The big picture
Last night’s ITV debate pitted Conservatives Boris Johnson and junior energy minister Andrea Leadsom, alongside Labour’s Gisela Stuart, for leave; against Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon, Tory energy secretary Amber Rudd and Labour frontbencher Angela Eagle for remain.
The two-hour face-off raced through themes familiar in the campaign – immigration, the economy, sovereignty, the NHS, scaremongering – and one less well-rehearsed question on women and the EU (which became a broader discussion of workers’ rights).
Here’s the round-up of the debate from our Westminster team, the verdicts from Guardian columnists, and John Crace’s sketch on how to win over undecided voters (spoiler: say nothing).
It all took place as Andy Burnham warned that remain faced the “very real prospect” of defeat in the referendum. The Labour shadow home secretary told BBC’s Newsnight that the campaign had failed to reach out to traditional Labour voters and to tackle fears over immigration:
We have definitely been far too much Hampstead and not enough Hull in recent times and we need to change that. Here we are two weeks away from the very real prospect that Britain will vote for isolation.
What we learned in the debate
- The remain campaign has decided that Boris Johnson and his personal ambitions are a good target. Nicola Sturgeon said the former London mayor was not interested in people’s jobs, only David Cameron’s job, a theme embraced by Amber Rudd:
I fear that the only number that Boris is interested in is the one that says No 10.
- Johnson might not have been the only person on stage with an eye on leadership. As he taunted his Labour opponent for her party’s failure to appoint a female leader, Angela Eagle retorted:
Beware of the blond bombshell!
(That’s a moniker that has frequently been applied to Johnson himself, of course.)
- The leave campaign has two key weapons: immigration and accusations of scaremongering (bonus points if elites are involved in the fear-spreading, and double-bonus for co-opting a remain campaigner):
Johnson: There’s a member of that panel who’s complained about the remain campaign and says that it’s ‘miserable, negative and fear-based, and fear-based campaigning of this kind starts to insult people’s intelligence’.
Now that was Nicola Sturgeon … And I have to say, I agree with Nicola.
- Sturgeon is one of the few politicians willing to make a positive case for immigration, calling it a “two-way street” that also benefits UK citizens overseas.
This is not a one-way street. How would we feel if people in other countries were talking about us in the way that we’re talking about people … it’s disgraceful.
- She’s also one of the few campaigners prepared to make a positive case for the EU itself:
In the modern world, independent countries must work together. And that’s what the EU is all about: independent countries choosing to cooperate for the benefit of all.
- It’s hard to share a stage with Boris Johnson, even if you’re on the same side. Gisela Stuart (“I am an immigrant. I believe in Britain. I wouldn’t dream of talking down this country”) and Andrea Leadsom – standing across from her boss at the energy department – landed a few thumps, but even the remain panellists were zoomed in on the leave frontman.
What we didn’t
- If there will ever be an end to the row over the £350m figure.
Sturgeon: It is a scandal that it is still emblazoned across the campaign bus because it’s an absolute whopper.
Eagle: Get that lie off your bus.
Political toing-and-froing aside, here are some facts on that figure. First, the Guardian’s own reality check. The verdict? “At best misleading, and at worst wrong.”
And here’s what the UK Statistics Authority said a couple of weeks ago: “Misleading and undermines trust in official statistics.”
Official definitive @UKStatsAuth statement on the UK's EU membership fee and rebate https://t.co/z9J4Dn4wdd #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/2prtPqZ97J
— Full Fact (@FullFact) June 9, 2016
The key exchange
Johnson: If we took back control of our money, we’d have £10bn more if we left the EU, we’d have £10bn more to spend every year on our priorities …
Eagle: Boris, that’s a lie. That is a lie and you know it.
Clarification of the night
Courtesy of Eagle, who rowed back from her comment that “we’re not in the European Union” (and Johnson’s glee) to the more accurate “we’re not in Schengen … we’re not in the eurozone”.
Zinger of the night
Probably this (OK, rather rehearsed) line from Amber Rudd on Johnson:
He is the life and soul of the party but he is not the man you want driving you home at the end of evening.
But it’s run close by Johnson’s jibe that Sturgeon is “keener to be ruled by Brussels than Westminster”.
The Remain campaign verdict
Stronger In might be an “extraordinary alliance” across party lines, but Tory energy secretary Amber Rudd was the standout performer, according to Tory prime minister David Cameron:
.@AmberRudd_MP was a star in the #ITVEURef debate. She was passionate and clear about why we are #StrongerIn the EU, "leading not leaving."
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) June 9, 2016
Will Straw, director of Britain Stronger in Europe, said it was:
Rich of Boris to talk about hope when his campaign has focused on fears on Turkey, Hitler and immigration.
The Leave campaign verdict
Iain Duncan Smith said things had got a bit personal:
The remain side came on with the usual old scare stories about Britain not being good enough but what really added to that, was lacing its way through that, was just personal abuse. One after another, you could see their heads dip down to read the line: ‘Now time to abuse Boris Johnson’.
