The big picture
David Cameron, in an interview with the Guardian after his earlier appeal to older voters, says the leave campaign has “become very narrowly focused” on immigration, stoking “an issue that needs careful handling”.
The UK is, he says, “arguably the most successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith, opportunity democracy anywhere on earth”, and a vote to remain would send “a very clear message that we’ve rejected this idea that Britain is narrow and insular and inward-looking”.
Cameron gets a helping hand this morning from the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who has written – via the Guardian – to British voters asking them not to make “the wrong choice”:
Seen from Italy, a vote to leave Europe would not be a disaster, a tragedy or the end of the world for you in the UK. It would be worse, because it would be the wrong choice. It would be a mistake for which you the voters primarily would pay the price. Because who really wants Britain to be small and isolated?
If there’s one thing the British have never done when faced with a challenge that concerns their future, their very identity, it is to make the wrong choice. A Britain less great than it is would go against the very logic of those who want an exit. It would swap autonomy for solitude, pride for weakness, and identity for self-harm.
Last night’s BBC Big Referendum Come Dancing Debate (I’d love to claim that, but it’s a John Crace copyright) pitted Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, London mayor Sadiq Khan and TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady for remain, against Conservative MPs Boris Johnson and Andrea Leadsom and Labour MP Gisela Stuart for leave.
A snap YouGov poll for the Times found 39% thought leave had won it, over 34% for remain (and a bumper 17% who didn’t know). The same group of those polled were, however, still just a smidgen more likely to vote for remain: 41% to 40%.
What we learned
I’m going to assume that regular readers and anyone who’s prised open an eyelid at any point during this referendum campaign can take a guess at the key points covered:
- The economy People would lose their jobs and business leaders think we should stay (remain); the EU wouldn’t dare impose tariffs and James Dyson thinks we’d be fine (leave).
- Workers’ rights The EU guarantees protections (remain); the UK could guarantee them itself (leave).
- Immigration No silver bullet (leave); take back control of borders (leave).
As my colleague Andrew Sparrow neatly summed it up: “The exchanges bear so little relation to the questions that one wonders why [David] Dimbleby bothers to ask them.”
Still, we did glean a few new things:
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Davidson is not afraid to take on her own party colleagues, tackling Johnson over his attitude to people losing their jobs, and accusing Leadsom of a “blatant untruth” on the proportion of laws made in Brussels. (On that last point, by the way, a BBC reality check concludes they were both wrong.)
- But the remain team avoided personal attacks on Johnson, after mixed reviews of that tactic in the ITV debate.
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Davidson once worked as a reporter in the Balkans and served in the Territorial army. In response to a claim by Johnson that Europe had failed to bring about peace in the Kosovan war until the US and Nato “asserted its primacy”, Davidson retorted:
I think Boris maybe misjudged this panel by talking about the Balkans because what he probably doesn’t know is that I was sent to the Balkans at the end of the Kosovo war as a reporter and I have never been more proud of being British in my life than watching British troops with a union jack on their arms, believing in something, pulling their weight, and helping in the European Union. That’s what caused me to join up and serve. I think I am the only one on this panel that has ever worn the Queen’s uniform.
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Scotland can’t export haggis to the US, Johnson said, blaming EU rules (disappointing fact check: it’s actually a US Department of Agriculture regulation):
Because the EU is in charge of our trade negotiations we cannot export haggis to America.
- Leadsom is a mother. Stuart is a mother and a grandmother. It was a fact repeated enough times that Davidson felt the need to add:
I do just have to remind people that there are mums and dads and grans and grandads on this side as well.
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Khan broke his fast on stage during the debate, having eaten nothing for 19 hours to observe Ramadan.
Enjoyed making the positive case to stay in the EU on #BBCDebate. And yes - I did break my fast on stage #Ramadan pic.twitter.com/iKXLbUGeaD
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) June 21, 2016
What we didn’t
- O’Grady wanted to know if Vote Leave would return a £600,000 donation from a former BNP member. Leadsom said the question was “unworthy of this debate”.
- Davidson lamented that “we are not having a grown-up argument” about immigration. Do we know what that might look like?
- Why none of the leave side mentioned that £350m figure.
The key exchange
Khan: Let’s deal with this big fat lie once and for all. Turkey isn’t about to join. And until three months ago, you knew that was the case, Boris Johnson … You are using the ruse of Turkey to scare people to vote to leave.
Johnson: I’m a Turk!
Zinger of the night
Khan’s “Project Hate” accusation, levelled at Johnson, captured a lot of headlines:
Your campaign hasn’t been project fear, it’s been project hate as far as immigration is concerned.
But Johnson of course had a pre-prepared soundbite of his own:
This Thursday can be our country’s independence day!
The Remain campaign verdict
Migration debate section reveals Leave are saying one thing to one audience and something else to another. Deceptive stuff. #BBCDebate
— Amber Rudd MP (@AmberRudd_MP) June 21, 2016
That Ruth Davidson had done her homework before the EU debate. Boris Johnson hadn't. She reached out. He looked down.
— tom_watson (@tom_watson) June 21, 2016
The Leave campaign verdict
No one better than @GiselaStuart, an immigrant, to combat ridiculous accusations that concern about immigration is hateful #BBCDebate
— Tim Montgomerie ن (@montie) June 21, 2016
Proud of @GiselaStuart @andrealeadsom & @BorisJohnson tonight. Message of common sense, optimism and confidence in our country. @vote_leave
— Penny Mordaunt MP (@PennyMordauntMP) June 21, 2016
You should also know
- Yvette Cooper has informed the police and Twitter after receiving a death threat online against her family.
