EU
referendum voters unconvinced by scare tactics: ‘I just want to do
what’s right’
With
the latest Observer/Opinium poll showing a dead heat between leave
and remain, residents of Tyneside are still split as the big decision
looms
“With so many
voters still undecided, and so little time left for both campaigns to
make decisive arguments, the atmosphere, not just in Newcastle, but
across the country will be tense indeed in the early hours of
Friday.”
Toby Helm Political
editor and Daniel Boffey Policy editor
Saturday 18 June
2016 19.52 BST
At 1.30pm on
Thursday, a long queue snaked along the pavement outside Newcastle’s
O2 Academy, a concert venue in the heart of the city. Many of those
waiting were wearing England football shirts and all were in
excitable mood.
The immediate issue
of national importance that preoccupied the gathering crowd was how
long it would take to get into the hall chosen by hundreds of
Geordies as the place to watch England play Wales in Euro 2016.
So when asked about
how they would vote in this Thursday’s EU referendum, and whether
they would do so, they were initially thrown. “Woooaaahh,” a
young man shouted as he turned to his friends. All then joined in a
louder, soaring cry and burst into laughter before, one after
another, declaring themselves for Brexit. The loudest, a young man
who claimed he was called Paul but who his mates insisted was Mike,
said Nigel Farage was a “good bloke” who spoke sense.
Paul/Mike said he
had listened to the arguments on both sides, thought “a lot of lies
have been said”, and had decided for himself. “I have an eye on
the pros and cons. We have the best engineers in this country. The
Japanese will still want to buy from us whether we are in or out
won’t they? I’m voting for out.”
Further back in the
queue, another group of friends, a quieter bunch, met the referendum
inquiry with a pensive calm. They were for remain, to a man. David
Brocklehurst, a housebuilder, was in no doubt that it would be best
for him and his country. “I am for staying in. There will be a
shock to the economy if we leave. Our jobs would be at stake. There
would be less houses built.” One of his mates said he was worried
about political uncertainty compounding the economic damage. “It
may be exaggerated, what they say about a shock. But it worries me.
There will be a negative effect.”
Newcastle is a
solidly red city: its MPs are all Labour and the city council is
Labour-run. If votes in the referendum were to follow party
loyalties, Newcastle would be overwhelmingly for Remain, and if this
were reflected in other Labour strongholds, David Cameron would be
home and dry.
Instead, after
months of bruising campaigning on the biggest issue to have been put
to the British people in a generation, it is a city divided, in a
country split down the middle. Today’s Opinium/Observer poll shows
that with three days to go, it’s a dead heat:
■ 44% of UK voters
are for Brexit and 44% for remain, with 10% undecided;
■ 64% of Labour
voters want to stay but 27% are still for leave;
■ 50% of
Conservatives back remain and 43% leave.
Last week, in a
final effort to shift more Labour voters to Remain, Cameron gave
centre stage to senior Labour figures, who fanned out across the
country to make the case for staying in. There was even a joint
appearance by George Osborne and his Labour predecessor as
chancellor, Alistair Darling, at a Hitachi plant in Kent to try to
show Labour people that remain was not just a Tory cause but their
cause, too. Gordon Brown toured the north. Former home secretary Alan
Johnson was in Newcastle on Thursday. But was it working?
For every remain
supporter in Newcastle, there seemed to be another for leave. Jim
Henderson, a retired watermark engineer, said he would take his lead
from his grandchildren. And what did his grandchildren think? “They
are all for out,” he said with a broad smile. Immigration was a
huge issue for him and his family. The north-east has one of the
lowest ratios of immigrants of any part of the country – just 2%,
according to the Labour MEP for the area, Paul Brannen – but it
will still be decisive for many.
Ciara McCrory, a
19-year-old healthcare adviser, said she had been following the
debate closely. “My dad is a taxi driver. He says there would be
more work if it weren’t for immigration and all the Polish people.
So I will vote to leave.” But walking down the road behind her, Ian
Farrimond and his wife, Lindsay, who are missionaries, said there was
no question that the country would be stronger inside the EU. “I
just have a strong gut feeling we are safer and better off in. But I
don’t have any confidence about the result. It really terrifies
me,” said Lindsay.
Remain campaigner
Alan Johnson, the former Labour home secretary, has been touring the
country and visited Newcastle last week. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty
Images
Others were simply
unsure which way to go. David Phillips, a farmer from near Hexham,
said he was undecided but leaning towards remain. “I am not sure
yet, but I think probably we have to play along with this [the EU].
