The EU's high water mark

One of the great claims of the EU is the number of countries queuing up to join. Amongst those being the states in the Western Balkans. Yet, even here, the process of enlargement has stalled. I found a synopsis of "local experts" assessment on the state of EU influence. It doesn't look good.

"Local experts" argued that the EU is basically acting on policy autopilot, with an overwhelming focus on process (e.g. benchmark decision-making) and less on substance (e.g. actual progress on deep democratisation and good governance). The EU’s own internal struggles and negative politics with its Grexit and Brexits, together with the political chill resulting from the enlargement fatigue, have contributed to its losing leverage in the Western Balkans. In turn, elites are often not keen on passing reforms which are threatening their power interests or remain comfortable in spoiler politics. In these circumstances, the costs and benefits of a distant EU prospect are reassessed when set against the more tangible benefits offered by other strategic actors.

You don't have to be a "local expert" for that to ring true. We see the same dynamic repeated in spades in Ukraine. We see token face saving efforts that stop short of any real reform in order to avoid upsetting the applecart, knowing that any serious and invasive reform may unsettle a fragile equilibrium. Consequently the Ukrainian parliament is still in hoc to the Russian oligarchs and politically the EU has reached a stalemate.

In Ukraine the EU will still take advantage of what it can where it can, moving in to grab whatever is still available but having reached a state of diplomatic and political paralysis, Russia is now free to act as it chooses, and further EU integration seems implausible now.

The situation in the Balkans seems eerily familiar. The EU is adept at managing perceptions so the recent agreement in the Balkans will be held aloft as a great EU victory, and the self-congratulatory bubble will take that point home with them, but underneath how it works in practice is very different. Where the outer rim of the EU is concerned, agreements are merely words on a page.

Across the Balkans the feeling is that the EU has made many promises but has failed to deliver, leaving them to look elsewhere. Certainly while the EU diplomats congratulate themselves the military exercises between Russia and Serbia send the precise opposite signal. Having had Ukraine snatched out of Russia's sphere of influence, Russia will be keen to erode the EU's influence where it can. Thus the race is on for the soul of the Balkans. 

There are two ways this can go. Either they will learn from the Ukraine experience or they won't. We have seen no upper limit to the hubristic indulgences of the EU and even though it has a full plate of woes within, and it's diplomatic timetable is fully booked, that may not prove sufficient obstacle for the EU not to make yet another pigs ear. The EU must have its empire and that is that.

The EU is keen to close the bridge to Greece, bringing Macedonia and Albania further into the fold somehow. Why they would want any such obligations I don't know, but if they do they will have to act soon. Serbia and the region is slipping out of the EU's sphere, and any expansion of the neighbourhood policy will prove to be little more than an empty gesture. It is limited in what it can do and EU promises in the region are a weakened currency.

While all eyes are fixed on Brexit and the possible emergence of a two tier Europe, there is that third tier limbo to consider. It could be that while Britain is moved out to associate status, the same will be extended to candidate states and all point in between. It will be the EU's managed retreat. In terms of the authority it can exercise, it will be a paper empire and as reality intrudes the illusion will wear off. It will show the world that the EU has reached its high water mark - and now the tide is receding. The dream of "the colleagues" is fading.

Ukip's betrayal of eurosceptics

A piece by the Times's own court scribe, Matthew Goodwin, reveals Ukip's intentions.

Ukip and Nigel Farage have officially launched their campaign for the referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. The ‘Say No to the EU referendum tour’ will see Farage address public meetings across England, setting out Ukip’s case for why Britain should withdraw from the EU and entrenching himself as a key player in the referendum debate.

The tour is significant for two main reasons. First, Ukip is trying to overcome the disappointment of the general election by mobilising a stronger grassroots presence. The party is claiming that, over the autumn, Farage will address at least 300 public meetings, which have long been his preferred campaign activity.

Meetings have long been used by Ukip to contrast its grassroots strategy with the more stage-managed set pieces of the main parties. With the party’s membership holding fairly steady at about 40,000 recruits, Ukip will most likely try to use the meetings not only to set out its Eurosceptic argument but as a data-capture exercise in its own right – an opportunity to recruit new followers and set the stage for electoral survival.

As one insider said to me recently, if the party does not at least double its grassroots membership during the referendum campaign then it will have been a failure.

This is yet another signal confirming pretty much what we already knew. Winning is not their measure of success. Ukip has no intention of mounting an effective referendum campaign. This is just a jamboree to advance their presence as a party.

In spite of multiple warnings from various sources, Ukip has insisted that immigration will be their platform throughout, and pleas with Ukip MEPs have fallen on deaf ears. Not that Farage would be of a mind to listen to a word they say. Given their abysmal performance and singular lack of ability, one is minded not to blame him. I am surprised these people can dress themselves unaided.

What this tells us is that in the mind of Mr Farage, leaving the EU is no longer a goal of Ukip. It is but a subtext. The goal of Ukip is to consolidate its slender foothold. It seeks to use the referendum as a recruitment drive, concentrating its activities where it polled well in the general election in a deluded attempt to create an SNP effect in England. This is a fantasy.

As much as there is no scope for a "populist" anti-foreigner campaign to succeed, Ukip doesn't have the infrastructure or the backing. It's taking a hammering in local polls and local branches are falling apart. In this, supporters of Ukip have been lead like lambs to the slaughter by a man whose political ambitions have lost touch with the original mission. It figures. Why would Farage want to win the referendum? No EU, no Ukip. Thus the campaign he will mount is the final betrayal of eurosceptics.

