by Craig Oliver
Britain has a headless chicken where once was a Prime Minister … He is disgracefully now sabotaging his own Government – and the Tory Cabinet which only a month ago was harmoniously revelling in Labour’s troubles … The PM’s Etonian confidence is shaken.
I shrug it off, but as Philip Larkin might put it, too much of this stuff ‘deepens like a coastal shelf’, making a lasting impression on readers and shaping the debate.
I hold the first morning call in my office, with people from Stronger In calling in. We run through the main Europe stories of the day, including the chaos as migrants try to get out of Greece and into Macedonia and, separately, the ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais being disrupted.
The main task is us briefing in the Government’s ‘Alternatives to In’ document later today. It’s designed to show that there’s no better deal than having unfettered access to the EU single market. We face a dilemma: do we brief it to everyone, including some newspapers who will just rip it apart? I have good relations with journalists on all these papers and try to have honest discussions about where we are. Some rant that cutting them out will result in worse coverage (as if that was possible). Others are more grown up – we find ourselves on opposite sides of the fence, but if we engage, at least our quotes and points will all be in there. Maybe. We decide to brief it all round.
Then there’s the obsession with process. Instead of accepting the extraordinary good fortune of having ministers allowed to campaign for Out, while still keeping their official positions, the Leave campaign is trying to create a grievance narrative that they aren’t allowed to see crucial Europe documents. The explanation is obvious – they are being given special dispensation to remain in the Government. It would be extraordinary to let them have access to material they could attempt to use to undermine the official Government position.
All of it means I need to spend a lot of time talking to broadcasters, who are prone to follow up on strongly worded newspaper campaigns. It’s a frustrating, time-consuming process, but it suggests Leave are struggling to come up with their own stories. We need to hold our nerve.
It’s pouring with rain when I get out at Cannon Street. The Stronger In offices seem extra miserable, too many people packed in and the blinds down. I talk with Will Straw about ensuring we dock the campaign team and the No. 10 special advisers properly. It goes from making sure we have two daily calls, setting up ways to communicate quickly and effectively, to having an awayday to sort the longer-term strategy around key areas like the economy and groups that need to be targeted, specifically young people, women between eighteen and forty-five, and BME communities.
He then leaves the room and Joe Carberry, James McGrory and David Chaplin, who’ve been working on the press operation, come in.
Joe is prematurely grey, but young. He is unassuming, where he could have a lot to brag about – a huge and insightful brain that is capable of processing vast amounts of information at warp speed.
James McGrory is also young and bright – with what appears to be four days of blond stubble, no matter when you see him. We crossed swords when he was working for Nick Clegg in the coalition Government, but only because he cared passionately about his cause. He’s a street fighter who is popular with the lobby, and I’m glad to see him. David Chaplin is the most reserved – he gives the impression of having fallen out of love with the Labour party after all its recent travails, making the occasional well-chosen, acid comment. He’s shrewd, cares deeply about the campaign and what we are fighting for. I’m glad he’s on board.
They are all reasonable people – undoubtedly surprised to be dealing with others who were trying to tear their throats out last year.
They’re eager to spell out that Labour is utterly riven on this – with many believing it’s not their job to pull DC out of this hole. It’s obvious they are struggling to pull any levers with the party or the Leader’s office (which is at best ambivalent about Europe). They’re also desperate for more direction.
The most interesting meeting of the day is with Andrew Cooper. An analysis of the polls puts us ahead. He says all the pollsters are still failing to get to middle-class, time-poor, risk-averse people. The gold standard of polling is to have a random sample of people, but almost no one does this because it’s so expensive. The ideal method involves going back to someone until they respond (so if they don’t answer their door – you keep trying).
There have been two relatively recent examples of that happening:
The British social attitudes survey said 67% of people were in favour of remaining.
The British Election Study was 62%.
He also says that most work shows that if it comes to a straight fight between immigration and the economy, the economy wins. We already know that there has been no election in the last hundred years where people have voted against their direct financial interest.
This becomes the foundation of our thinking. We double down on routing them on the economy and pointing out we will all be worse off if we leave. More to the point, they have no answer to what life will be like outside the EU. Ryan Coetzee’s formulation that we are ‘strong, safer and better off’ in the EU tests well. So, too, does the idea that leaving is a ‘risk’ and ‘a leap in the dark’. All of these become central themes.
We have made our choices. The doors are being locked and sealed – our final strategy is set.
The day peters out in a meeting with Philip Hammond on his media round and speech in the morning on the ‘Alternatives to In’ document, pointing out the flaws in the main options if we leave: Norway, Switzerland, Canada and the World Trade Organization. We know we have an opportunity to really get Leave on the run on this – driving them mad by making clear they have no answer that works for Britain.
Finally we have our call with the In campaign. Graeme Wilson returns from briefing the lobby on the document. It appears to have met with ‘middling interest’. I worry that it’s in danger of misfiring and spend some time making sure the broadcasters are teed up for the morning. As I finally get home, I get a call from the BBC. Iain Duncan Smith is calling it a ‘dodgy dossier’ without actually having read it.