The working class has made up its mind to vote to leave, but I think
we may be better staying in. I just want to do what is best for the
country.”
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The only view that
was pretty much universally held by people on the streets was that
both campaigns had lacked credibility and had been peddling scare
stories which had left them cold, dismissive of politicians’
rallying cries and determined to decide for themselves. The phrase
“scare stories” was on everyone’s lips.
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Our Opinium survey
bears this out. For all the sound and fury of both campaigns on this
most far-reaching of issues, political leaders of both sides are not
seen as credible by the people they have tried to convince or scare,
whether it is remain on the damage to the economy or leave on the
threat of more waves of immigration. Cameron is seen as “convincing”
by just 24% and “not convincing” by 63%, while the score for
Corbyn is little, if any, better – 20% saying he has been
convincing against 58% who say the reverse. Boris Johnson, heading
the leave camp, scores best, with 38% saying he has been convincing,
while 48% say he has been unconvincing.
Criticism of the
campaigns’ failure to serve a genuinely interested electorate is
not confined to voters. Many leading politicians now accept that
something has gone badly wrong. In an interview with the Observer,
former Tory chancellor Kenneth Clarke said the whole referendum
campaign had been a “bizarre political experience”. The Remain
camp’s efforts to “dramatise the erudite reports of the Treasury
and Bank of England” had not worked, he said. On the leave side,
“too many of the respectable politicians” had made “rather
guilty echoes” of the bigotry and prejudice of Farage. Political
leaders had voiced views they did not appear to believe in, and
people could see through them.
“I won’t name
the leading figures, but there are people in the leave campaign who
would never have dreamt of raising anti-immigrant arguments because
they are not anti-immigrant in their politics,” Clarke said. “But
I am afraid they have been tempted to make anti-immigrant noises once
they realised that their cause might win on that ticket.” The
result of all this, Clarke has concluded, is that a great swell of
the population felt confused and angry at having to make this
decision in a referendum that should never have been called. “Ever
since the referendum started, I thought it a complete gamble,”
Clarke said. “And I remain completely unsure which way it is going
to go.” It was all now in the “lap of the gods”.
“The political
opinion of the sensible, intelligent electorate is more confused and
more angry on this occasion than is usually the case in a general
election,” Clarke added. “People have not been impressed by the
campaigning. They do feel they don’t know enough about it. And they
are slightly uncertain as to which way to vote. One thing I am
encouraged by is that a growing number of people think that they
should vote.”
Kenneth Clarke
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Kenneth Clarke:
‘Ever since the referendum started, I thought it a complete
gamble.’ Photograph: Felix Clay for the Observer
Some 80% of the
polling conducted by Opinium was carried out before the dreadful news
of the murder of the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, Jo Cox, began to
dominate the news bulletins from Thursday evening onwards. Both sides
suspended campaigning out of respect and because it seemed so utterly
inappropriate to continue. When it resumes in earnest on Tuesday –
after parliament has been recalled on Monday for a day of tributes –
the remain and leave camps say the remaining 48 hours will be far
more sober than before.
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No one knows how, or
whether, the death of Cox – who was strongly in favour of remaining
in the EU and had praised the way in which immigration had enriched
the country – will affect the result. Privately the remain camp
believe it will make it harder for their opponents to campaign
aggressively on immigration and the need to turn our backs on the EU.
When the suspect charged with Cox’s murder, Thomas Mair, was asked
to give his name in court on Saturday he said “death to traitors,
freedom for Britain”. The opposing theory, voiced by people on both
sides of the argument, is that muted campaigning in the vital last
few days will make it more difficult for remain to turn things back
in their favour, after a string of other polls have showed leads for
Brexit.
The first results
from 382 local authority areas will be announced early on Friday.
Sunderland is expected to be the earliest; soon after will come the
result from Newcastle. Nick Forbes, the Labour leader of Newcastle
city council, was campaigning outside the railway station on Thursday
afternoon. He said that fears about immigration had shifted things in
favour of leave in the previous days. The Brexit vote was stronger in
surrounding rural areas and small towns than in the city itself. The
result in the city has to be clearly for remain for his side to win
nationwide. “My guess is that if there is not a 60% remain vote in
Newcastle, we are in serious trouble,” he said.
With so many voters
still undecided, and so little time left for both campaigns to make
decisive arguments, the atmosphere, not just in Newcastle, but across
the country will be tense indeed in the early hours of Friday.
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