Mission report

Last Friday we appealed yet again for more bloggers interested in forming an elite unit to push the progressive Brexit message. We've had about fifteen expressions of interest. That's actually really good.

We have tried this experiment before back in 2006 by creating an aggregator for the team. Had I been a halfway competent web programmer at the time it could have worked, though really the germ of the idea was in essence a variant of Twitter. What made it unrealistic was the level of work involved for something that was never going to make any money.

The problem with with idea was that it was far too labour intensive and we were largely herding cats. We went to considerable efforts to keep people on board. Learning from this, we approach it differently this time. There is no time or room for stroking egos. What we need is self-starters and will not be quick to take offence.

We do not seek to control the content, but we are task focussed and we are immovable in our belief that we must have message discipline. On the core message, there isn't much room for debate. You can see from the comments on Friday's article that we're not messing about. It's too much to ask of us that we sell this to you personally. By now you will have read the posts we linked to in Friday's article and will have made your decision on the basis of that.

Again we stress we are not about bent-bananas and bean-counting over how much we save in EU membership fees. Nor do we see any value in talking about immigration in any sense since the level of white noise on that subject is impenetrable and we can make no guarantees as to what Brexit will achieve. Our statement of values, our strategy and our vision are key to this operation and we expect at the very least that applicant will have read and understood them, and will have read the shorter version of Flexcit.

We are not seeking to be a rival operation to any campaign. We have neither the funds nor the reach and there is no value in yet another generic populist outfit pumping out the same tired material. We can confidently assert that the arguments we have engineered are stronger, more appealing and in every sense better than what the rest of the eurosceptic crowd can offer.

We want to build up a core of voices distinct from the background noise that eurosceptics make. They have to be working to the same set of principles and to the same strategy, because the power comes with coordination.

Our last attempt at this shattered a few assumptions of ours. Certainly I used to think that almost anybody can write and they could become decent bloggers with just a bit of encouragement. It turns out that writing is a rare skill and certainly finding conscientious people who will pay proper attention to formatting and detail is no small undertaking.

Thus we are not discouraged by the small uptake thus far. It's better to get a small cell running to a decent standard that to try to marshal mediocrity. We already have about seven people working together in Twitter, and in the furry of activity just after the election we were successful in planting certain notions and ideas into the political discourse. Working as a task force works.

As a base to start from, that's manageable and we are looking to get new individuals up to spec and working together. In turn, they will be expected to recruit their own cell. We suggest between five and ten per cell. If we have mature and switched on people, they need very little instruction or guidance. In that regard, we want the best.

That said, there is also a place for people who don't feel they can take on such a commitment. It isn't easy, it is time consuming and at times can be wholly demoralising. Why we do it, god only knows. In terms of the flack we get, we get worse from our own side for daring to try. You can contribute to the operation just by retweeting any original content you see from our bloggers on the @eureferendum Twitter account. Just alerting us to possible recruits is of value and tweeting our message at journalists and other opinion formers is a worthwhile contribution.

If by now you are sold and want to participate, you can start by setting up your blog and alerting us to its presence. My advice is to keep it simple and use a minimalist template much like this blog. You can go to town on customising blogger but there is little value in it and it distracts from the core activities. Last time we tried something like this I offered support in the creation of mastheads and banners and tweaking templates. This time, I don't have the time and would rather focus on the task at hand. I can and will help in exchange for a small donation to www.eureferedum.com but good, readable content is more striking than an elaborate site - and the more, the better.

Really we'd rather people had as much autonomy as possible, so we ask you to use your own discretion in what you tweet and retweet and keep in mind that with every post you are adding to, or subtracting from the overall message. Meanwhile, this video gives you some idea of the intellectual tapestry we are weaving. We feel it best to lay down a blanket of posts along this theme that address various aspects of the complexities with a view to making them accessible to a wider audience.

Further updates will appear here and the aim of this blog is to produce a working database of the arguments and how to make them. Feel free to reuse and recycle any material you see here. 

Don't place any bets just yet

 

Survation is claiming that its latest poll on EU referendum voting intentions that it has recorded 43 percent in favour of leaving the EU, with 40 percent wanting to remain and 17 percent undecided. Discarding the undecideds, that puts the split at 51 percent for leaving and 49 percent wanting to remain.

The outers have been languishing in the polls for some time so this is moderately encouraging but nothing to celebrate. Readers will remember that during the election the more Farage and his racist cult grunted about foreigners, the more the polls reflected an in vote. This was with the media in full blitz mode, with Farage walking into every trap. In the final month of the referendum campaign, we may well see similar.

Unless by some miracle Farage is hit by a bus, he will be front and centre soiling the bedsheets for all of us, making it a left/right row over immigration, with the media FUD in full effect. This will be to our cost.

At the moment the media is still half asleep from summer recess, and it's difficult to say what drives this poll bump. It could just as easily be the middle class reaction to the EU's handing of the refugee crisis than anything Ukip's racists have said. Several poignant cartoons in the media have pointed the finger at the EU, which may have prompted a softening of attitudes to refugees and a hardening of attitudes to the EU. Depressingly though, Ukip will take this poll as an affirmation that naked bigotry works and will unleash more of it. This will create a feedback loop as all the anti-Ukip crowd reactivate. Moderate eurosceptic voices will be drowned our by a cacophony of ignorant bilge.

The seventeen percent undecided will likely tune the campaign out until possibly the very last week. Then it becomes a debate over Cameron's credibility rather than any adjacent EU issue. If it is then a toss up as to whether Cameron or Ukip is the more credible option, put simply, we are staying in the EU. For sure, anything can happen, and though much is unpredictable, the one constant in all this is that Ukip will be steadfast in parading their invincible stupidity and pernicious bigotry. Unless there is a counterweight campaign we are done for.

