Steve Richards
by Steve Richards
In England a thousand calculations are made about a referendum on Europe that might never take place. Some Conservative MPs talk of little else. Senior Labour figures agonise over whether to also offer a referendum of their own. They contemplate making such a pledge next month, before their party conference. In stark contrast, in Scotland, a contest is under way for a referendum that definitely will take place.
There is no more vivid example of the difference between the two countries than the focus on these entirely separate votes. Speak to anyone interested in politics in Scotland and there is virtually no reference at all to the dangerous game of poker being played in England over a European referendum. They are engaged in a more immediate historic battle, one that gets significantly less attention south of the border.
There is, though, a common link between those in England frothing with anticipation over a poll on Europe and the campaigners in Scotland seeking to win next year’s referendum. In the nerve-shredding frenzy about whether to call them at all, when they should be held, what the question should be, and who should be allowed to vote, a key issue is weirdly underplayed: How to win them.
For all the noise in the UK about the possibility of referendums, we rarely hold them. When they are staged, no one knows quite what to do. The campaigns on both sides of the AV referendum were dire. After all this was the most significant moment of his career. He had certainly devoted much time to ensuring there would be a referendum, the timing, the question. The campaign was an afterthought, and was incoherent when it had any energy at all. Ed Miliband, who was a half-hearted supporter of electoral change, did not appear with Clegg. Neither managed to generate any excitement over an issue that would have changed British politics for ever.
In Scotland there is already a degree of wary introspection on both sides. The Better Together campaign is led by the former chancellor, Alistair Darling, calmly authoritative and respected but not one of the more dynamic or experienced political strategists.
At one time, Gordon Brown had the popularity, guile and hunger to be the most effective campaigner in Scotland. For the first elections to the Scottish parliament in 1998 he virtually left the Treasury for a few months to successfully revive Labour’s flagging campaign. Now he intervenes occasionally, but not as part of Darling’s organisation. Brown spoke instead at the launch of United With Labour.
They worry with good cause. There is a small echo of the disastrous AV campaign, when Labour’s internal differences and those tensions between Miliband and Clegg led to a one-sided outcome.
Referendum campaigns in the UK strike oddly discordant notes. We have a party-based system, after all. Referendums are advocated or offered only because leaders calculate they will benefit their parties, or at least will keep them united. But once they are called, elements from the Conservatives and Labour, Labour and the Lib Dems, are all expected to work with one another. Quite often they find it almost impossible to do so, tribal attachment overriding an ambiguous sense of common cause.
I am not a fan of referendums. Leaders do not offer them out of a sudden desire to empower voters. They do so to get their parties out of a hole. What neat symmetry that on those occasions when one actually looms into view, they have no clue how to fight an effective campaign.
THE GUARDIAN
by Steve Richards
In England a thousand calculations are made about a referendum on Europe that might never take place. Some Conservative MPs talk of little else. Senior Labour figures agonise over whether to also offer a referendum of their own. They contemplate making such a pledge next month, before their party conference. In stark contrast, in Scotland, a contest is under way for a referendum that definitely will take place.
There is no more vivid example of the difference between the two countries than the focus on these entirely separate votes. Speak to anyone interested in politics in Scotland and there is virtually no reference at all to the dangerous game of poker being played in England over a European referendum. They are engaged in a more immediate historic battle, one that gets significantly less attention south of the border.
There is, though, a common link between those in England frothing with anticipation over a poll on Europe and the campaigners in Scotland seeking to win next year’s referendum. In the nerve-shredding frenzy about whether to call them at all, when they should be held, what the question should be, and who should be allowed to vote, a key issue is weirdly underplayed: How to win them.
For all the noise in the UK about the possibility of referendums, we rarely hold them. When they are staged, no one knows quite what to do. The campaigns on both sides of the AV referendum were dire. After all this was the most significant moment of his career. He had certainly devoted much time to ensuring there would be a referendum, the timing, the question. The campaign was an afterthought, and was incoherent when it had any energy at all. Ed Miliband, who was a half-hearted supporter of electoral change, did not appear with Clegg. Neither managed to generate any excitement over an issue that would have changed British politics for ever.
In Scotland there is already a degree of wary introspection on both sides. The Better Together campaign is led by the former chancellor, Alistair Darling, calmly authoritative and respected but not one of the more dynamic or experienced political strategists.
At one time, Gordon Brown had the popularity, guile and hunger to be the most effective campaigner in Scotland. For the first elections to the Scottish parliament in 1998 he virtually left the Treasury for a few months to successfully revive Labour’s flagging campaign. Now he intervenes occasionally, but not as part of Darling’s organisation. Brown spoke instead at the launch of United With Labour.
They worry with good cause. There is a small echo of the disastrous AV campaign, when Labour’s internal differences and those tensions between Miliband and Clegg led to a one-sided outcome.
Referendum campaigns in the UK strike oddly discordant notes. We have a party-based system, after all. Referendums are advocated or offered only because leaders calculate they will benefit their parties, or at least will keep them united. But once they are called, elements from the Conservatives and Labour, Labour and the Lib Dems, are all expected to work with one another. Quite often they find it almost impossible to do so, tribal attachment overriding an ambiguous sense of common cause.
I am not a fan of referendums. Leaders do not offer them out of a sudden desire to empower voters. They do so to get their parties out of a hole. What neat symmetry that on those occasions when one actually looms into view, they have no clue how to fight an effective campaign.
THE GUARDIAN
