by Owen Bennet
After describing the next speaker as ‘one of the most important people in the whole of this referendum campaign’, Farage went for the big reveal: former Defence Secretary Liam Fox.
The ex-Cabinet minister had been on Farage’s radar as someone he could do business with for many months, but it was after Fox’s appearance on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday 20 December that the UKIP leader had contacted him about sharing a platform together. Fox had announced he would be voting to Leave in the referendum and urged the pro-Brexit camps to ‘speak with a much greater, much more unified voice than they have had up to this point’. When asked if he would share a platform with Farage, Fox was unambiguous in his reply: ‘Oh yes, definitely.’
As Fox shook hands with Farage in Kettering, the UKIP leader leaned in and said: ‘The Marr programme has come true.’
It was a hugely symbolic moment for the UKIP leader. ‘It was very emotional for me, very emotional, because suddenly we’d reached out and beyond and the UKIP view was no longer insane. There were other people from other parties prepared to stand up and say those things. I felt very strongly about that,’ he said.
At the end of Fox’s speech, the eight members of the panel signed a document given the grandiose name of ‘The Kettering Declaration’: ‘We, the undersigned, declare that in the weeks and months ahead we shall set aside party politics and work together towards our common goal of a free and prosperous United Kingdom outside the European Union, engaged with the wider world and governed by its own laws.’
The Kettering rally had been a tremendous success in the eyes of those involved. On a Saturday afternoon in Middle England, more than 2,000 people had turned out to hear from a truly cross-party panel of Eurosceptics about why they should vote to leave the EU.
‘Yes, you’re talking to the faithful, but it motivates them to get up and go and knock on another hundred doors in the following fortnight,’ Tice reflected.
On Thursday 28 January, Bone, Pursglove and Hoey met with Banks, Mills and Elliott at 5 Hertford Street to discuss how the respective campaigns could all work together. ‘At the end of the day it was Vote Leave that didn’t want to come in, didn’t want to merge. Leave.EU would have,’ said Bone, before adding: ‘That was hugely disappointing to me, Tom and Kate.’ Mills was keen on some sort of joint working, but Elliott couldn’t back any kind of merger that involved Leave.EU.
Although the campaign was aimed at reaching out beyond the Westminster bubble, it was still having an impact within it – mainly due to some garish merchandise designed by Richard Murphy (who had been seconded from Leave.EU to Grassroots Out to run its campaigning division). The most notorious of his creations was a Grassroots Out tie, consisting of black and bright-green stripes with the campaign’s logo sprinkled liberally over the top. Several Tory MPs wore the notable neckwear to Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday 3 February, and Bone even offered one to David Cameron as an incentive to come and speak at a rally in London planned for 19 February. ‘The honourable gentleman is always very generous with his time, with his advice and now also with his clothing. The tie is here – I feel the blazer is soon to follow,’ responded Cameron with a smile.
Grassroots Out might have been having fun with their eye-catching outfits, but not all Eurosceptics were fans. ‘We’d be ten points ahead if it wasn’t for those idiots in the green ties,’ one senior Vote Leave MP remarked.
The next rally was scheduled for Friday 5 February in Manchester. Farage, Bone, Pursglove and Hoey all spoke, as did UKIP MEP Louise Bours, John Boyd from the Campaign Against Euro Federalism, Tory MP William Wragg and political commentator Simon Heffer. The two big speakers were Graham Brady, chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, who was annoyed that Farage got a standing ovation and he didn’t, and former Tory leadership contender David Davis.
It was after the Manchester rally that the decision was made to change the raison d’être of Grassroots Out. Bone, seeing the growing popularity of GO, thought his organisation was in a much better place to secure designation than Leave.EU, and suggested that plan of action to the UKIP leader. Farage said:
I thought, ‘Woah, hang on, I didn’t agree to support this if you’re on some sort of mad ambitious course.’ I was a bit hesitant. It was a Friday night. I thought what Bone had said was important. I didn’t know if it was important for good reasons or bad reasons, but I knew it was important.