The United Kingdom Ignorance Party

There are days when I would happily jack this game in. Certainly, the outpouring of pure unbridled venom directed at migrants on social media yesterday was both depressing and heartbreaking. The disgraceful comments from Ukippers make me think that we deserve to lose. After looking at Twitter I felt like I needed to take a shower.

I am well aware that the campaign to leave has to be a big tent but I certainly don't want to be in any tent where there are Ukippers. Their comments make me genuinely physically sick. There is now no doubt in my mind that Ukip is the party for he ignorant, the intolerant, the racist and the bigoted.

There is no shrugging it off. It is not the sporadic action of a few Twitterers beyond their control. It is endemic to that party and it starts at the top. It was Farage's intention to hoover up the BNP vote and it has worked. Other than the vague aspiration to leave the EU there is nothing I now have in common with such an entity.

Naturally the internet will bring out the very worst in people, and certainly the Corbyn supporters fare little better, but bigots are now the rule for Ukip rather than the exception. It is at this point I cease using any caveats and am happy to use broad brush terms. Put simply, if you are a member or supporter of that part, you endorse the bigotry. You are complicit in it. You are deservedly tarred with the same brush.

I would like to be able to tune it out and ignore it as I can with Corbynites, but as an active campaigner for Brexit, they are impossible to avoid. Every day one of their number visits their shameless parade of ignorance on me. It's sickening.

It's getting to the point where all eurosceptics are tainted by association, and the "remain" campaign will be keen to nurture that association - thus Ukip is undermining twenty years of toil. That is unforgivable and inexcusable.

Moreover, they show no sign of heeding any words of wisdom. Not only do they not have the basic facts of the migration crisis right, they have no interest in the facts. They have a settled narrative that has become their tribal orthodoxy and there is no greater sin to them than to question it. Even constructive criticism is an attack to them. The label of cult is one well deserved.

If anything loses this referendum it will be Ukip and when they do it will be everyone's fault but their own. They will blame everything and everyone rather then address their own mistakes and shortcomings. They are nihilistic wreckers worthy of contempt. All I can say is that the United Kingdom Ignorance Party speaks only for itself. I condemn them utterly. Not in my name. 

Do you have what it takes?

Last month we made an appeal for volunteers to form our elite platoon of bloggers. We've had a few encouraging responses and some disappointing ones. Some people are intractably wedded to the traditional eurosceptic mantras and while they say they understand our mission, in practice they do not. Thus we will have to kiss a few frogs before we get our operation fully mobilised. Consequently we are making a second appeal.

As to the task at hand we have found that spending big bucks on followers and large media interactions has only a limited effect and no real measurable results. Certainly we can't see what kind of impact it is making with real people. That is where our team comes in.

What we need are blogs, each with their own distinct identity, free to write on matters as they see them, writing to their own respective audiences. We do not expect or ask you to be echo chambers for eureferendum.com. Though what we do need is bloggers who subscribe to a set of core arguments and guidelines.

We have made the case that the Brexit plan we have throws up certain political realities that shape the arguments we make for withdrawal. For instance, Brexit will not necessarily mean substantially smaller budget contributions, may not in the short to medium term bring about an end to free movement and pragmatism demands we make regulatory compromises in order to remain part of the single market. We assume that you will have read Flexcit or are at the very least aware of the thesis. That should inform the basis of our arguments.

The message is important. We are entering a crowded marketplace. All the bases are covered for the usual lurid eurosceptic tropes. There is no value in replicating it in that it does not reach new ears. We have to be counter to the usual eurosceptic output. What we are after is new angles and innovative content. We let the cannon fodder take the Yes campaign head on. It's not well directed effort. Most of the keyboard warriors mistake volume of activity for productivity, employing badly made infographics. Most of the time they are wrong and send out the wrong message.

I have set out a statement of values here and I have set out the vision here. That then brings us on to the broader strategy. In so doing we have to do is ditch the eurosceptic baggage. We must adapt or die.

As to the practicalities of this, I will act as a controller and can offer editorial advice. Ultimately, attention to detail and presentation is key to credibility. Posts should preferably carry an illustration or a picture each time. It helps in Google rankings.

It must be said that this is no small undertaking. We are after fully dedicated people and preferably people we don't have to babysit. If you make the grade then we will expect that you in turn will recruit your own cell of bloggers. If that sounds elitist, it's because it is. We should be unashamedly elitist. We don't don't want libertarian ranters or europhobes. The "love Europe, hate the EU" nonsense is no use to us. We don't hate the EU, we just want out of it.

We also need to start acting now. A blog that is well established with a large web footprint will appear in Google results immediately. Those starting up at the last minute will struggle to get any meaningful hits. It is more a matter of establishing a blog for the final three months of the campaign.

Don't be put off by the low numbers of hits. Populist material will generate hits, but we'd rather reach the right ears than be talking to the same old crowd. If we co-ordinate our efforts then we can help you build your own online constituency.

Very few people can spare the time or energy to produce original content every day or even once a week. Twitter means you don't have to if we have an active team who will retweet each other. In that regard we have to rise above the narcissism of small differences. We don't have to agree with each other so long as we are working to broadly the same principles.

That said, a blog must be seen to be active so there is certainly no harm in reproducing each others material. You should be looking to build a twitter audience of at least a thousand followers. This takes time and a burst of concentrated effort. It doesn't happen quickly and it's not very rewarding work. It has taken six months of concerted effort to build two account each with a thousand followers.