Ukip’s Suzanne Evans thought Labour’s most high-profile Out spokeswoman was a hit:
Positivity, passion & patriotism from @GiselaStuart. Simply wonderful. #ITVEURef
— Suzanne Evans (@SuzanneEvans1) June 9, 2016
You should also know
- Labour MP John Mann says in an interview in the Sun that he will vote for Brexit, and Dennis Skinner says the same in the Morning Star.
- Pro-EU ministers want David Cameron to tell European leaders they must address immigration and free movement, even if the referendum result is to remain.
- Leaving the EU would force an emergency budget, further cuts in public spending and tax rises, senior Labour figures will warn today.
- DJ David Guetta, 150 can-can dancers and an acrobatic demonstration by the French air force will grace the opening ceremony for Euro 2016, which kicks off today.
Poll position
Bolstering news for leave campaigners from an Ipsos Mori poll yesterday commissioned by the UK in a Changing Europe, a group of non-partisan academics. It found 63% believed leaving the EU would reduce immigration and just 25% thought it would reduce their own living standards – and 13% said they reckoned they would be better off.
Less scientifically robust, but another debate last night – which saw Michael Howard, Jenny Jones and Daniel Hannan argue the leave case against Michael Heseltine, Alex Salmond and Vicky Pryce – resulted in an Oxford Union vote in favour of staying in, by 74% to 26%.
Diary
Plenty going on today, with many of last night’s panellists doing the rounds again.
- At 9.30am, Tom Watson, Angela Eagle and Yvette Cooper are at a Labour pro-EU event.
- The UK in a Changing Europe conference offers an Ed Miliband speech at 10.30am, and Iain Duncan Smith speaking at 4.30pm.
- The big buzz (sorry) will be around the Buzzfeed/Facebook Live town hall, with pro-Brexit armed forces minister Penny Mordaunt interviewed at 2pm; Nicola Sturgeon at 3pm; Nigel Farage at 4pm; and David Cameron at 5pm.
- Farage pops up again at 7.30pm to be interviewed by Andrew Neil on the BBC.
Read these
ITV political editor Robert Peston, in his snap verdict on the debate, said it was “extraordinary” to see Tory MPs attacking each other:
The Remain camp were aware that some of the research shows that voters don’t think that they are putting forward their case with enough enthusiasm and we saw a lot of gusto tonight and actually strikingly, also lots of personal attacks – particularly on Boris Johnson.
Accusations that he’s mainly motivated not by a desire to get us out of the EU but more by a desire to get into Number 10 – Amber Rudd, his close colleague, making that charge.
In the New Statesman, Helen Walmsley-Johnson wants to know how her pension would be affected in the event of Brexit:
We, the over-50s, are statistically not only most likely to vote in the forthcoming EU referendum but are also most likely to vote to leave. Apparently this is down to two things: a misty-eyed nostalgia for Britain before straight bananas and concern over net migration …
The Treasury’s analysis shows that if we leave the European Union millions of current and future pensioners will be worse off. Predictably Vote Leave, in the person of former pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, said this is ‘utterly outrageous’ and ‘cynical’.
I don’t know about you but given his record I find IDS less than credible on the subject of pensions or anything else really, which makes him an odd spokesperson to choose. But that aside, when you unpick the Treasury’s analysis, it’s broadly this: that leaving the EU would cause inflation to rise and that rise would erode the value of state pension increases to the tune of £137 per year, per state pensioner.
And in the Guardian, Martin Kettle wonders what happened to Michael Gove:
Gove has come a long way from that elegant but restrained initial statement of rejection of government policy at the start of the campaign.
As Gove himself might put it, it is as though he, in US Republican terms a Rand Paul-style doctrinal conservative, has morphed in the space of a few weeks into a Donald Trump-style scaremonger. The campaign on which Gove is now embarked is at odds with much of what he once stood for. The campaign is narrow, nasty, dishonest and driven by polling, while apparently spurning any of the old Govian high-minded argument. It is almost unrecognisable as the work of a man whose occasional willingness to give questioners the run of his mind meant that an hour in his company was always one of the more fascinating experiences in politics.
Baffling claim of the day
The Sun claims a – I must stress, non-official – pro-EU group planned to create a spoof pornographic film featuring a half-naked Boris Johnson:
We Are Europe hoped it would go viral before the EU referendum on June 23 and create a ‘spike of interest’ among Britain’s youth. They wanted randy Brits to look for it on explicit adult websites …
One scene involved a man having sex with a woman and looking at a photo of David Cameron and Angela Merkel. He asks his partner ‘Am I In?’ and she responds ‘YES BABY!’
With apologies to readers eating breakfast.
Celebrity endorsement of the day
Michael Moore, in the UK to promote his new film, Where to Invade Next, wondered aloud:
Why would you do this? … Why would you want to leave? It costs too much money? Immigrants? Really? That’s not who you are, come on.
The day in a tweet
From Jakub Krupa, UK correspondent for the Polish Press Agency, a neat summing-up:
Incumbent minister facing deputy in a TV debate, anti-immigration MP of migrant background & a Scottish nationalist arguing for the UK. +
— Jakub Krupa (@JakubKrupa) June 10, 2016
If today were a Madonna tour ...
It would be Blond Ambition. But without the pointy bras.
And another thing
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