This makes a lot of sense to me: "why Leave is going to win"
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The polling companies, indeed, endured such a collective nightmare last year that they are palpably floundering around, trying to cover all bases. This time, one has to sympathise with them — for this referendum has no modern day precedent. No member state has ever left the EU before; and the usual approach of reassigning ‘Don’t Knows’ to the party supported previously cannot apply here. The huge disparity between online and telephone polls only added to the confusion of pollsters: who are still searching for the right methodology even now.
Yet since YouGov revealed that phone polls were surveying too high a proportion of graduates, there has been a palpable shift overall towards Leave. The polling companies, even allowing for Opinium’s decision to re-weight their data over the weekend, are beginning to get it right… or at least, more right than hitherto.
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Why have Remain been so negative? Very simply, they have come up against the exact same barrier which stopped so many British governments (notably Tony Blair’s Labour administration) from calling a referendum in the first place. It’s perfectly possible to make a series of dry, technocratic arguments explaining why EU membership is a good thing — but it’s close to impossible to do so via the kind of simple, emotive language required in contemporary election campaigns.
This criticism of the Labour party is right on the money for me:
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7. In keeping with their state since the general election, Labour’s role in the campaign has been an unmitigated fiasco. Under a leader who many suspect favours Brexit in any case, and terrified of appearing alongside pro-EU Conservatives, Labour have shrunk before our eyes: practically to vanishing point. The entire campaign has become a battle between the two wings of the Tory Party; instead of a positive one explaining how the EU can be reformed for everyone’s benefit.
This was a generational opportunity for the British left to come together, stand up for workers’ rights and against deregulation, and exploit how unpopular Tory ideas are among so many. It’s failed. In fact, it’s barely even tried. Under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party isn’t so much waving as drowning: it cannot get its message (whatever that might be) across, it cannot speak for the needs and desires of ordinary people, and is rapidly becoming a total irrelevance. Alarmingly, that’s very likely to remain the case under another leader too.
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Ever since Rupert Murdoch bought The Times and The Sunday Times in 1981, his newspapers have never backed the losing horse at an important British election. Not once. Undoubtedly, The Sun’s vitriolic treatment of Miliband did much to create his hapless public image; so cynical was it, indeed, that it actually backed the SNP (against Labour) north of the border, the Tories (against Labour) south of it.
Much of the anti-EU debate of the last 20 years has been led by the right wing press — which has never displayed such disdain for facts and objective argument as it does now. The mounting corporatism of the media is the reason for that: but regardless, this is the opportunity which right wing magnates and oligarchs have been waiting for.
On that basis, it should scarcely be a surprise that so much of the debate has turned towards immigration in recent days; and as Leave’s ultimate vote winner, that pattern will only intensify between now and June 23. It is impossible for Remain to counter the argument that Britain can only control its borders outside the EU: which is why Cameron’s concessions had to include one on freedom of movement. They did not.
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Think what you will about what this says on the state of British politics and the media in 2016. Undoubtedly, the mainstream media enjoy alarming levels of power without responsibility; the continued primacy of patronage at Westminster is wholly at odds with any kind of meritocratic society; and both elements help generate a dumbed down political discourse which is high on sensationalism, low on facts, and does not represent the wishes or needs of the people.
Be all that as it may. The point is this: mounting numbers of people across the Western world no longer believe that the system delivers for them. The middle class continues to be hollowed out; jobs become ever more insecure; homes ever more out of reach. The next generation will be poorer than its predecessors.
Hence the rise of various forms of populism, both extreme and more moderate, whether through the guise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the US; Podemos in Spain; Syriza in Greece; the SNP in Scotland; Marine Le Pen in France; Norbert Hofer in Austria; or Farage and UKIP in England. The political establishment does not know how to respond to this — and as long as globalisation continues to shift power, wealth and jobs towards the east, the centre will not be able to hold much longer.
In Europe, social democratic parties were first to suffer the consequences. But now, Cameron himself is discovering that the Blairite liberal centre no longer speaks for the majority, or anything resembling a majority. In the wake of the most disproportionate electoral outcome in modern British history, the fabled ‘centre ground’ has practically ceased to exist; and is about to count the unsuspecting Prime Minister among its mounting number of victims.
Against such a backdrop, ‘more of the same’, as presented by Remain, is no offer at all.