However, if we are all retweeting each other, then the original tweet gets weighted by the Twitter engine and is more likely to appear in the top news section on the hash-tag. What matters is the multiplier effect. In that regard, your accounts will grow faster in that we will be promoting them.

Numbers are only a guide though. They are not a measure of productivity. The number of hits you get or the number of followers you have is not paramount. It's a useful target to aim for, but ultimately this operation is about targeted campaigning. Identifying those in your cohort who can be convinced or recruited matters more. You yourself may not have reach but if you can recruit for us then that is even better. It may be that you know some eurosceptics who can be reasoned with in order to moderate their output, which is valuable in itself.

The core mission is to win the intellectual battle. We must influence the influential and we must build a credible case with a viable alternative. The final battle will not be us versus the Yes/Remain campaign. It will be an estimation as to whether the alternative we present is better than Cameron's reforms.

I will be sending out periodic emails and guidelines and instructions in how to argue online. Please do not expect immediate replies to emails, though you can get my attention on Twitter - @petenorth303, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pete303.

If you are with us, please let me know what your blog is and your Twitter account - and your thoughts and suggestions are most welcome. Let us know if we can help. Be sure also to follow this blog because much of what I say to you will already appear there.

We are going to see a lot of wasted money and misdirected effort from the main campaigns and certainly we do not see Ukip as either an asset or ally in this. In fact the more clear blue water there is, the better. We have to make the progressive case for Brexit and we do not want to be tainted by association. A blunter statement of rules can be found here. The comments as much as anything gives you a clear indication of what we don't want. If you think you make the grade, and you're on board with our message, we would love to hear from you.

mrnorth303@gmail.com

The lies of British Influence

Our friends British Influence, Lord Sainsbury's propaganda outfit, are bullshitting on Facebook this morning with the above illustration. We didn't let them get away with it.

Once again, EU laws are merely rubber stamped international conventions. Just this morning I see UNECE has announced new standards on Seed Potato Field Inspection - which will, after some delay and bickering, become EU law. Our question is why should we bother with a middleman?

It should be noted that Norway is a full participant in UNECE and influences these conventions long before they get anywhere near the EU. In that regard influence in the EU talking shop is second rate influence.

More to the point, the Norway option is mooted as an interim off the shelf measure in order to minimise any disruption from Brexit and to save on replication of diplomatic effort - but it is not considered the final destination. It will take a good deal longer than the two years allotted under Article 50 to fully extract ourselves.

The Norway Option represents the best available compromise measure in that it grants single market access, but releases us from EU exclusivity on trade matters. For the world's fifth largest economy, that alone makes Brexit worth it. Course, British Influence knows all this but prefers to propagate this pernicious and cynical lie. We expand on this matter in this recent post.

A eurosceptic pledge

I have written to Arron Banks of The Know today with a suggested statement. It is my view that unless the following underpins the message of the Brexit campaign and is central to editorial decision making, we will lose the referendum.


We believe our future prosperity depends on leaving the EU. In that, those who join our campaign are are united. But today we must make a distinction.

While the EU has many faults, we recognise that while separate to it, it will still play a huge part in the economic and social life of the continent. We will need the EU as it will need us. It is our aim to be its strongest critic but also its best friend and ally. In terms of the global challenges we face, their problems are our problems too.

We do not see Brexit as an end to cooperation or participation in joint EU programmes. While we have our differences, we share the same values in principle, if not in practise. To that end, we will seek jointly to bring the global migration crisis to a resolution, combining our legal, scientific and humanitarian expertise to bring salvation to those in need. We will use our diplomatic and military influence to protect lives and to end conflicts wherever the opportunity presents. Our doors will never be closed to those in need of refuge.

It is our view that that liberty and openness are central to our prosperity and it is our liberal, democratic values that make Britain the number one destination for migrants the world over. We recognise their contribution as well as their intrinsic value as human beings.

In that we must balance our own need to ensure that our safety and security are not threatened and that the safety net that underpins each and every one of us is not abused or taken for granted. Through a century of struggle we have fought for rights and entitlements that make us the envy of the world. It is our duty to ensure that our immigration and asylum policy does not threaten that, lest we squander the hard won victories of our forebears.

How we achieve this is the subject of much debate and there will be irreconcilably different views. We recognise that such debates will bring forth passions and heated exchanges. We welcome this. Debate and disagreement are central to democratic discourse.

But in this we condemn utterly racism, bigotry, and intolerance. We do not point the finger at any single party. We recognise that all parties have their distasteful fringes and sometimes passions can suppress common sense and basic decency. But we must never lose sight of the fact that Europeans are our brothers and sisters, cousins and spouses - and that those washing ashore in the Mediterranean are real humans escaping real poverty and real suffering the likes of which most of us could hardly imagine.

This organisation does not and will not endorse the toxic and poisonous rhetoric of the bigots who spread fear and hatred against them. To them we say not in our name. They do not share our cause. We do not share their vision or their sentiments. We do not seek to be an isolated fortress island and we do not live in fear. Our vision is for the UK to be an independent nation confidently asserting its values of freedom and democracy - promoting mutual free trade and prosperity not only for ourselves but for the whole globe. In that there is no room for hating our fellow humans no matter their colour, creed or faith.*

*Except maybe Katie Hopkins and George Galloway. Hating them is fine.

Ukip's four million votes don't matter

It's fair to say that the sizeable majority of Ukip will vote to leave the EU regardless of what anybody says. Their message has a very limited constituency. It has little to say to the swing vote. It can only repel them. While everybody is concerned about the migration crisis, not everybody is agreed on what to do about it, and certainly the bigoted rhetoric of Ukip is not helpful to our cause.

