Unleashing Demons

by Craig Oliver

  Andrew Cooper feeds in his latest polling analysis. It’s encouraging, confirming something I sense as I sniff the air – things are moving in our direction:

  Three online polls over the last four days: two have the referendum 50/50, the other with a 51/49 lead for Remain – the consistent and familiar picture from online polls.

  The first phone poll for three weeks (conducted by ComRes) was published today in the Sun: Remain 45%, Leave 38%, Don’t Know 17%.

  One fly in the ointment is an online Reality Check from the BBC. It says that the poster behind the Chancellor et al, claiming that each household would lose £4,300 a year, ‘is not true’. They put this down to household GDP and household income not being like for like. Our point is that people will be considerably worse off – and we simply changed it into something more understandable. The ‘Reality Check’ line is softened.

  We get to hear that Gove is giving a speech tomorrow. George wants a stunt to show they are on the back foot. I set the Stronger In team to work on it and we come up with a document with ‘Vote Leave’s plan for the EU’, and when you open it, the pages are blank. I order them to print 150 copies and to get volunteers handing them out.

  Tom Edmonds, the creative brain there, comes up with a poster idea to put on a digital site tomorrow: a picture of Boris Johnson crossing his fingers, and hoping for the best. I know the PM will reject this, but I send it to him anyway, along with an image of a giant forearm and hand, with the fingers crossed. He responds that it’s a big call to start attacking individuals and we should go with the other one.

  Chapter 17

  To the Back of the Queue

  TUESDAY BEGINS WITH a Gove ‘essay’ on the Today programme. It’s supposed to be Leave’s opportunity to make their case.

  It’s classic Gove, elaborate and elegant packaging, which he hopes will mask the fact he doesn’t have an answer to the question – what does Out look like?

  It’s the same at his speech later, where he attacks us for how negative we are, before suggesting that if we stay, we will be the hostage held in the boot of a car being driven to a federal Europe. I get reports back, saying our people handed out the empty document outside the venue and it was lapped up by the media. Apparently an angry Leave press officer came out and started complaining that it was illegal because we used their logo – and this was an act of war, because we would now face them hitting back with similar stunts. Good.

  It feels like we are winning – winding them up, steamrollering them with our argument, forcing them to say things they haven’t thought through. Gove tries to answer the ‘You can’t answer what Out looks like’ point by saying there is a free trade area stretching from Iceland to the borders of Russia, which we could be part of. Our wonks scratch their heads over this, before saying he appears to be suggesting our relationship with the EU could be like Albania’s. Great – the magical mystery tour of the world has a new destination.

  I begin to wonder what it must be like for them. They like to portray themselves as the plucky little David facing Goliath, but they must struggle knowing that we will keep putting up groups of experts and institutions to support us – with them left trying to find ways to dismiss them.

  Political cabinet feels like one giant exercise in evasion. Everyone is terribly English in their small talk – pretending the blood all over the walls isn’t really there. I make a point of talking to Chris Grayling as we go in. He is friendly and grown up. Determined to keep lines open. I appreciate it. People from Conservative Central Office are wheeled in to talk about the local elections – no one is really listening too much.

  The BBC News at One is a joy to watch. Gove’s speech is framed by our empty document being handed out. Norman Smith even holds it up in his live report and starts waving it around, saying it is becoming a real problem for Leave that they can’t define what Out looks like.

  The key meeting of the afternoon is in the PM’s office in the Commons. He’s pulled in George, Philip Hammond and Theresa May for a discussion.

  Theresa arrives and sits next to me. Philip sits opposite, next to the PM, who starts the meeting by saying, ‘Look, I feel both depressed and confident about this. Confident because I feel the campaign is going well – and we are really making the argument. Depressed because it’s having such an impact on the party.’

  Everyone agrees that it is toxic out there. Philip Hammond says he thinks we are winning the EU argument, but we look like we are being blown off course by events. He feels a few days out of date to me – still living the tax and IDS stories, which with the burn rate of the modern media are so last week.