I could be shocked, but it’s actually quite helpful – making it more newsworthy – and allows us to return fire: they simply won’t answer what Leave looks like.
On Wednesday 2 March, the BBC news leads with Trump and Clinton each being the likely candidates for their parties after strong ‘Super Tuesday’ performances.
Our preview of the ‘Alternatives’ if we leave the EU document is the second in the running order.
As I listen to the story unfold in the morning, I feel more and more confident. Dominic Raab, a rising star in the Conservative party, supporting Leave, starts strongly in his Today interview, refusing to repeat IDS calling it a ‘dodgy dossier’. But he stumbles by admitting tariffs would be an issue for the UK if we left the EU.
DC feels this is a direct hit. The Outers keep talking about ‘a short-term hit to confidence’ – it feels like they are wobbling.
There’s another focus at the 8.30 slot on which MPs are with us. Nick Herbert puts it at 163 out of 330. It is creeping towards fifty per cent and the PM says he is sure it will get there, but it feels like cold comfort.
I’m due to go out for a series of meetings. I drop into the PM’s private office before I go, discovering an anxious group worrying the ‘Alternatives to In’ document that is due to be published imminently has a number of mistakes. If they are found, it will be destroyed as untrustworthy and the ‘dodgy dossier’ IDS claims.
I ask one of the civil servants if she means things that are factually wrong or if it’s sloppiness. I’m relieved when she tells me it’s more the latter. Apparently there are sections that are titled with one thing and are full of another.
Philip Hammond is due on his feet in fifteen minutes. I call his special adviser, Hayden Allan, and tell him to ask Philip to say the document will only be available when it is laid before Parliament.
That gives them enough time to fix it and reprint. It’s amazing we are at this stage so late in the day and it hardly inspires confidence.
When I go outside to head to Stronger In, it is pouring with rain again.
News reaches me that Stuart Rose, the affable and avuncular chairman of Stronger In, has admitted that wages are likely to rise if we leave Europe, adding that it wouldn’t be a good thing. I check the transcript. He does accept that if a British exit leads to restrictions on EU migrants then ‘the price of labour will, frankly, go up’. He also accepts that one cost of staying in will be ‘one-way traffic’ of EU migrants into the UK for up to a decade. One of the select committee members appears to have asked him if he would mind jumping into a bear trap and he appears to have said he’d be delighted to.
It’s a gift to the Leave campaign – I imagine them mass-ordering leaflets and block-booking advertising space to ram the message down people’s throats from now until the day of the vote. The mitigation and explanation around his remarks are wiped away – and count for nothing. Never mind he believes that the economy would be hit, there would be less investment, fewer jobs and opportunities. From now on, the Stronger In chairman will be known as the man who believes wages will rise if we leave the EU.
As the Leave papers make hay with Lord Rose, I feel I am fighting on all fronts. We’re making progress on getting the BBC to tone down some of its plans for a massive debate two days before the vote. The original idea was to have it in front of up to 12,000 people without any proper vetting of the audience. They now want to hold it at the smaller Wembley Arena – saying only that the audience will be half Remain and half Leave. With no vetting, I worry that it could turn into a bun fight.
Several people in Downing Street have also picked up on the reporting of Kamal Ahmed, the relatively new economics editor, who keeps suggesting that business opinion is more split than it is. Our media monitoring unit picks out this egregious example of him reporting from a business conference:
It is very interesting that both the In campaign and Leave EU campaign are keen about the business voice. I picked up quite a sceptical tone today regarding the UK staying in the EU. John Longworth revealed that he thinks Out isn’t that scary. Many large businesses are pro staying in the EU, but the whole community is very split.
I complain to the BBC that it is absurd to suggest ‘the whole community is very split’:
Over a third of FTSE 100 companies have come out in favour of Remain – none have come out in favour of leaving.
The SMMT today came out by a factor of 8–2 in favour of staying.
The CBI has been clear on the dangers of Brexit.
Two thirds of BCC businesses want to stay in the EU.
The weight of business opinion is clearly and heavily on our side.
A view is beginning to crystallise in No. 10 and at the campaign that the BBC is in some areas doing too much ‘on the one hand … and on the other …’ reporting, and not enough legitimate editorial comment on the strength of our support in key areas like business. With so many newspapers campaigning against Remain, this is a problem. Yes, they have a duty to report what each of the campaigns thinks and says, but their duty to the audience to provide the proper context, even and especially in shorter bulletins, is also vital. Too often it is missing.
I manage to watch the PM’s press conference at the Anglo–French summit in Calais. Hollande’s first answer is a little disappointing, given how strong the French economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, was this morning about allowing migrants to cross the border into the UK if we leave the EU. But he really delivers with the second – saying there will be ‘consequences’ if there’s Brexit. It feels like a threat, meaning it will be magnified and plant seeds of doubt and concern.
The Out campaign start complaining about it being an establishment stitch-up. We are dismissive, saying to journalists, ‘That’s right, the socialist President of France is part of a vast conspiracy with a Conservative PM.’
Blue-on-blue attacks are at a premium as a story. On Friday morning the BBC is strangely leading on a story the Mail has relegated to page 2.