As much as I am certain that the immigration rhetoric is a loser, I am also concerned by the people vs the establishment shtick. It was a good riff, but it's been murdered by Ukip and it's only going to attract the same crowd who give off the same vibe.

We must also be cautious of repeating history. A coalition of unpopular fringes is a sure fire loser. No surprises then that Farage is courting Jeremy Corbyn. While riding high in the estimations of the Labour party, he is largely an "up yours" to the human detritus offering themselves as alternatives. Corbyn is a fever sweeping through the left and will have a short shelf life. Such an alliance seems unwise when the Tories are enjoying a boost in the polls.

The "people vs the establishment" routine looks like a loser now. You don't get more establishment than a Tory government, and they now enjoy recently unprecedented popular support. Looking at the alternatives to the establishment right now, I think I would side with the establishment. 

Certainly the swing vote is less hostile to Mr Cameron than Farage whose approval ratings have plummeted and moderate people are not hostile to the idea of taking more refugees. Especially today of all days. Even the left will today welcome Cameron's move to take more. My own view is that it was a wasted opportunity to demand reforms to the 51 Convention on Refugees, but do not oppose the move in principle.

The problem with focussing on such matters is that public attitudes are fickle, and sooner or later, the media will be fixated on something else, and the issue will be crowded out by other concerns. Who knows what next years silly season media obsession will be? To that end, we must ensure our message can build a loyal base that we can grow sustainably. Taking a hard line on current affairs is a sure fire way of losing support. The issue central to the EU debate is that we should not be waiting on the EU to act. Control over our own affairs would allow us to unilaterally show leadership.

If the core campaign isn't a rational, measured voice, we will not only alienate the people we need, we will ignore passionate opposite as Ukip has. At present, the main opposition we face are corporate entities, the corporate media, and the EU itself. They can dominate the field but they lack the heartfelt grassroots passion of Brexiteers. If we are as obnoxious as Ukip, then we will quickly hand them such an asset. If we seek to avoid being tainted by association with Ukip we must take the initiative to reclaim the cause - otherwise the craven narcissism of Farage will bury us.

I would rather be selling the positives of independence than the negatives of the EU. After all, the end battle will be as we outline; our vision versus David Cameron's "reforms". More than that, the mouth-foaming Kipper brigade aren't even very good at selling the negatives of the EU. If there is a wrong end of the stick then Kippers will grasp it with both hands. Seldom does it even get the basics right.

If I were to pick a fight with the EU it would be on it's hypocrisy overseas record. From overfishing in Mauritania to the funding of Gaddafi's brutal transit camps, and the shameful undermining of African states by pressing them into dropping border tariffs in order to dump EU surpluses. For a halfway competent researcher it should be easy to undermine the EU's self-image as a benevolent, charitable Father Christmas figure. Ukip is more concerned about the cost of aid than the misdirection and misuse of it, yet if we want to get serious about stemming the flow of migrants then we need to spend money to address the causes of it.

We cannot possibly sell an outward looking vision of a Britain engaged in the global trading community unless our complaints about the EU reflect that too. We cannot preach progressive globalism by slamming the EU over petty domestic minutia or pushing an isolationist vibe.

With any luck, we will see a mellowing of campaigning efforts as the new parliamentary session cranks into gear and hopefully Ukip's efforts will peak too soon, meaning "peak bigot" is over by the time the campaign gets serious. In this regard, not only must the No campaign distance itself from Ukip but be seen to be publicly condemning it. We cannot be seen to be tacitly endorsing it or even tolerating it in our midst.

Eurosceptics tell me that Ukip matter too and we need them. We don't. They are both toxic and repellent and support of Ukip is an endorsement of their obvious stupidity and bigotry. I speak to many undecided voters who fear that Brexit would lead to the sort of Britain that Ukip envisages. If there were any real danger of that they would vote to stay in. And so would I for that matter.

How many more dead infants must there be?

The problem with taking a robust position on the unfolding horror in the Mediterranean is that it is an invitation to the very worst elements to pull out all the stops in venting their inhumane bilge. If that was Ukip's intention, it has clearly worked. Thus Ukip is now permanently tainted as a venomous, spiteful and ignorant party. Any No campaign willing to share that "big tent" with them is tainted by association. Now is the opportune moment for all those who want to win the referendum to publicly disown that party.

I've been busy on other things to react to storm over the picture of the dead infant washed up on the shore. For the moment, my question is, what it is about a well composed dead infant that spurs people into outrage that two years of routine stories of dead humans washing ashore could not?

Some have remarked that the parents have some agency in this. Indeed they do. But ultimately the reason we see risky sea crossings is because Europe has closed off the land routes. The assumption was that it would stem the flow. Clearly it does not, thus our policy requires urgent revision.

What is shameful in this is that Europe has the power and the resources the address this. What is lacking is the political will. That is to our eternal shame. Ordinarily I would frown upon the use of such a harrowing image to further a political agenda, but if this is really what it takes then so be it. Let it be used as a mirror to hold up to those who can casually rationalise it. Let no politician evade it.

In most cases, such images speak to circumstances beyond our control and thus sharing is cheap virtue signalling. But this is a political crisis, not a humanitarian one, and it is within our power to resolve it. So the question we must ask them is why don't they?

We know that whatever we do, they will keep coming so long as there is an invitation encoded in the UN Refugee Convention. It will encourage the queue jumping. We can and we must take more refugees, and the EU is right to demand it, but in turn we must demand reform of the convention. We must turn this tragedy into an opportunity. Lives depend on it.

The ridiculous fearmongering of europhiles

A europhile whose identity I shall protect recounts her first hand experience of what it means to be out of the EU but in the EEA in her work in a European student exchange programme.

