No EU referendum story has offered quite so much pleasure as this one, which I trust will provide you with the same 10 minutes of helpless hilarity that it gave me. The Britain Stronger in Europe campaign (now known as BSE, previously the name for the human form of mad cow disease) has launched an official campaign called “Talk to Gran”. This operation is designed to mobilise young supporters of Remain to “explain” to their addled elderly relatives why they should vote to stay in the European Union.
In order to facilitate this outreach to the demented, BSE has helpfully produced 14 (fourteen!) different post cards with which to initiate the dialogue. Fairly typical is the one that reads, “Gran, let’s sit down for a cuppa, a slice of Battenburg and…a chat about why my future’s in the EU.” Well, if you don’t have tears of laughter rolling down your cheeks by now, you’re not the Telegraph readers I thought I could rely on...
The half-witted Remain camp have squandered their early advantage
Janet Daley
16 April 2016
The Telegraph
Young supporters of Remain are being urged to “explain” to their elderly relatives why they should vote to stay in the EU.
No EU referendum story has offered quite so much pleasure as this one, which I trust will provide you with the same 10 minutes of helpless hilarity that it gave me. The Britain Stronger in Europe campaign (now known as BSE, previously the name for the human form of mad cow disease) has launched an official campaign called “Talk to Gran”. This operation is designed to mobilise young supporters of Remain to “explain” to their addled elderly relatives why they should vote to stay in the European Union.
In order to facilitate this outreach to the demented, BSE has helpfully produced 14 (fourteen!) different post cards with which to initiate the dialogue. Fairly typical is the one that reads, “Gran, let’s sit down for a cuppa, a slice of Battenburg and…a chat about why my future’s in the EU.” Well, if you don’t have tears of laughter rolling down your cheeks by now, you’re not the Telegraph readers I thought I could rely on.
Heaven help the young – mostly university students apparently – at whom this call is aimed. Talk to Gran in terms like that and you will probably get more than you bargained for. I can imagine any number of heated conversations, possibly ending with the sentence, “I can always leave everything to the Cats Protection League, you know.”
But, comic relief aside, it is worth asking just how out of touch you have to be to presuppose that everybody over the age of 60 who plans to vote Leave is a dotty, uninformed dimwit. Never mind the assumption that the older generation might be planning to vote for Leave without giving a second thought to the welfare of their children and grandchildren, which presumably makes them selfish as well as ignorant. Is this the level at which BSE believes that its discussion with the public should be conducted?
But anyway, here we are at last – in the Referendum campaign proper rather than the interminable phony war. You could tell that it had started officially because Jeremy Corbyn actually gave a speech that was sort of about the EU. I think he was explaining why he was in favour of staying in, even though many of his most heartfelt points were the reservations that he still had about the way the organisation worked.
Those reservations, as it happened, were on precisely the areas which people like me tend to see as the only points in favour of membership: that the EU actively attempts to enforce deregulation and to encourage competition in the marketplace by dismantling monopolies. (Although he also argues, confusingly, that leaving the EU would result in a Conservative government “free market free-for-all”.)
This brings us to the argument that is developing between Leave and Remain over the future of the NHS which is shaping up to be a major feature of the debate. The Left – most notably the health unions – have persuaded themselves that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership which is a set of negotiations between the EU and the United States concerned with reducing regulatory barriers to trade, constitutes a threat to the existing structure of the NHS because it would remove obstacles to private American health providers entering the British market.
This is complete nonsense. The principles of organisation and the funding structure of healthcare in Britain are entirely a matter of national law and could not simply be swept away by a trade arrangement. But nonetheless, this is the view with which Mr Corbyn would be most likely to identify if he were not a prisoner of Labour party official policy: that is, he would be inclined to dislike any attempt by the EU to dismantle state monopolies of which the NHS is a notable example. And yet he must now go along with his party’s claim that it is the Tory Leave campaign that secretly wants to privatise healthcare, and that we must stay in the EU in order to protect the NHS. This is all very muddled and contradictory.
In truth, the existing NHS management and funding systems are in desperate difficulties because its structure is economically unsustainable. It will have to be re-thought and reformed whether we are in or out of the EU. The Leave camp should not be claiming that the money we would save by coming out could simply be poured into the NHS, thereby solving all its problems, any more than the Remain camp should be claiming that Brexit would be the sole cause of its collapse. Neither of these things is true and I doubt that anyone interested enough to vote will be influenced by them. Nor will they be impressed by the intervention of Barack Obama who fails to see the irony in his recommendation that Britain offer up its national self-determination forever in a way that no American president would dare to suggest that the United States should do.