  George says we need an extra special focus on ensuring the morale of Remain MPs is kept high. Theresa says she feels she is starting to hear people who were strident Outers start to have doubts.

  By Wednesday it feels like our campaign is out in front, but the Conservative party feels close to breakdown. I’ve been struggling for ways to articulate the particular psychodrama we are living, only to find that Philip Johnston has put his finger on it in his column in the Telegraph: ‘It sometimes feels as if we are trapped inside the tortured mind of a party that has been wrestling with its demons for many years and now has succumbed to madness.’

  Unleashing demons, indeed.

  Johnston goes on to express concerns about the Chancellor accusing other Cabinet ministers of ‘economic illiteracy’ and others who voted for various budgets now denouncing forecasts on which they were based.

  We’ve been talking to the White House about writing an Op-Ed piece ahead of Obama arriving for a couple of weeks now. It arrives in my inbox – and it’s fair to say it delivers. After the usual, slightly pompous, opening, he takes on the Brexit argument that he should not interfere, ‘The tens of thousands of America’s sons who rest in Europe’s cemeteries are a silent testament to just how intertwined our prosperity and security are.’ He then argues why our power is enhanced, not diminished by being in the EU, before outlining the economic and security benefits. It will work for us.

  Late in the day, on the way to a Stronger In event, I talk to the PM about how well he and Obama get on. Before I arrived it struck me that he was a little suspicious, but over time a close bond has been formed between them. DC agrees, saying, ‘He once joked that before he was President his main impression of Britain was formed when he lost his luggage on a British Airways flight.’

  We arrive at the Berkeley Hotel to find Roland Rudd, the campaign fundraiser, waiting for us. DC immediately snaps into ‘Great to see you’ mode. He’s eager to get in, talk and get away, but once inside, he relaxes, happy to chew the fat for a bit. I grab a glass of champagne, then watch him as he stands on the stage, in front of a room with about fifteen to twenty tables, decked out in red, white and blue. It looks like a Fourth of July event. DC does a great ten minutes, trying out the patriotic case on the audience before leaving. Peter Mandelson texts me, ‘If the PM says that to the country, which he will – we will win.’

  I take my place at Stuart Rose’s table and talk to his partner, who is charming and thoughtful. A lot of wine flows and Roland makes for a funny auctioneer, teasing up the prices. The evening is punctuated by speeches by Chuka Umunna and Michael Heseltine, who I am told is eighty-three. He gives an impressive speech, starting with how the desire to stop war was the genesis of what is now the EU. Everyone starts texting me, suggesting we use him more.

  At the end of the evening, Stuart Rose sits at our table eating a plate of cheese and grapes and we chat. He is tens of thousands of pounds poorer, having bought things in the raffle. He’s still attached to the campaign, but less front-line after his select committee performance. I feel for him – an impressive man who still cares, despite his experience in the grinder.

  I’m slightly hungover the next morning as the No. 10 media team meet early in my office.

  There’s a feeling we haven’t done enough to explain the craziness of Leave suggesting that we have a relationship to the EU like Alba
nia and we should be part of the single market. When Caroline Preston, the head of broadcasting, hears us talking about the ‘Albanian Model’ she jokes, ‘Oh no! Not another story about John Whittingdale.’ I laugh about it all day.

  There’s also a brilliant sketch by John Crace on Cummings’ appearance before the select committee. By the end of it you are left in no doubt he thinks he’s crazy – though the best line is made up, claiming he said, ‘Accuracy is for snake-oil pussies,’ when asked why most of the info on his website is misleading or inaccurate.

  There’s been a big push to get Theresa May out there. Ameet has been to see her and she’s agreed to do an Op-Ed this Sunday, Marr, and a speech on security. Graeme and I call her SpAd to find out more. She immediately says, ‘I’m so sorry. Theresa just doesn’t feel able to do the Op-Ed – she doesn’t feel she’s had time to think through the arguments.’

