The Tribune

Stay or go? Peter Young examines how the UK’s place in Europe is in the balance before tomorrow’s referendum

After a quiet start, the now frenzied run-up to a referendum about Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU) has turned surprisingly rancorous. Although in itself a good example of the exercise of democracy, the debate has become nasty and personal as voters face what has been described as a watershed moment in the nation’s history.

Since the announcement in February by Prime Minister David Cameron that a referendum would be held on June 23, the two sides - Britain Stronger in Europe and Vote Leave - have progressively intensified their campaigns. With accusations of exaggeration and distortion of the facts, these have become bad tempered and characterised by threats, bullying and blustering; and the epithets have flowed fast and furiously as passions run high and the rhetoric on both sides has been ratcheted up.

Vote Leave leaders have been accused by respected Conservative grandees, like former Prime Minister Sir John Major, of lying about the likely repercussions of quitting the EU (Brexit) while Mr Cameron himself is reported to have said that Brexit would ‘put a bomb under our economy’ and that Leave campaigners were guilty of a ‘con trick’ in misleading the general public about the effects of no longer being in the EU Single Market.

For their part, Vote Leave has accused the government and the Remain group of peddling what has become known as ‘Project Fear’, with false or unsubstantiated warnings about the economic consequences of Britain going it alone.

Amidst all this, however, the horrific murder last week of an opposition Labour Party Member of Parliament, reportedly by a mentally disturbed man, forced a temporary truce in the referendum battle which was put on hold for a few days as a mark of respect and until Parliament was recalled on Monday so that MPs could pay tribute to their fallen colleague.

Nonetheless, with campaigners at full throttle in the approach to tomorrow’s vote, which will be a simple choice to remain as a member of the EU or to leave, the public has been bombarded with detailed information - through newspaper articles and advertisements, interviews and debates on TV and radio as well as public meetings - so that few people can be unaware of the seriousness of what is at stake.

This referendum is being described as the most important decision that voters in Britain will be asked to make in a lifetime. It has also been called a litmus test of the national mood. The outcome could define Britain for generations to come, for it will determine the nation’s future relationship with the EU politically and economically and in a myriad of other ways, and a possible Brexit will have serious repercussions within Europe and further afield. So it will be a momentous decision for millions and a large turnout is likely.

In such circumstances, the pollsters might be expected to conduct wide ranging surveys and to provide reasonably accurate forecasts in spite of their failure to predict correctly the eventual outcome of Britain’s General Election last year. The most recent polling figures show that, after Remain had consistently been in front during the last few months, the Leave campaign gained a seven-point lead, though with many people still undecided. This change seems to be attributable to a shifting of emphasis from economic issues to immigration, which has become for many the matter of greatest concern.

Despite this, the experts ‘reading the runes’ suggest that, while the tide may have been running in favour of Brexit, there is still little between the sides and some polls are now showing Remain slightly ahead in the wake of the tragic killing of the Labour MP. So, the polls remain finely balanced and the likely result is too close to call - an assessment underlined by Professor John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde, one of the most reliable and respected voices in British political polling.

Differing positions

The Remain campaign’s main protagonist is Mr Cameron, who, as well as enjoying the support of the majority of his cabinet colleagues, has been able to deploy the governmental machine to back his case that Britain would be stronger, safer and better off as a member of the EU rather than leaving, which would be a leap in the dark with unknown consequences.

His principal argument is economic, which has been endorsed by the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and others including prominent businessmen and economists. It is based on the premise that it makes sense to continue existing trading relationships with major partners in the EU Single Market and to build on these through co-operation and by bringing to bear influence from the inside as well as being able to continue to attract foreign investment through membership of a tariff-free market of some 500 million people.

Remain argues that leaving this well-established and traditional market for British exporters would result in a recession with higher prices and interest rates, lower wages and fewer jobs and opportunities together with a drop in Gross Domestic Product and a blow to the public finances, which would require an austerity budget and higher taxes.

On the broader front, Brexit could mean a loss of collaboration across a range of issues; for example, foreign policy, security and policing, immigration, social justice, transport and the environment as well as in the medical and other technological fields. In Mr Cameron’s words, Britain would suffer ‘an abject, self-imposed humiliation’ if, as a proud and important country, it walked away from membership of a powerful and influential bloc of 28 countries, and the result would be a permanent diminution of the nation’s standing in the world.

To underpin this argument, he has gathered support from other world leaders including President Obama, who has made it plain that the United States would prefer to see Britain stay in the EU.

By contrast, the Leave campaign has focused more on the sovereignty issue and Britain’s loss of independence as a member of the EU, maintaining that the referendum should be based on political as well as economic considerations, but it has questioned strongly the validity of Remain’s economic predictions, calling them phoney and scaremongering.

These campaigners say that Britain should not turn its back on Europe. Rather, it should remain engaged at many levels - but not through the existing EU institutions because the bloc has changed from a free trade area into a bloated and incompetent bureaucracy with no democratic legitimacy which is heading inexorably towards further political integration and a supranational state. In the words of Boris Johnson, former mayor of London and a leading voice of the Leave group, the EU is unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable and unreformable.

They go on to demand that Britain should return to being a sovereign nation governed by its own politicians elected every five years and making and living under its own laws, some 60 per cent of which now derive from the EU. They insist that it is no longer acceptable for the country to be subject to EU directives emanating from unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels which seek to influence and interfere in vast swathes of everyday life in EU member states. Britain’s democracy, they claim, is being steadily eroded because the EU has the powers of a state so that these directives have the force of law and, under the EU’s terms and rules, the member states concerned are compelled to implement them.

Trade imbalance

The campaigners maintain that the UK should reassert control, inter alia, over major issues like immigration (now at an annual net rate of 330,000 overall), agriculture and fisheries and its trading relations with the rest of the world. Remaining in the EU with unrestricted immigration would drive down wages, distort the domestic labour market and put increasing pressure on public services, all of which would affect local workers many of whom, according to the polls, seem to be favouring Brexit.

A vote to stay, they claim, would also risk increasing pressure on Britain to join the eurozone and the Schengen agreement as well as to accept more political integration leading towards a federal superstate. In short, the nation would be at the mercy of eurocrats who would push forward the EU’s agenda in the knowledge that they no longer needed to be concerned about meaningful opposition from Britain.

Furthermore, they add, Remain campaigners have exaggerated the significance of the Single Market, given the imbalance of trade between Britain and the EU which is substantially in the latter’s favour - for example, Germany’s huge export of vehicles to the UK - so that it is unlikely that British firms would lose their European markets to any significant extent. Leave also considers that, as a major player on the international stage and the world’s fifth largest economy, the UK would be more than capable of securing trade deals with other countries.

In this week’s referendum, the question boils down to whether to accept the status quo and continue to enjoy the benefits of being inside the Single Market, while trying to avoid being sucked further into the parts of the EU which do not suit Britain, or to suffer economic uncertainty and a likely downturn in the short term in order to regain freedom from a dictatorial EU and its stifling regulations and to secure the restoration of Britain’s sovereignty and democracy to enable it to run its own affairs in its national interest without interference from Brussels.

So, the scene is set for a showdown tomorrow. This will be an historic vote with far-reaching repercussions. It could bring about a possible change of direction for the nation. The majority of voters will probably not be greatly concerned about a possible collapse of the whole EU project in the event of Brexit but will decide in accordance with their perception of the interests of their own country.

By early morning the following day Britons will know their fate. The stakes could not be higher.

• Peter Young is a retired British diplomat living in Nassau. From 1996 to 2000 he was British High Commissioner to The Bahamas.