Iain Duncan Smith has written a piece claiming ‘spins, smears and threats’ are being used by the Government machine to bully Britain into staying in the EU. It comes amid a cacophony of Outers shouting ‘Project Fear’ at everything we do.
They are patently doing two things: distracting from having to answer difficult questions about what Out looks like – and injecting poison into the bloodstream.
We fight back against the first. In my briefings with Sunday commentators, I point out that it is hypocritical to portray themselves as victims of dark and sinister oppressors, given what they have been saying:
IDS himself warned of Paris-style attacks if we stay in.
Priti Patel spoke about us being on the Titanic, heading for an iceberg.
Boris described us as a frog in a slowly boiling pan of water.
Farage claims the NHS will be privatised if we stay in.
I go on to point out the only negative thing we’ve really done is the PM asserting he has ‘no agenda’ in this, a clear dig at Boris’s leadership ambitions. Our bottom line is we want this whole thing put back together again when it’s done. It’s increasingly apparent that many Outers don’t share that desire – wanting the house to be brought down on us, whether In or Out.
Stronger In is pushing hard to send round social media interventions about IDS, essentially claiming he’s a hypocrite, who was prepared to use dodgy stats in something completely unrelated last year. I call Will Straw, admitting I don’t want to wind this up on the Tory side, but more importantly we can’t give them examples of us slinging mud. We have to be the sensible people who rise above it, no matter what the provocation.
He accepts this and I share my thoughts with the wider No. 10 team: ‘We have to avoid looking as if we are playing the man, not the ball. My deeper concern is that people are being turned off and utterly confused by it all. They just get a sense that people are rowing with each other and end up thinking: a plague on all their houses.’
I hope the weekend will provide some respite.
The main news on Saturday 5 March is George declaring he won’t go ahead with a plan to remove tax relief from pension contributions – rebalancing the system away from the rich. He and the PM don’t want the right-wing press to have another excuse to get on our backs about it while we are going through the referendum.
YouGov produce some analysis suggesting Remain has won the opening skirmishes. I forward the piece to the PM. All it says is that we have gone from being behind, to being (narrowly) consistently ahead. DC responds, ‘Good news. And good for the blood pressure.’
The other big story of the day is the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) suspending their chairman, John Longworth, for speaking up for Brexit during the week. It was a surprise to me when it happened last night.
Bernard Jenkin, a Brexiteer, is said to be claiming it was down to No. 10 putting pressure on the BCC.
I check in with Daniel Korski, a SpAd who has been one of No. 10’s link people with business. He made his bones in the building as a fixer who gets results. I’m a fan, but others find him a little too enthusiastic. He’s been spending the weekend with his young family, whom I can hear in the background. He tells me he did send quite a few shocked texts when he heard Longworth speaking up for Out, despite a survey of the organisation showing a big majority of its members want us to Remain. Later he sends me all of his contact with the BCC. I am satisfied there was no pressure to get John Longworth to resign.
It makes for awkward conversations – saying we didn’t pressurise, while not denying there was contact.
The story is going to be big in the Sunday Telegraph. We issue a statement saying there was no pressure. Graeme has been dealing with a reporter who he thinks isn’t interested in giving our side. When the copy drops, he berates the reporter for failing to include our short statement on the front pag
e, given the gravity of the claims, and despite being prepared to run an anonymous quote from someone claiming there was pressure.
I text the editor, who replies immediately, saying our denial will be much more prominent in the second edition.
I can see this is going to run and there’s a danger Daniel’s fingers will get caught in the mangle.
I call Ross Hawkins at the BBC. He had sent me some manic texts just before the ten o’clock news – having just read the Sunday Telegraph copy. I tell him we are clear that no pressure was brought to bear, and John Longworth’s suspension was as much a surprise to us as it was to everyone else. I call him again, knowing he will be writing a morning piece. I run him through what has gone on here and give him a statement as a Stronger In spokesman: ‘Crying “Project Fear” is a smokescreen, so that the Leave campaign can avoid answering difficult questions about what Out looks like.’
I also point him to the front page of the Sunday Times, which has Gove claiming the EU has allowed fascism to rise to levels not seen since the 1930s. And Leave are suggesting we are responsible for a fear campaign …?
They are deploying classic disreputable tactics – get everyone to scream blue murder and hope that no one notices there isn’t a body. There’s another small example, with Bernard Jenkin saying it would be a disgrace if the Queen were to be dragged into the referendum, as if we are somehow planning to.
On Sunday morning, I text the PM to ask if he wants to talk about the Longworth/British Chambers of Commerce story.
I explain the BBC is leading on Boris’s claim in the Telegraph that we interfered in the suspension of John Longworth. He gets to the heart of it immediately: we shouldn’t be shy about the director general of the organisation speaking for Brexit, when nearly two-thirds of his members want to Remain.
We issue a further statement to deal with the myriad of new questions:
Given that sixty per cent of BCC members say they want to stay in the EU, No. 10 was surprised to see the director general of the organisation come out for Brexit. We are clear no pressure was put on the BCC to suspend him … This decision is entirely a matter for the BCC.