As Liam Fox has pointed out, only when the US decides to pool its sovereignty in a pan-continental union with Canada and Mexico, will advice from its president on this matter be taken seriously. In the US at the moment, the most animated national arguments are about how the existing national borders might be reinforced and immigration controlled – not unlike the most febrile aspect of our own Brexit movement. If Mr Obama wants to claim that our continued membership of the EU would best suit American interests, he should make it clear that his (or America’s) case is largely self-interested.
When this began all those endless months ago, I was convinced that Remain would win quite easily: probably with a 60-40 majority. The forces of respectable inertia and vague terror of the unknown were bound to carry the day. But that’s all over now. There is no more certainty anywhere. I don’t know who has made a bigger hash of this – the half-witted Remain camp with their patronising, ill-informed assaults on “grannies”, or the conspiratorial enforcers of half-baked scare stories which were so demonstrably preposterous, or David Cameron himself with his ungracious resentment of dissident cabinet ministers.
The people are pretty disgusted. Whatever sensible reasons for remaining are put forward now will scarcely be heard. Of course, the Leave campaign can offer no iron-clad promises about the future, but would anyone really expect them to? By definition, the outcome is uncertain if we opt for change. But the critical question is whether you regard uncertainty itself as necessarily a wicked thing. The opposite of a future that is “uncertain” is one that is absolutely fixed and determined: one that permits no freedom or change of direction. Yes, as we are repeatedly told, the markets hate uncertainty – but at the same time, they make use of the advantages it provides. A world in which all the economic outcomes were known and controlled would allow no scope at all for innovation and new financial ventures. (This is the world that Mr Corbyn dreams of, in his heart of hearts.)
In any event, continuing with our membership also involves uncertainty. How long is it likely to be before the next eurozone crisis? If the poorer member countries sink deeper into economic decline, how much will that increase EU migration to the UK? Wouldn’t we be better able to deal with whatever occurs, as Boris Johnson has said, in our own characteristically democratic British way? Uncertainty might just as well involve the possibilities of hope, optimism and self-belief, which are surely what make for a life worth living.
The half-witted Remain camp have squandered their early advantage
In order to facilitate this outreach to the demented, BSE has helpfully produced 14 (fourteen!) different post cards with which to initiate the dialogue. Fairly typical is the one that reads, “Gran, let’s sit down for a cuppa, a slice of Battenburg and…a chat about why my future’s in the EU.” Well, if you don’t have tears of laughter rolling down your cheeks by now, you’re not the Telegraph readers I thought I could rely on...
The half-witted Remain camp have squandered their early advantage
Janet Daley
16 April 2016
The Telegraph
Young supporters of Remain are being urged to “explain” to their elderly relatives why they should vote to stay in the EU.
No EU referendum story has offered quite so much pleasure as this one, which I trust will provide you with the same 10 minutes of helpless hilarity that it gave me. The Britain Stronger in Europe campaign (now known as BSE, previously the name for the human form of mad cow disease) has launched an official campaign called “Talk to Gran”. This operation is designed to mobilise young supporters of Remain to “explain” to their addled elderly relatives why they should vote to stay in the European Union.
In order to facilitate this outreach to the demented, BSE has helpfully produced 14 (fourteen!) different post cards with which to initiate the dialogue. Fairly typical is the one that reads, “Gran, let’s sit down for a cuppa, a slice of Battenburg and…a chat about why my future’s in the EU.” Well, if you don’t have tears of laughter rolling down your cheeks by now, you’re not the Telegraph readers I thought I could rely on.
Heaven help the young – mostly university students apparently – at whom this call is aimed. Talk to Gran in terms like that and you will probably get more than you bargained for. I can imagine any number of heated conversations, possibly ending with the sentence, “I can always leave everything to the Cats Protection League, you know.”
But, comic relief aside, it is worth asking just how out of touch you have to be to presuppose that everybody over the age of 60 who plans to vote Leave is a dotty, uninformed dimwit. Never mind the assumption that the older generation might be planning to vote for Leave without giving a second thought to the welfare of their children and grandchildren, which presumably makes them selfish as well as ignorant. Is this the level at which BSE believes that its discussion with the public should be conducted?