  I don’t even bother to argue back, it’s so predictable. I write an ironic email, entitled ‘Shock News’, to the team to let them know she’s pulling back.

  I walk over to North House with Ameet for a committee meeting of Stronger In. This involves representatives of all the political stakeholders and key figures.

  The blinds are being drawn so that people can see a screen with the latest polling on it. Peter Mandelson struggles with one of them for a bit and Damian Green says, ‘What happened to your reputation as the Prince of Darkness?’

  Peter laughs, then says, ‘They tried to turn me into a nice guy.’

  The polling is positive. We are creeping up. Ideas like being ‘Stronger in Europe’ are, understandably, associated with us. There’s also an understanding of the ‘personal risk’ of leaving.

  I feed this back to the team at No. 10.

  I’ve asked Tom Edmonds to come in to demonstrate Stronger In’s social media operation. I prompt him to show some of the negative stuff against us – it includes videos suggesting DC can’t be trusted on the NHS. The most striking attack is a picture of DC and George with the caption to the effect: ‘Jobs will go on 24th June – theirs’. I say, ‘Actually it’s quite effective.’

  DC is a little shocked by it. George says he’s aware of the truth behind it.

  It’s a sobering reminder they aren’t pulling their punches and that they are attempting to steer this onto a wider referendum on the Government. It makes sense when they are being taken apart on the economic argument, and is clearly a threat to us. It’s tempting to fight back with our own negative material, but a more mature thought takes over – creating more blue-on-blue helps them more than it helps us.

  It’s 6 a.m. on Friday 22 April and I’m sitting on my sofa, reading the papers on my iPad, part of my brain still asleep.

  I wince.

  I’ve started a piece by Boris on why Obama is wrong to intervene in the EU referendum. It begins on the old chestnut that Obama got rid of the bust of Churchill from the Oval Office. Listing some of the potential reasons, it says, ‘Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire, of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.’

  It’s at best a stupid thing to say and opens him up to accusations of racism. If I’d been advising him, I’d have told him to whip it out – particularly as he’s been accused of racism in the past, talking about black people as ‘piccaninnies’ with ‘watermelon smiles’.

  As the day develops, anger grows – the strongest voice being Nick Cohen: ‘[Boris] is a braying charlatan, who lacks the courage even to be an honest bastard … but instead uses the tactics of the coward and the tricks of the fraudster, to advance his worthless career.’

  He goes on, ‘And with that cowardly sentence, filled with “some saids” so he could sneak away from its implications if needed – Johnson abandoned what few rights he possessed to be treated as a decent politician, journalist or man.’ Ouch …

  At least for him the ‘some said’ stuff masks the questionable claim that what the President is saying is ‘incoherent, inconsistent and downright hypocritical’.

  I warn the White House team to let them know they may get the question at the press conference.

  They say the Churchill story never goes away – he replaced it with a Martin Luther King bust, not out of any malice, and had a different Churchill bust placed elsewhere. On the part-Kenyan remark, they say that after seven years in the White House, they’re used to this kind of crass remark.

  The day builds slowly to the President’s arrival. I take the chance to get in some Sunday commentators to see the PM and for Matt D’Ancona to do an interview for the June edition of GQ. I want a lot of long-lead stuff to land in the couple of weeks before the vote.

  A little before Obama arrives, I find the PM in his office shining his shoes. He sits on the edge of his seat with one of those long tubes with a sponge on the end, saying, ‘I’m sure the President shines his own shoes.’

  The President arrives at 3 p.m. in a rainy Downing Street.

  A few of us chat to his staff in the Pillared Room. George takes me to one side and chats about Europe – he thinks the campaign is going well and we should keep ‘punching the bruise’. We talk about Gove and if he is setting himself up to take over. He isn’t sure Gove thinks he’s up to it, ‘but it is being thrust in his direction, so it may be hard to resist.’

