History repeats itself, first as farce then as tragedy. Back in the mid-90s on the satirical TV show The Day Today, Chris Morris announced “Coming up at 10pm, Question Time live from Wembley Stadium”. Cue a shot of an audience going wild. “On the panel tonight we have Virginia Bottomley, Tony Banks, William Rees-Mogg and Nick Kershaw”.
Cut to a summer’s evening in 2016. First the leave team bus turned up at Wembley. Out stepped Boris Johnson, Gisela Stuart and Andrea Leadsom. They attempt a little wave until they realised that the only people to have noticed their arrival was a BBC camera crew. It wasn’t exactly Beyoncé or Rihanna, but this was the BBC’s Big Referendum Come Dancing Debate and it was determined to give it the same pre-match hype as it used to give the FA Cup final until it realised nobody was much interested in buses arriving and chose to start their coverage an hour before kick-off.
With an hour to go, a crowd began to build. The police presence was minimal. There was no kettling of rival fans, no chanting and no animosity. Someone mentioned Nigel Farage’s latest poster of a lollipop lady photoshopped into an M25 queue that looks like something an eight-year old might have knocked up as part of a half-term “how to be racist” project, but that’s about as political as the conversation got. Most people were more interested in what was going on in the Euros than the night’s debate. But since they had booked, they might as well be there.
It was as if everyone was expecting this to be the Debate Too Far. For months now, both sides had been slugging it out with lies and counter lies, claims and counter claims and they have fought each other to a standstill. No one was expecting to hear a late game-changer. Both leave and remain had come with one principal objective, not to get beaten. A goal on the break would be good, but nil-nil after extra time and hope the spin doctors in the media spin room could win on penalties was the game plan.
The BBC’s head of news, James Harding, took the stage 15 minutes before the start. Wembley has seen many warm-up acts better than this. “We are going to have an intelligent and informative debate,” he announced. Several members of the audience turned to look at each other in amazement. Maybe it was going to be different from the 10,000 other debates, after all. “And I’m sure you’ll agree that nobody chairs a debate better than David Dimbleby.” That was definitely true. No one else has ever had the chance.
Gisela Stuart got the ball rolling with a reprise of her ITV debate performance, only rather more leaden. “I’m a mother,” she declared, as if that might be the killer argument for leaving the EU. Andrea Leadsom clearly thought it was, as she was quick to announce she was also a mum. The standard of debate had been set. Sadiq Khan tried to raise it by saying he was going to make the positive and patriotic case for remain, but he was soon brought back to earth by Boris who shouted: “Project Fear, take back control” at any and every opportunity.
That’s the way the half-hour on the economy went. Ruth Davidson, Frances O’Grady and Sadiq quoted the experts, and Boris, Gisela and Andrea flat-batted everything back with: “You’re trying to scare us. Take back control. And be a mum”. By way of variety, the BBC broke things up by going to the subs’ bench. The leave campaign’s bench of Priti “Vacant” Patel, Tony Parsons and Tim Martin, the Wetherspoons boss – none of whom are known for having connecting synapses – was noticeably weaker than remain’s, which included Sarah Wollaston, Tim Farron and Caroline Lucas, but that was rather by the by. The leave crowd cheered their speakers and the remain crowd cheered theirs.
Dimbleby insisted that the economy had been dealt with, though it hadn’t sounded that way to anyone else. Perhaps I missed something. Then came immigration. “I’m a mum,” said Gisela. “I’m also a mum,” added Andrea, by now switched to autopilot. “You’re not Project Fear, you’re Project Hate,” said Sadiq, to the biggest cheer of the evening. The pressure mounted on leave as Sadiq, Frances and Ruth piled in with what was suspiciously like the most sophisticated arguments on immigration that had been heard in the entire campaign.
“Are you going to give back the £600,000 donation you’ve been given by a BNP member ?” asked Ruth. “I’m still a mum,” said a visibly shaken Andrea. Take that as a no. Boris bounced around on his feet, disappointed he hadn’t been able to get any of his favourite gags in. And that’s the way the rest of the night continued. When the debate moved on to Britain’s place in the world, Andrea and Gisela were mums who wanted to take back control by making the Straits of Dover a lot wider, while remain was quite happy with them as they were.
It was like the England v Slovakia game the night before. The remain camp had pummelled leave for 90 minutes, but it still ended in a goalless draw. Just as everyone had always feared it would. The arguments were all too familiar and everyone had long since stopped listening. Still, at least there wasn’t any crowd trouble.
