The value of post mortems is they help us learn lessons. Here are eight reasons why the Remain camp lost the EU referendum.
1. No positive agenda
David Cameron and the official remain campaign, Stronger In, did almost nothing to explain the value of what we got from our membership or the opportunities to lead Europe if we stayed. It was right, of course, to point out the economic and political risks of quitting the EU, but we were hopping on one leg rather than sprinting on two.
The lack of a positive agenda meant we couldn’t inspire young or progressive voters about why we should stay. It also meant the Leave camp was able to fill the void with its untrue scare story that we would be sucked into a European superstate with its own army.
2. Distrust of politicians
Despite running a campaign of misinformation, the Leave camp was trusted more than the Remain camp because the public is fed up with spin, lies and broken promises. This didn’t start with Cameron – Tony Blair was a master – but the current prime minister had his own albatross: his foolish unmet pledge to cut net migration to the tens of thousands.
Cameron also struggled to explain why he thought leaving the EU would be so disastrous when only weeks before he had been claiming we’d do fine if we quit.
The trust deficit opened the door to populists such as Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. They have simplistic solutions to complex problems, make extravagant promises they can’t meet and peddled myths by the dozen to twist voters’ minds. But at least the electorate thinks they are authentic.
3. No fairness agenda
EU membership has benefited Britain. So has globalisation, inward migration and the advance of technology. But the fruits of economic success have not been shared fairly. The credit crunch followed by six years of Tory austerity have exacerbated the problem. Migrants and the EU became the scapegoats for the people’s frustration. Cameron was extraordinarily badly equipped to connect with voters who have been left behind.
4. Nothing to say on migration
EU migrants aren’t to blame for NHS waiting times, overcrowded schools and housing shortages. The government is. Cameron could hardly say that. What he could have done was explain how mass migration from outside the EU is the big challenge of the future, and that we will be better able to tackle it by being inside the bloc.
The prime minister could also have explained how EU migrants benefit Britain while acknowledging that the wealth they create doesn’t always reach the communities where it is needed. That would have meant reviving the migration impact fund that he scrapped when he entered Downing Street.
Meanwhile, the Leave camp was devilishly brilliant in the way it muddled four issues: free movement of EU citizens, which applies to Britain; the EU’s open borders, which doesn’t apply to us since we’re outside the Schengen Area; the refugee crisis, which has barely hit Britain since the rest of the EU acts as a 1,000 mile buffer zone for us; and the fib that Turkey is scheduled to join the EU in 2020. After drinking this cocktail, many voters were reeling.
5. A weak official campaign
Stronger In was a well oiled machine, but it lacked horsepower. Its chairman, Stuart Rose, knew little about the EU, made gaffes when he opened his mouth and didn’t put enough time into the cause. For several key weeks he was absent abroad.
There were strategic mistakes – not just those highlighted above but others such as the failure to point out how Brexit could lead to Scotland leaving the EU. Stronger In was also slow to rebut the untruths peddled by the Leave camp. As a result, the people came to believe that we really do send £350 million a week to Brussels, that Turkey is on the point of joining the EU, that an EU army was going to be foisted on us and other such nonsense. It also failed to exploit the fact that the Leave camp didn’t spell out a plan for quitting the EU.
Downing Street filled the leadership void. The problem was that its agenda was all Project Fear. Although it was right to warn the public of the risks of quitting the EU, the way this was done – with excessively precise forecasts, for example that each family would be £4,300 worse off in 2030 – lacked credibility and backfired.
6. Labour’s absence
Jeremy Corbyn didn’t have his heart in the campaign. His interventions were weak and counterproductive. Meanwhile, Alan Johnson, who was supposedly running the Labour In campaign, failed to make an impact on the airwaves. As a result, traditional Labour voters didn’t get a strong message that we should stay in the EU from people they trusted – and, instead, many fell prey to UKIP’s siren song.
7. Wrong messengers
Often the Remain camp fielded speakers who lacked passion and didn’t know their facts well enough to knock back the Leave camp’s propaganda. This is partly because Stronger In and Downing Street were so concerned to have speakers on-message that they put up safe, dull choices.
Towards the end of the campaign, Remain did produce some strong voices: Ruth Davidson, Sadiq Khan, John Major and Amber Rudd. But they came late in the day. What’s more, other powerful voices such as Gordon Brown, the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas and Labour’s Emma Reynolds had only walk-on parts.
8. Hostile press and weak BBC
The Mail, Telegraph, Express and Sun didn’t just pump out pro-Brexit editorials. They also published a string of false stories about migrants.
Meanwhile, the BBC, which is by far the most important source of news for the public, failed in its mission to inform and educate. Of course, it had to give equal time to the two sides. But it failed to challenge adequately the veracity of the claims being pumped out by the official camps, especially Leave. The BBC didn’t do nearly enough either to get Leave to spell out a plan for exiting the EU. It also allowed Stronger In and Downing Street to dictate which pro-Remain spokespeople should get access to the airwaves.
We have lost an important battle. But there will be more battles to come – both over how to minimise the damage of this referendum vote and over Britain’s future political direction. If we don’t learn the lessons of this defeat, we will lose future battles too.
This piece was corrected to change “Remain” to “Leave” in the second paragraph of the fifth point on August 7, 2016