The next day, Bone and Farage thrashed out the idea in a meeting with Richard Tice, and decided to go for it. ‘That little kite that Bone had put up last night in Manchester is right and it’s right because we start from fresh, there’s no baggage, there’s no artillery war,’ said Farage. On the Sunday, Farage approached Banks, who agreed to throw Leave.EU’s support behind GO. ‘It was amazing. Arron’s generosity in this was amazing,’ said Farage.
Banks may have been enthusiastic to begin with, but as time went on he regretted getting involved in GO. ‘The big mistake was doing the GO thing, as that distracted us from our core campaign, which would have got stronger and stronger,’ he said. ‘If I had my time again I wouldn’t have done that. We would have done our own rallies and pulled people in as they all came to see Nigel, really.’
Despite putting his hand in his pocket and helping finance some of the rallies, Banks’s involvement with GO did not get off to the best start. He cost the campaign group significant support among Conservative MPs thanks to an interview he gave to The Times, which came out the day after the Manchester rally.
The interview took place in the Carluccio’s restaurant at Heathrow Airport just before Banks jetted off to South Africa. A few glasses of Pinot Grigio loosened his tongue more than usual, and Banks proclaimed that his Leave rival Elliott was more interested in getting a peerage than in winning the referendum: ‘He wants to be Lord Elliott of Loserville,’ he said.
Banks also gave a small window into his relationship with Andy Wigmore: ‘Every morning Andy starts with an impression of one of the people from the campaigns, like Matthew. “Oh, Arron, I want to suck your earlobes, Arron.” His “Matthew” is brilliant. “Oh, Arron, this is such a distasteful situation.” These people are jokes!’
Those comments may have bordered on the ridiculous, but it was what he said about David Cameron that really caused a furore: ‘Anyone who can use their disabled child as a prop to show that they’re human is in my mind a dreadful person,’ said Banks. Cameron’s first son, Ivan, had been born with a combination of cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy, leaving him requiring 24-hour care. Ivan died in 2009, aged just six.
Speaking later, Banks said:
Well, of course that was all over The Times. Elliott photocopied The Times and sent it to every Tory MP saying what a disgraceful bunch of people these people are, you can’t trust them, they’re horrible people, look what they said about the Prime Minister. Then Bone reckons he lost virtually every Tory MP as a result.
Farage was also furious, remembered Banks: ‘I had a call from Nigel saying, “What the fuck are you doing?” and he called me moronic – “What a moronic thing to do!”’
When asked if he regretted the comments, Banks said: ‘Nah, I don’t regret it because it’s true. When you are worth £70 million you don’t have to rely on the NHS for your disabled child and to have your wife in the [party conference] audience crying is just a bunch of bollocks.’
After they announced their intention to go for designation on Tuesday 16 February, all eyes turned to the third Grassroots Out rally, planned for Westminster three days later. It would be held in the Queen Elizabeth II Centre on the day Cameron was expected to finalise his deal with Brussels, and then officially announce the referendum date – meaning Cabinet ministers would be free to campaign for Leave. With the rally just a minute’s walk from Downing Street, speculation was rife that this group – which had been active for just a month – had secured a high-profile speaker to address the crowds that night. It had – just not the one people expected.
C
HAPTER 20
Peter Bone’s departure and subsequent creation of Grassroots Out were not the only problems facing Vote Leave as 2015 turned to 2016.
There were now arguments over the behaviour and attitude of Dominic Cummings, the lack of a merger with Leave.EU and a perceived slighting of a number of Tory Eurosceptics who felt they should be playing a higher-profile role in the campaign.
A senior Vote Leave member remembered Cummings would attend meetings with MPs but ‘would spend his whole time on his iPhone, and his attitude seemed to be: “How long is this meeting going on for? I am a busy person, I’ve got things to run.”’
Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman felt marginalised, and said: ‘I was pretty pissed off with Vote Leave’s contempt and isolation. I always felt I was sidelined, not listened to. I’m not in it for the ego but I just thought if you’re being treated with contempt then you are wasting your time.’ Brendan Chilton from Labour Leave shared office space with Vote Leave in Westminster Tower and was disheartened by how he could see the organisation behaving. He said:
They would spend just as much time running around monitoring the tweets of Leave.EU as they would on Stronger In Europe, it was pathetic. We’d be sitting there and we’d think: ‘What the bloody hell are we involved with here?’ The enemy are Stronger In, yet we’ve got briefings coming out on Leave.EU, it’s pathetic. It was tit-for-tat, six of one and half a dozen of the other.
It wasn’t just Vote Leave’s behaviour towards Leave.EU that infuriated Labour Leave, but also how they were being treated. John Mills, who was chairman of Vote Leave at this point, remembered the feedback he was getting from his Labour colleagues based in Westminster Tower:
I don’t think there was any real policy issue differences, it was just that I think that the Labour people felt that they weren’t terribly welcome at Vote Leave, and you know it wasn’t wholly a Conservative organisation, but it was kind of a Conservative tone on balance. They just weren’t made terribly welcome and they didn’t like it.
On 23 December, The Times ran an article laying out the tensions for all to see, and the finger of blame was pointed squarely at Cummings:
MPs expressed concern about the direction of the Vote Leave campaign after one of its leading figures was suspected of using it to pursue a vendetta against the prime minister. Two senior Tories today suggest that Dominic Cummings, a former aide to Michael Gove who is running the campaign, should be sacked if he uses it to attack Mr Cameron. They have intervened after Vote Leave organised a protest against the prime minister at the CBI conference last month. There is also dismay at the level of briefing against Mr Cameron, following suggestions that he would not make a good frontman for the ‘out’ campaign should his renegotiation with the EU fail. This issue is understood to be causing tensions between senior Vote Leave figures and Conservatives for Britain, the group that is shepherding Tory MPs opposed to EU membership.
The two Tories cited were Sir Alan Duncan – who would actually go on to back Remain – and Andrew Percy, MP for Brigg and Goole, who was a member of the Eurosceptic group Better Off Out.
‘The referendum campaign must be conducted on the issues and not on the basis of personality,’ Percy told The Times. ‘The Prime Minister is entitled to his view just as those who support leaving the EU are entitled to ours and both campaigns should conduct themselves with respect for those in the other side. I won’t be involved in any campaign that is being used to settle old scores.’
A Vote Leave source hit back:
This campaign isn’t personal for anyone. Top Vote Leave staff were campaigning on the EU before David Cameron was even an MP. When the Prime Minister dropped promises on the EU that he made as recently as last year it is clear he can’t be trusted on the EU. We will continue to explain that to people.
As a board member who was also chairman of the ExCom group, Bernard Jenkin was hearing the grumblings loudest of all and decided to try to tackle the concerns as best he could. ‘In the run-up to Christmas there was lots of discussion about the style and culture of Vote Leave and how it was going to go forward,’ said Jenkin.
The conversations were always quite tricky because Dominic was absolutely determined not to be accountable. I can only put it like that. Dominic has many, many extraordinary qualities, such as his insight into voter behaviour and his understanding of the very limited information you get from focus groups and polls, and then the ability to synthesise that information effectively in order to create messages that would have an effect. He also has an absolutely fantastic grasp of the legal, constitutional, economic and geopolitical significance of us being in the EU and being outside the EU. But managing him was a challenge.
Jenkin may have shared concerns over the style and tactics of Vote Leave, but there was one matter he resolutely agreed with Cummings on: there should be no merger with Leave.EU. But that view wasn’t shared by many in the organisation, who couldn’t understand why there wasn’t one unified campaign. This constant complaining was frustrating for Matthew Elliott. The activist was using all his charm and connections to try to woo some big names over to Vote Leave – and these people were clear that they didn’t want it to be a UKIP-led campaign.