"Do you know how long it took Brussels to react to the Swiss vote on immigration? ONE night! The morning after the referendum when we switched on our computers we found an email informing us that Swiss students do not qualify any longer to our Programme! And this of course had a similar impact on research funds to Switzerland etc and on the rest of the economic agreements. Can you even begin to imagine the huge loss to them?"

This is the kind of scaremongering we will see repeated ad nauseam. It's about as boring and risible as many of the eurosceptic arguments. The Switzerland immigration vote is irrelevant to the Brexit debate. Freedom of movement is a central tenet of EU law. The Swiss referendum blew a huge hole in that. It was inevitable that the EU was going to react under the circumstances, and the response was relatively mild for what was a unilateral decision and not a negotiated settlement that consulted the EU. What did they expect?

But it's wrong to assume this applies to Brexit. Nobody proposes that we rip up the treaties of the EU incurring their wrath. Nobody proposes that we do not play by the rules. By way of stating our intent to leave the EU under Article 50, the EU is obliged to obey its own obligations to negotiate an exit settlement.

In this it will be in no hurry to cut its own nose off to spite its face. We are a valuable market to them and our cooperation and future participation in joint efforts on trade and security are paramount for both. By law we have two years to negotiate a settlement, which is unlikely to consist of a whole divorce in that forty years of integration is not undone overnight. We will likely take an off the shelf interim arrangement similar to Norway - as a precursor to full independence.

We will probably concede on freedom of movement in exchange for continued access to the single market in the mid term, thus very little is affected as far as business or academia is concerned. You do not have to be a member of the EU to participate in either of the major academic programmes. To suggest that Brexit is a quickie divorce with catastrophic consequences is absurd.

Brexit is not a binary option. This referendum is an opportunity to redefine how we relate to the EU. It does not require an end to all co-operation with it. This is a misrepresentation and it is entirely baseless. There is no reason why we cannot be participants in the single market and we are not proposing to slam the doors shut on our friends and allies. We just have a destiny that isn't tied to the woes of the euro, and we seek the agility to forge new opportunities and to join the global trading community.

Should we actually leave the EU, the kippers are going to be fuming that it has little impact on the budget contributions or immigration, but the pro-EU types are going to be equally embarrassed that none of their grim prognostications came true.

The lesson here though is that the rhetoric and the vibe coming from the Brexit campaign leaves us wide open to to this kind of scaremongering - and because the main players have done little groundwork in establishing the terms of Brexit, and they stand defenceless as a consequence. All they have to go on is supposition and optimistic guesswork. If we rely on guesswork, we fail to secure the confidence of opinion formers and that is how we lose the referendum.

This is why we have argued from the beginning that the No campaign needs a credible exit plan. The political realities dictate the tone of our message and knowing the details in this regard allows us to comprehensively debunk the shameless scaremongering of europhiles.

Free and fair?

As I understand it, the the wording of the referendum has changed with a view to ensuring fairness. A referendum seen to be in any way skewed will lack legitimacy and give us ground to press for a second referendum. Personally, I don't think it matters. The public know the proposition they are voting on. Nor am I especially concerned by purdah rules.

The fact is a good strategist acknowledges the obstacles and plays them to advantage. The very fact that purdah will not be invoked gives us a break in that the insistence of the establishment in attempting to influence the result could be treated with suspicion. Brits do not like being told how to vote by their betters. Moreover, a decent campaign will see it coming.

I have made the point that the BBC will skew the debate by ensuring all the panel shows and interviews will focus on Farage and whichever other immigration obsessed grunters least likely to convince. We will not hear sound and rational arguments from more moderate figures. In the BBC's defence, it would struggle to find such since Owen Paterson is probably the only public figure with the remotest grasp of the progressive case. The lack of adequate spokesmen is largely our own fault.

We will hear a lively debate but only between tightly controlled parameters. Certainly if the televised debates are between MPs and party leaders then we won't get anything close to an informed debate. The presentation will likely be tabloidesque, again using debate sets borrowed from a daytime TV quiz show. It will be treated as a frivolous biff-bam circus rather than a sober setting for an adult debate about adult issues. Whichever way it goes, it will be a lamentable show.

In this regard it may not be in our interests to have a free and fair referendum. We have the very worst ambassadors for the Brexit cause, they have a poor strategy and weak arguments. While there will undoubtedly be media bias, our lack of ability to handle it is largely our own fault. A skewed referendum may be our main hope of securing public support for a second referendum.

I argued earlier that euroscepticism needs it's clause four moment but I don't see that happening, and if The Know's newsletter today is anything to go by then I can see my pleas fell on deaf ears. Frankly, losing the referendum will be the only way to trigger a purge of the Elliots and the Farage's. Their credibility will be spent. This referendum will end up a rehearsal whereby we make all the mistakes we should have avoided by referring to Ukip's abysmal election campaign.

In any instance there will likely be a new EU treaty in the near future triggering a ratification referendum, which if the government loses, it's anybody's guess what may happen. There are multiple scenarios I cannot even guess at. That will likely be our last stand.

That said, as per the illustration above, our chances are improving. It is difficult to say if this is a sustained trend, but it doesn't matter. The final month will be the decider and it will come down to how well the No campaign responds to Cameron's "reforms". We may be in with a chance and an intelligent response may just swing it. For sure, looking at the pieces on the board as they stand today, there is scant reason to hope the response will be intelligent, but politics is full of surprises.