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A record 46,499,537 people are eligible to vote tomorrow.
- 1,200 business leaders – including leaders of 50 of the FTSE 100 – back remain.
- Tate & Lyle joins the campaign to leave the EU.
- Donald Trump campaign supports leave, citing America’s “own little Brexit”.
- Priti Patel will today warn that EU migration threatens UK class sizes.
- The Sun claims the Queen has been quizzing her “VIP guests” (does she have any other kind?), asking them: “Give me three good reasons why Britain should be part of Europe.”
- And – drumroll – the Daily Mail comes out for Brexit.
Poll position
So far this morning, there are no fresh forecasts, but expect numbers today from ComRes, Opinium and YouGov. There should also be a last-gasp Ipsos Mori poll on Thursday morning.
Diary
- Nigel Farage makes his final speech of the campaign in London at 11am.
- Jeremy Corbyn is also in London at 2pm with mayor Sadiq Khan, Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale and Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones.
- Stronger In rallies in Birmingham at 5pm, with David Cameron centre-stage alongside Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, who visits Cambridge first.
- Vote Leave has Boris Johnson roaming the skies in a helicopter and Michael Gove touring the south coast.
- At 4pm (UK time), memorials are being held worldwide to remember Jo Cox on what would have been her 42nd birthday. A service will be held in her constituency of Batley and Spen, synchronised with events in Trafalgar Square in London, Nairobi, Brussels, Beirut, New York, Washington DC, Edinburgh and many other places. A boat from the mooring where Cox lived with her family will lead a floral tribute along the Thames to Westminster. There’s a full list of commemorations here.
- At 9pm, Channel 4 hosts the final, final TV debate, with Jeremy Paxman and a huge list of remainers and leavers including some usual suspects (Alan Johnson, Alex Salmond, Nigel Farage) and some … not (Rick Astley, Delia Smith, Ulrika Jonsson). Perhaps Paxman can finally get to the bottom of whether Astley really will never give you up, let you down, run around or desert you.
Read these
It’s been pinging around Facebook, but now this piece by Martin Fletcher, a former foreign editor for the Times, has made its way to the New York Times:
For decades, British newspapers have offered their readers an endless stream of biased, misleading and downright fallacious stories about Brussels. And the journalist who helped set the tone – long before he became the mayor of London or the face of the pro-Brexit campaign – was Boris Johnson …
He wrote about European Union plans to take over Europe, ban Britain’s favourite potato chips, standardise condom sizes and blow up its own asbestos-filled headquarters. These articles were undoubtedly colourful but they bore scant relation to the truth.
Mr Johnson’s dispatches galvanised the rest of Britain’s highly competitive and partisan newspaper industry. They were far more fun than the usual dry, policy-driven Brussels fare. Editors at other newspapers, particularly but not exclusively the tabloids, started pressing their own correspondents to match Mr Johnson’s imaginative reports …
The upshot is that Mr Johnson and his fellow Brexit proponents are now campaigning against the caricature of the European Union that he himself helped create. They are asking the British people to part with a monster about as real as the one in Loch Ness.
Could Australia swing the EU vote, Julian Lorkin asks on the BBC website:
With 1.2 million British nationals in Australia, and 250,000 in New Zealand, both the stay and leave camps are in full campaign mode half a world away from the UK. Southern hemisphere votes have the potential to swing the knife-edge referendum.
Posters supporting both sides have sprouted in areas popular with UK residents. In some locations, such as Perth, up to 15% of the population was born in England …
Far more British expats live Down Under than elsewhere in the world. Only Spain, with 760,000, and the United States at 600,000 come close. As such they will wield considerable influence over whether the UK stays in the EU.
Cathy Newman in the Telegraph says Theresa May is the one to watch should Cameron take a tumble on Friday:
May is truly the quiet woman of British politics. And I don’t mean that as an insult. There’s no shortage of loud-mouths soaking up the attention and hogging the airwaves during this rancorous EU referendum campaign. The home secretary, by contrast, has been reserved to the point of invisibility …
Authority, though, is something May has in spades. The longest-serving home secretary for more than a century, she’s managed - in a department known for destroying reputations - to enhance hers. This is something of a miracle, particularly when you consider the government has failed to meet one of its central manifesto pledges on her watch: the promise to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands.
Celebrity endorsement of the day
Still undecided? Let a famous person persuade you. Actor Liam Neeson has said he’s for staying in:
A UK exit would have the worst ramifications for the island of Ireland … It would be truly a shame to sacrifice all the progress that has been made by the peace process regarding border controls … There is strength in unity. A Brexit vote will make us weak.
Or how about King of Darts Bobby George? He’s for remain too.
And ex-footballer John Barnes came out fighting against claims by Michael Gove that he was a leaver – making what has been described by some as the most positive argument for immigration so far in this campaign:
Michael Gove says John Barnes is for Brexit, John Barnes calls us up and says absolutely not Michael Gove https://t.co/adA3QXzjWt
— Steve Gardner (@sgardner) June 21, 2016
The Channel 4 debate also chucks in a few leave celebs, with Selina Scott, DJ Mike Read (of Ukip calypso fame) and Gillian McKeith arguing for out.
The day in a tweet
Perhaps we could put it to a referendum?
All I want is a simple grand coalition headed by the dual premiership of @RuthDavidsonMSP and @SadiqKhan Is it SO DIFFICULT to arrange?
— Robert Webb (@arobertwebb) June 21, 2016
If today were a film ...
It would be Independence Day. Either (if you’re for Brexit) the box office-busting original or (if you’re for staying or perhaps just very, very tired) the newly released sequel described by Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw as “planet-smashingly boring … on its way to crush our minds”.
And another thing
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