  After half an hour, we are invited down to the Cabinet Room. I make a point of talking to Theresa, who is going on Marr this weekend.

  A few minutes later, Obama saunters in with the PM. He swings round my side of the table, and shakes my hand and smiles as I say, ‘Mister President.’ DC introduces me. It’s strange he doesn’t do that to anyone else and I wonder if it’s because he walked the wrong way round and realised too late.

  The meeting is pretty run of the mill. The President rests his chin on his right thumb, his long index finger stretching up beyond his temple.

  The PM explains that years ago the IRA mortared Downing Street, but the security is better now. ‘Well, I feel quite safe,’ Obama grins.

  The conversation focuses on defeating Islamism – it’s all very headline and general.

  There’s a moment where his interest is piqued by Philip Hammond discussing his recent trip to Libya.

  George makes sure he turns the conversation to Europe, saying that a key flaw of the Leave campaign is their belief they can get a trade deal with the States as soon as we leave the EU – when, of course, it wouldn’t be that straightforward.

  Obama nods. He’s been sending the odd signal that he wants to pile in on the economic message – asking for our lines on it – but we aren’t sure how far he’s going to go as we walk over to the Locarno Rooms in the Foreign Office. Later that day, it’s claimed that George fed him the lines he used in his press conference, but that’s not correct.

  I accompany Obama’s counter-terrorism expert across to the Foreign Office and we talk about the deep concerns over the rise of ISIL/Daesh.

  I sit in a row at the front of the very full Locarno Room. The lobby is just behind me.

  DC and Obama come in. Both make powerful EU statements, but it’s the Q&A where things really deliver. The first question is from Chris Ship from ITV News – and inevitably EU based. Obama unpacks an answer that feels like it is twenty minutes long. He is languid, professorial and devastating.

  Dealing with the point that it is inappropriate for the President to intervene, he points out that ‘they’ (Leave) have been speaking on behalf of the United States, by claiming it would want to do a trade deal immediately. Obama says he thought, given that, people might like to hear what the President of the United States has to say. He says Britain would have go ‘to the back of the queue’, because America would be far more interested in doing a deal with a big bloc.

  I sit up immediately and whisper to Graeme, who is next to me, ‘That’s the story.’ Obama meanders on for several minutes, but his point is made. Twitter is alive – they had expected him to thro
w in a grenade, not drop the bomb.

  The next British question is from Laura Kuenssberg and includes a reference to Boris. The answer is a masterclass in how a true statesman can crush someone. Without mentioning Boris, he explains that there is a bust of Churchill outside what is called the Treaty Room where he goes to work – he sees it every day, and he says, ‘I love the guy.’ He then goes on to say he hopes people can understand why the first African-American President would like to have a bust of Dr Martin Luther King in his office. It’s very subtle – hinting at a lot, without actually saying it. Someone tweets: ‘The Boris takedown was as brutal as it was graceful.’

  I sit back and relax. It feels like job done. When the news conference is over I rush back to No. 10 to catch it on the Six. ‘Back of the queue’ is the headline.

  I get several texts saying things like, ‘Oh my god, you have had a good day!! Hope you’re smiling – nothing else can top that!’

  It’s true. The news is a dream. We couldn’t have hoped for more. There’s some weird whingeing from the Leavers that the fact he said ‘queue’ instead of ‘line’ proves it was written by No. 10. I slap it down. ‘Nonsense. The President can speak for himself.’

  A few of us go to the Red Lion on Whitehall for a drink. All of us have nothing to say for ourselves anymore that isn’t EU related. We have all become utter bores – living it, breathing it. There are over sixty days to go. Will this be the best one? Will its impact be felt on 23 June? Who knows? But I’d rather be in our shoes tonight than theirs.

  Early on Saturday morning, I get a call from DC. ‘Well, I think that’s job done.’