While I am pessimistic presently, that will not deter me from giving it everything I have and more. I am certain we cannot rely on the official campaign and Ukip will soil the bedsheets whenever they can. The media will be as ghastly as ever it is too. There is little we can do about that. If the gap is to be closed then it will fall on me and thee to do it. We will have to bypass the media and the white noise campaigns and take our arguments to the people directly by whatever means we can. Twitter isn't going to win this and nor is Mr Bank's money.

The No campaign could learn a lot from Tony Blair

When you walk past a Socialist Workers Party stand in town, you smirk and walk past. Enfeebled dinosaurs pushing their obsolete wares to the to barmy and the gullible. As a movement it clearly has some considerable inherent sympathy as we see the surge of Corbynism, but one thing almost all are agreed upon is that he couldn't win an election and we would be much diminished at a nation if ever he did.

In that regard, I look at eurosceptics in the same way. The isolationist little Englander vibe would not be good for the country, and pulling out of the EU by way of quickie divorce as they propose would leave us diplomatically isolated with few friends. They represent the fag end of of a dead vision. They are the SWP of the right. (with caveats).

For the Labour party to take power in 1997 it had to suppress its base instincts, it had to expel and marginalise the far left and had to sell a new vision. It did so with ruthlessness and cunning and showed no mercy in ejecting those who would taint the party image. They had a message and they had message discipline and a certain elitism about them.

That is what eurosceptics must also do. We have our fair share of ranters, bigots and bozos along with craven egotists and losers. I've been told that we must be a big tent and build coalitions, but our movement canot be a contrarian movement comprised of people who seethe against Muslims, bore about climate change conspiracies or the niche professional axe grinders.

More than anything Euroscepticism needs to jettison its old school aristocracy. The Bill Cash's, the Daniel Hannan's and the Farage's and all their weirdo followers. I mean what was Farage thinking giving house room to Neil Hamilton? Some argue that he was unfairly treated and that he was largely innocent of the charges brought against him, but really, in the public eye, he's damaged goods.

Our lot have been tweaking about bent bananas and British jam for thirty years and where has it got us? For sure it got us a referendum but our chances of winning it look pretty slim. We have to foster a new euroscepticism. The tawdry colours of Ukip and the brash populism cannot reach the centre ground or the swing vote. It cannot expand its appeal and it cannot win a referendum.

The only way we can win is to reinvent, to ditch our baggage and moderate out language. That's what Blair had to do and for all he was hated for it, he did win three elections. Moreover he was the right man to do it. He had an answer for every question and little got past him.

In fairness, there was a time (long ago) when Farage was that man. At one time he listened to advice, learned the arguments absorbed the details and more importantly knew when to defer to greater wisdom. But as the saying goes the higher the monkey climbs, the more you see of his ass. In some respects, you can't blame the fellow.

At that level when you have everybody offering their opinion their comes a time when you have to just trust in your own abilities. But he's overextended. there comes a time when the stresses of office take over and for whatever good you've done, you rapidly start to undo it. His rhetoric is tired, he looks tired and he's bought his own legend. He's spent.

In that regard, so too is Ukip. Having surrounded himself with an intellectual subspecies, it's little wonder Farage has a reputation for a ferocious temper. I don't think I could keep my cool around such epic stupidity. Though I have no sympathy at all, it is not altogether surprising he feels he must keep hold of the reins for Ukip to survive. He's about right. Should he hand it over to any one of his underlings and they'll destroy it in under a year. Only he can hold it together and help it limp along.

Having steered Ukip onto siding, eurosceptics are now without a main vehicle. In so many ways, Ukip has departed from being the eurosceptic party and is instead a popular protest group that is largely opposed to, well, everything. It is now part and parcel of the eurosceptic baggage, and must be ditched along with the rest of it. As far as their 4m votes, go, they're not instrumental to the coming fight. They will speak only to themselves and the will vote out anyway. As far as expanding the message goes, they are dead in the water. All they can now do is taint the message and sour the milk.

As an experiment is has failed. But it has shown us what message not to run with and how not to fight a campaign. The winning No campaign will be the one that avoids the mistakes and learns the lessons. If it does then Ukip will have been worthwhile just as a lesson in how not to do things.

In that regard, what we saw today with Ukip announcing their own No campaign was a jealous action by Farage to maintain his empire, and to prevent The Know from co-opting the Ukip caucus in order to claim legitimacy in bidding for the official No campaign nomination. In that respect Farage has done us a favour in that the official No campaign should do its very best to disown Ukip and distance itself from the rhetoric and the message of Ukip.

In the end the decision for nomination will go to the Electoral Commission. We will not get to choose as there is no means by which a public ballot could be held. But if there were we would see a kind of entryism similar to that of Tories for Corbyn. We would see "Inners for Ukip".

No successful campaign can be associated with Ukip because Ukip does not own euroscepticism and it doesn't speak for the movement. Apart from the vague proposition of leaving the EU, I share virtually nothing politically with what that party now stands as. I would struggle to find unity with people who want to bulldoze mosques. A clear indication from the No campaign that it parts company with the little Englander populism of Ukip would be the Clause 4 moment that our movement needs to win.

In some respects we should thank Farage for his jealous manoeuvre in that it ring-fences the Ukip constituency so that it cannot be co-opted by a No contender. An email from within The Know today indicates that The Know is now keen to put distance between itself and Ukip and position itself as entirely independent. This may also indicate that Ukip has lost the financial backing of Aaron Banks.

We do not know, but what we can say is that the Know stands without a constituency and largely has a paper army with little to connect it to any grassroots activity. It is a corporate shell that has thus far achieved little someone with a similar budget could not. It certainly lacks any intellectual capital. In that regard it would be sensible for The Know to join the Referendum Planning Group and submit a joint bid for the No nomination. In so doing there would be a No campaign independent of the Tories and Ukip.

