd.

By the end of the year or next year the UK will be back to status quo!?


I read this somewhere and I think it should be the motto of the EU in

large letters over the entrance of their building >>>>

*THE EU DOESNT DO DEMOCRACY IT DOES DIKTATS*

a reply to: eletheia
Essentially, it's a civil service without proper political supervision.
It lacks political supervision because national governments won't allow a strong political centre to be created, concerned for their national political authority.
The result is Sir Humphrey without even Jim Hacker to keep him in line.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: eletheia
Essentially, it's a civil service without proper political supervision.

Lol, true, but you could say that about the way the UK is governed as well. I was a senior civil servant through the 90's, the average minister hasn't got a clue. 'Yes Minister' was closer to the truth than many people realise.
*Edit*
You may or may not be amazed how many 'Secretary of State decisions' are actually decided and signed off by unelected civil servants on their behalf, I did it myself thousands of times.

a reply to: grainofsand
Yes, but at least in the UK there is a minister on the spot, whether effective or not.
I see the Brussels Commissioners as the Sir Humphries of the set-up, which means that political supervision comes only from the absentee collective authority of the national governments.

Speaking of Yes Minister, have you observed that "The thick of it" has a completely different atmosphere?
Departments have been taken over by the spin-doctors, and leading civil servants have disappeared from the scene.
In fact the press secretary is the only main character who is employed by the civil service rather than the party. Where is Sir Humphrey now?

One wonders how much this reflects a real change in the power-structures, and how much that change was assisted by the propaganda effect of "Yes, Minister".

a reply to: DISRAELI

Completely agreed, I left the service around the time it became more 'corporate' with chief exec's and departmental agencies being met with 'special advisors' as the link between civil servants and ministers.
Basically the political parties inserting their own guys at the top and in my mind damaging the 'impartial' status of the service.

At the present time, it seems possible that this third attempt to win a referendum might fail.
If that is happening, what has gone wrong?
Apart from any faults in the campaign itself, it seems to me that the P.M. did not begin the campaign from a position of strength.
In the reign of Charles II, the English people were suspicious of the intentions of the French king Louis XIV. So the king was able to exploit this hostility, by extracting money from Parliament ("I will need it if I'm going to fight against the French") and also getting it from Louis ("Without money from you, I will have to get it from Parliament, and they would insist on war").
Similarly, David Cameron was placed between the Eurosceptics and the EU, and he should have been able to play them off against each other in the same way. Once the Eurosceptics were sufficiently hostile, he needed to go to the EU and say "You must give me some concessions, or else they will vote us out". Having won concessions on that basis, he could have come back to the country and argued "You don't need to vote us out of the EU, because I've already negotiated away the worst aspects of it".
The problem is that he has failed to follow that strategy through. He has not convincingly won any concessions from the EU. As a result, the Remain case has been obliged to fall back on implausible non-sequiturs- "There will be a war if we leave", "The environment will suffer if we leave". If he loses the vote, it will be because he fluffed his opportunities before the campaign started.

The latest report is that polls are already swinging away from Leave following the murder of Jo Cox. If that swings the vote, I may be forced to believe in conspiracy theories after all.

So we find out this evening. Or probably, rather, tomorrow morning.
I suspect that this may be one of those occasions when "the polls got it wrong".
One factor which complicates election forecasting in this country is that some people seem to conceal their voting intentions even from pollsters. For example, the opinion polls used to underestimate the Conservative vote until the pollsters began to allow for that factor.
My theory is that this is the voters' response to attempts to "shame" them out of their choice of party; they won't necessarily change their intentions, but they won't own up to them either, even anonymously.
I suspected that the same factor was causing the "No" vote in the Scottish referendum to be underestimated.
In this referendum, the "shame" factor is being attached to the "Leave" campaign, being tagged as racists. So the temptation to conceal intentions would probably work on the Leave voters, and the strength of that vote is more likely to be underestimated by pollsters.
If that factor is working at all, it might even affect the exit polls.
I think we wait until the morning before we know for certain.
Is it the hat-trick or not?

I am now in a position to say "I told you so".

This is not about the opening post, when I merely posed the question and invited speculation without offering an answer one way or another. Of course we now know that "three referendums in a row" would fail at the last hurdle.

Nor is it about the post of a few days back, when I noted the continuing uncertainty and offered part of an explanation, viz. that Cameron had failed to come back to the elctorate with a convincing "re-negotiation".

No, this is about yesterday's post before voting closed, when I foresaw that the polls would get it wrong.
Indeed, the last YouGov prediction of 52% Remain and 48% Leave was almost exactly reversed in the final result.
I still like my theory about why this happens. I suggested that attempts to "shame" people about their voting intentions only succeeded in causing them to conceal their voting intentions even from the pollsters.
Evidently thousands of voters decided to do the politically incorrect thing, and saw no reason to own up to the fact beforehand.