Elliott recalled:
Dom and I were having lots of conversations with Cabinet ministers and conversations with senior businessmen, so we knew what sort of campaign they wanted – a non-UKIP based campaign – and we had a good reason to believe that some of the senior guys would be coming on board.
The problem for Elliott was that he could not tell people this was happening, for fear it would leak into the press: ‘You can’t then turn around and say: “Actually, stick with us, I had a great dinner last night with an ex-Cabinet minister, you know he was really up for this.”’
He added: ‘It’s easy to forget how sensitive it was for Cabinet ministers. I had Cabinet ministers around my flat in Brixton for lunch for the weekends to have the chats with them and talk through the campaign.’ Elliott was in the tricky position of being accused of not carrying out any significant activity, yet he was forced to carry out arguably the most significant activity in secret.
Even Douglas Carswell, the UKIP MP who had been willing to risk his entire political career to help support Elliott in running the Leave campaign, was starting to get a bit worried about what was actually going on.
He said:
I used to look and think, ‘These ruddy Conservatives, when are they going to actually come to the fight?’ It’s all very well me trying to say, ‘I’m representing UKIP with this group,’ but when’s the ruddy cavalry arriving? I remember feeling at times immense frustration that, yes, I knew that these people had to be leading the charge, but where the heck were they?
The new year offered little respite from the disagreements – and the tension was now extending beyond the concerns of Eurosceptic MPs and starting to influence the donors. Vote Leave was already having difficulty extracting money from anti-EU supporters who wanted to keep their cheque books closed until one of the campaigns was given official designation, but the feedback surrounding Cummings’s behaviour was also causing people with money to think twice about handing over much-needed cash.
In mid-January, Jenkin received a telephone call from Elliott after a meeting with donors. ‘He said: “Dominic’s got to be moved to a different role because he’s becoming an obstacle to raising funds,”’ recounted Jenkin. Mills agreed, and a plan was put together to remove Cummings from the campaign director role but keep him on as an advisor.
A showdown meeting with Cummings and the rest of the board was set for Tuesday 26 January, but what Jenkin didn’t realise until he got into the room was that Cummings was well aware of the plot.
‘Dominic organised an insurrection amongst his staff at Vote Leave, amongst key media people mainly. And basically he threatened to blow up the whole campaign if he couldn’t be the campaign director,’ said Jenkin.
He added: ‘Cummings convinced the rest of the board that they
were all going to resign and there wouldn’t be a campaign, it would just fold up and there would be no people. The result was the board basically crumbled and John Mills was left with very little authority.’
Cummings had seen off the so-called coup, leaving Elliott still facing major problems with donors. Morale remained extremely low, particularly among the Labour members of Vote Leave.
‘We were on the cusp of complete destruction at that point,’ said Jenkin. To make matters worse, it became clear that Mills would soon be resigning from the board – leaving Vote Leave without a chairman just weeks before David Cameron concluded his renegotiation. After discussing the issue with Elliott, Jenkin approached Lord Lawson in Parliament and asked him to take over as chairman. The former Tory Chancellor – who had already turned down a previous approach from Elliott – reluctantly agreed, but on one condition: Elliott and Cummings had to go from the board.
Cummings, of course, was not happy about the ultimatum, and resisted any attempts to force himself and Elliott out. Lawson would not budge over his conditions either, leading to yet another stalemate. In an appearance on the Sunday Politics on 31 January, Steve Baker sounded a bleak note as he was quizzed on the inner wranglings in Vote Leave:
It’s very, very late in the day to be making such a profound change but, given the severe concerns of my colleagues, it’s quite clear there are going to have to be material changes in Vote Leave in order to carry parliamentarians with the campaign. There’s going to have to be a greater degree of involvement with parliamentarians so that they feel they’re meaningfully helping to shape the campaign in order to win the core and the swing voters we need.