It is my view that a Tory front organisation headed by Elliot cannot succeed and a rich man's toy has little reach either. If it's a Ukip grunt-a-thon or an SW1 old boys only club then we are staying in the EU. It's that simple. 

Europhiles: the new colonialists

The EU debate is once again heating up with social media filling up with europhile flotsam. Consequently the above has been resurrected for another airing. It's always worth watching such things as they give us an insight into the pathology of europhiles, and it gives us picture of the dishonesty they will deploy closer to the referendum. Here we see the classic "British influence" meme dressed up as prestigious hard won knowledge.

Here we see John Peet opining that EU membership is central to our position in the world and that our influence depends on "being at the very heart of Europe". I have a strong dislike of John Peet. Usually men of his ilk display either dishonesty or ignorance, but Peet manages to combine both and somehow present himself as an authority. In just thirteen minutes he manages to rack up so many untruths it would take a days to deconstruct.

To pick three points at random, he first misrepresents the argument that we cannot trade with the rest of the world as EU members. This is a straw man. Nobody actually makes that argument. Thus he builds his Aunt Sally and knocks it down with eloquence to a largely ignorant audience who applauds his dishonesty.

The point about international trade is that the EU negotiates all trade treaties on our behalf. Trade is an exclusive competence of the EU, thus if we wanted to waive a tax or relax a regulation in order to facilitate faster trade with India, we would have to secure agreement from other nations who don't even have similar industries and we would have to add our concerns to the waiting list. The EU would then do it's usual trick of bundling up concerns in order to offer a package of trade measures in exchange for invasive permissions to meddle in Indian affairs - which can take as long as a decade.

Secondly, in one breath he argues that by engaging in "Brussels" we managed to end the policy of fishing discards. Something of a lie. We no longer discard fish as sea, producing the unsightly news footage that brings the issue to the fore. Instead fishermen must land the catch, pay a fine and then the haul is sent to landfill.

What we need is localised fishing authorities so that boats may use nets and fishing practices best suited for local waters to avoid such catches in the first place. But because we have standard boat types along with EU specifications of nets that are permitted almost anywhere in "EU waters" we see decimation of fish stocks and habitats. Because of vested interests, it is unlikely this will ever be reformed. The EU is inherently destructive in this regard and the EU has merely swept it under the carpet.

Lastly, he pulls the usual stunt of saying we need to be in Brussels to influence the "rules of the club", when in reality, that is not the top table and Brussels is merely the horse-trading by which we fashion the common EU position on a whole range of matters.

To take fishing as an example, the "rules of the club" are set by the NAFO, an international body on which the EU takes our seat. Norway, a non-EU member, has a seat at the top table, Britain does not. Thus we are forced to adopt the common EU position and must by order of treaty use our proxy vote to support the EU position without right of veto. Far from being at the heart of Europe, we are subjugated by it and prevented from engaging with the world.

The EU dilutes our global influence and makes us less agile in matters of trade and delays vital reforms to markets that mean other nations get to exploit emerging markets first. They are trapped in the mentality of the last century. It would be a man of astonishing ignorance who could stand there and say such things and indeed John Peet must be if these basics have escaped him through the course of his career.

But since he's a man of such prestige as to be speaking to the Oxford Union, we can only conclude that he is not so much ignorant as a pathological liar. Consequently any man who would knowingly deceive over such matters of critical importance does so from a position of blind faith in the EU ideals, which by definition makes him a zealot.

And that's really what we're dealing with in this debate. The John Peet's and Lucy Thomas's of this world care not a jot of the EU is good for trade or whether it is democratic or not. It is quasi-religious orthodoxy that must be upheld and executed at all costs. They are nether truthful nor rational. And for them the ends justify the deceptive means.

In all respects they are stuck in the dark ages. The fishing issue alone shows how more can be accomplished through global organisation where every voice is heard and rather than unions of nations, the modern paradigm is unions of industries and sectors organising at the global level in order to achieve better and faster agreements.

If anything the EU is the fly in the ointment that persistently complicates, compromises and delays the process, because it is insists on claiming such enterprises as its own, thus reinforcing the perception they are EU initiatives. The EU is plagiarist and a thief. It does so also as the global regulatory and cultural hegemon and uses trade as a means to strong arm weaker nations into compliance.

It is born from the belief that only the EU elites forcing their social democratic agenda upon nations can they be peaceful and enlightened. The evidence n Ukraine this week suggests otherwise. Nations must follow their own path and fight for equality and freedom for themselves. Such cannot be imposed. What lies beneath is a paternalistic authoritarianism, in the assumption that the Balkans and Eastern Europe are child races incapable of universal human values without the benevolent guiding hand of the enlightened EU.

For sure if you looked at the Balkans sand Ukraine you might well conclude that they have a point - but this is little different to the British colonial attitude to the Indians, as some how a lesser advanced culture in need of subjugation for their own good. The reality is that unless their rights are fought for and won from beneath, any imposition of "brotherhood and unity" can only end in bloody war. The Yugoslavian experiences teaches us this much.

In the end it is free and fair trade that brings about abundance and peace, thus the world needs the means to create a global single market that waits for no supranational government. Let nations speak unto nations.

In this regard it is ionic that europhiles say eurosceptics want to go back to the age of the British Empire, when that is precisely what we do not propose. It is they who are the imperialists, believing that without their supervision Britain would revert to the status of savages who would abandon the principles of justice, freedom, democracy and human rights. We should treat this for what it is, an insult to our history, culture and intelligence.