But anyway, here we are at last – in the Referendum campaign proper rather than the interminable phony war. You could tell that it had started officially because Jeremy Corbyn actually gave a speech that was sort of about the EU. I think he was explaining why he was in favour of staying in, even though many of his most heartfelt points were the reservations that he still had about the way the organisation worked.
Those reservations, as it happened, were on precisely the areas which people like me tend to see as the only points in favour of membership: that the EU actively attempts to enforce deregulation and to encourage competition in the marketplace by dismantling monopolies. (Although he also argues, confusingly, that leaving the EU would result in a Conservative government “free market free-for-all”.)
This brings us to the argument that is developing between Leave and Remain over the future of the NHS which is shaping up to be a major feature of the debate. The Left – most notably the health unions – have persuaded themselves that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership which is a set of negotiations between the EU and the United States concerned with reducing regulatory barriers to trade, constitutes a threat to the existing structure of the NHS because it would remove obstacles to private American health providers entering the British market.
This is complete nonsense. The principles of organisation and the funding structure of healthcare in Britain are entirely a matter of national law and could not simply be swept away by a trade arrangement. But nonetheless, this is the view with which Mr Corbyn would be most likely to identify if he were not a prisoner of Labour party official policy: that is, he would be inclined to dislike any attempt by the EU to dismantle state monopolies of which the NHS is a notable example. And yet he must now go along with his party’s claim that it is the Tory Leave campaign that secretly wants to privatise healthcare, and that we must stay in the EU in order to protect the NHS. This is all very muddled and contradictory.
In truth, the existing NHS management and funding systems are in desperate difficulties because its structure is economically unsustainable. It will have to be re-thought and reformed whether we are in or out of the EU. The Leave camp should not be claiming that the money we would save by coming out could simply be poured into the NHS, thereby solving all its problems, any more than the Remain camp should be claiming that Brexit would be the sole cause of its collapse. Neither of these things is true and I doubt that anyone interested enough to vote will be influenced by them. Nor will they be impressed by the intervention of Barack Obama who fails to see the irony in his recommendation that Britain offer up its national self-determination forever in a way that no American president would dare to suggest that the United States should do.
As Liam Fox has pointed out, only when the US decides to pool its sovereignty in a pan-continental union with Canada and Mexico, will advice from its president on this matter be taken seriously. In the US at the moment, the most animated national arguments are about how the existing national borders might be reinforced and immigration controlled – not unlike the most febrile aspect of our own Brexit movement. If Mr Obama wants to claim that our continued membership of the EU would best suit American interests, he should make it clear that his (or America’s) case is largely self-interested.
When this began all those endless months ago, I was convinced that Remain would win quite easily: probably with a 60-40 majority. The forces of respectable inertia and vague terror of the unknown were bound to carry the day. But that’s all over now. There is no more certainty anywhere. I don’t know who has made a bigger hash of this – the half-witted Remain camp with their patronising, ill-informed assaults on “grannies”, or the conspiratorial enforcers of half-baked scare stories which were so demonstrably preposterous, or David Cameron himself with his ungracious resentment of dissident cabinet ministers.
The people are pretty disgusted. Whatever sensible reasons for remaining are put forward now will scarcely be heard. Of course, the Leave campaign can offer no iron-clad promises about the future, but would anyone really expect them to? By definition, the outcome is uncertain if we opt for change. But the critical question is whether you regard uncertainty itself as necessarily a wicked thing. The opposite of a future that is “uncertain” is one that is absolutely fixed and determined: one that permits no freedom or change of direction. Yes, as we are repeatedly told, the markets hate uncertainty – but at the same time, they make use of the advantages it provides. A world in which all the economic outcomes were known and controlled would allow no scope at all for innovation and new financial ventures. (This is the world that Mr Corbyn dreams of, in his heart of hearts.)
In any event, continuing with our membership also involves uncertainty. How long is it likely to be before the next eurozone crisis? If the poorer member countries sink deeper into economic decline, how much will that increase EU migration to the UK? Wouldn’t we be better able to deal with whatever occurs, as Boris Johnson has said, in our own characteristically democratic British way? Uncertainty might just as well involve the possibilities of hope, optimism and self-belief, which are surely what make for a life worth living.
The half-witted Remain camp have squandered their early advantage