The big picture
How to describe Wednesday, a day when Nigel Farage and Bob Geldof staged a naval battle on the Thames? My colleague Robert Booth was there and sums up the spectacle neatly:
Before it was over, Farage’s flotilla of angry trawlermen campaigning for leave had drenched Geldof’s boat with hoses and angrily boarded it midstream to the dismay of the river authorities. Geldof’s boat almost shredded the eardrums of those on Farage’s vessel with a high decibel blast of 60s pop music; Geldof called Farage “a fraud” and flicked him the V sign.
The flotilla farrago also had the side-effect of sinking George Osborne’s sounding of the alarm over what he said would be a £30bn black hole in the UK’s public finances post-Brexit. That and the flurry of angry Tory MPs who said they would refuse to back a “punishment” budget that the chancellor threatened could bump up income tax rates and slash spending on schools and hospitals.
In a letter to the Telegraph this morning, former party leaders Lord Howard and Iain Duncan Smith, and former chancellors Lord Lawson and Lord Lamont lambast what they call the “startling dishonesty”, “phoney forecasts” and “ludicrous scaremongering” of remain campaigners on the economy. (It doesn’t mention that £350m figure, mind.)
A separate letter signed by 65 MPs, including six former cabinet ministers – Duncan Smith again, Liam Fox, Owen Paterson, David Jones, John Redwood and Cheryl Gillan – warns:
If the chancellor is serious, then we cannot possibly allow this to go ahead. It would be unnecessary, wrong and a rejection of the platform on which we all stood. If he were to proceed with these proposals, the chancellor’s position would become untenable.
Lead Brexiteer Michael Gove said he wouldn’t sign the letter – but only because he believed such a budget would never happen. In his BBC Question Time interview last night, he told David Dimbleby:
There is no need for an emergency budget. The truth is, if we vote to leave we will be in an economically stronger position.
(For more on Gove on BBCQT, see the Guardian columnists’ verdicts here and Andrew Sparrow’s at-a-glance summary here.)
Some Tories remain with remain, however, and today the home secretary Theresa May – up till now a quiet figure in the campaign – along with cabinet colleagues Nicky Morgan, Liz Truss, Amber Rudd and Justine Greening will argue that female voters can “be the decisive voice in this referendum”. It’s not about so-called women’s issues, though, which – according to the Telegraph – Morgan, for one, has “never believed in”:
We are just as concerned as men about our economy, defence capability and the influence we wield as a nation on the global stage.
Much of the action today leaves London behind – I know! It does happen sometimes – and heads north, where Gordon Brown is speaking in Manchester; and then even further north, where rival rallies are taking place in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Brown, alongside shadow chancellor John McDonnell and former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, will say that the economies of the UK’s 10 biggest cities outside the capital – Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield – are at risk if Britain opts to leave the UK:
European money is necessary for renovation, renewal and regeneration – and right across the north, Scotland and Wales it is still vitally needed now.
And Kinnock will resurrect one of his most notable riffs, albeit in rather less catchy form:
I warn you not to be on low or middle incomes as the disruption brought by Brexit pushes up interest rates and prices, slashes benefits, and causes slump. I warn you not to expect work, as uncertainty causes investment to move to the single market which we would be leaving.
You should also know:
- It’s the Tooting byelection, in which south London voters will pick a Westminster successor to Sadiq Khan, the new London mayor. Labour’s candidate is A&E doctor Rosena Allin-Khan in what has been a safe seat for the party for more than 40 years. The Evening Standard has the full list of candidates.
- Labour MP Rushanara Ali says firms should give employees an extra hour off work next Thursday to enable them to vote in the referendum.
- A 96-year-old airman writes in support of remain: “I remember how far we have come. I know what we stand to lose.”
- Nine out of 10 university staff back Remain, and 40% would be more likely to leave the UK if Brexit wins, according to a Times Higher Education survey.
- European shares recovered on Wednesday after five days of losses.
Poll position
A fresh BMG Research poll, commissioned by the Electoral Reform Society, finds only 62% of voters say they will definitely cast a ballot next week. There’s a chasm between wealthier voters (67% say they’ll certainly vote) and poorer ones (just 55%).
It also found that 22% of voters felt “well” or “very well” informed about the referendum. Would it cheer you up if I told you that’s a rise of six percentage points since the same question was polled in February?
The chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, Katie Ghose, said:
These findings are deeply concerning, and show there is a real risk of a low turnout and a demographic divide when voters go to the ballot box …
A poor turnout alongside a close result poses the risk that people will view the decision as inconclusive, and we could see calls for further referendums or questioning of the validity of the result from either side. The last thing anyone wants to see is a contested and challenged outcome.
New poll idea: how many more months of this would you tolerate?
Diary
- At 10am Gordon Brown and Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell speak at a Labour In event in Manchester.
- Former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg appears with the Scottish party leader Willie Rennie alongside Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale at a rally in Edinburgh hosted by the European Movement in Scotland.
- And Scottish Brexit campaigners stage a rally in Glasgow with Vote Leave chairwoman Gisela Stuart.
- George Osborne is back again, with a Mansion House speech in the City of London.
Read these
How did the referendum campaign go so wrong for Labour, asks George Eaton in the New Statesman:
Inside Labour, the blame is already being liberally distributed. Some identify Corbyn as the chief culprit. Recent polling showed that nearly half of the party’s voters were uncertain of its position on the EU. This, MPs suggest, owes much to the Labour leader’s limited enthusiasm for the cause … Yet there is no truth in the claim that the lifelong Eurosceptic is a secret Brexiter. “I’ve had private conversations with him. He is convinced that voting Remain is the right thing to do,” a shadow cabinet minister told me …
But Corbyn is not the only senior figure blamed for the drift towards Brexit. Alan Johnson, the head of the Labour In campaign, is accused of ‘low energy’ performances. Others cite the media’s fixation with ‘blue-on-blue’ Conservative clashes. One senior MP suggested that the BBC could be ‘in breach of its legal duties’ by ‘focusing on personalities, not issues’.
Jenni Russell in the Times says hard-won freedoms are at stake:
We don’t realise the fragility of our liberal societies and the need to protect them. The European project has been a conscious effort to spread its core values, from democracy to human rights. It has worked; central European and Baltic states could only join once they had adopted them. Walking away from Europe now is akin to storming out of the house you share with your exasperating, difficult relatives …
The cavalier foolishness with which Leavers think they can rip Britain out of Europe and yet trust that everything else they value — trade, intelligence sharing, stability, goodwill — will stay the same amazes me. Privately the Europeans, led by Germany, are explicit that if we go Europe will close ranks against us. They must. They cannot afford to prioritise selling us BMWs above the survival of the union. They have to make clear to other nationalist parties tempted to follow the UK that there will be no preferential treatment, only harsh consequences. If we reject our neighbours, they will have to reject us.
Proving that Brexit knows no boundaries (ironic, I know), here’s the New Zealand Herald’s Griff White with four models of how Britain could look outside the EU.
Baffling claim of the day
The Spectator has a poll on whether we can trust polls and it’s hard to know what to think of that.
Celebrity endorsement of the day
A joyous Twitter thread, this, from Peep Show star Robert Webb (himself for remain), who spent a good few hours figuring out how each of the characters from the show would vote next week. If I posted the whole thread, the “brief” part of this morning briefing would be severely compromised, but do look it up:
Appreciate this but completely wrong. Mark: Remain because it's the cautious thing to do. Mark's Dad: Leave. Jez... https://t.co/Idf4WSdxph
— Robert Webb (@arobertwebb) June 15, 2016
...Jez is Leave (we need to shake shit up) Super Hans: Remain (someone should cure cancer, let's get serious)... https://t.co/Idf4WSdxph
— Robert Webb (@arobertwebb) June 15, 2016
The day in a tweet
Intriguing. Vote Leave has been condemned for its “We send the EU £350m a week – let’s fund our NHS instead” slogan (Angela Eagle called it a “lie”). But a u-turn seems … unlikely. Expect a fightback.
We've bowed to popular demand and repainted our #BattleBus. Pictures to follow... cc: @wdjstraw
— Vote Leave (@vote_leave) June 15, 2016
If today were a song ...
It would be Craig David’s Seven Days. That’s all we have left of this campaign. And David aficionados will know what they’re supposed to be doing today. Ahem.
And another thing
Would you like to wake up to this briefing in your inbox every weekday? Sign up here!
