David Cameron should either have been leader of the stay-in EU campaign or Prime Minister. He’s shown he can’t do both and maintain his integrity and party unity
The current lead-up to the EU referendum has to go down as distortedly one-sided in terms of the stay-in campaign getting their message across much more effectively with the Prime Minister’s help. It’s also been deeply divisive for the conservative party. The reason is because the serving Prime Minister, David Cameron, is also leader of the stay-in campaign. He has unquestionably used his position to take every opportunity to benefit his side of the argument. There are rules to maintain the fairness of general or local elections in the UK, particularly to ensure that the governing party doesn’t use their position unfairly to overtly campaign whilst in office. So why has this principle of striving for fairness in UK elections been abandoned for the EU referendum?
As soon as David Cameron became leader of the stay-in campaign, he made no attempt to separate or even distance his official duties as Prime Minister from his role of advancing the cause for remaining in the EU. An obvious example concerns that of official visitors from overseas, or indeed government employees like the Canadian Mark Carney. He publicly had his two pence – or rather two cents – worth, telling the citizens of the UK how to vote and invariably declaring that they should stay in the EU. On a recent UK visit, the President of the US has rather unusually spoken out publicly in favour of the UK staying in the EU. It’s unthinkable that a serving US president wouldn’t espouse any views other than those in the interests of his own country: therefore any attempt to influence the voters of another sovereign country should be viewed with the greatest suspicion. Under normal circumstances, this would have been diplomatically avoided. It suggests that David Cameron, in his role as leader of the stay-in campaign, has encouraged the US President to publicly air his views to their mutual benefit.
And of course with the backing of the majority of ministers, any treasury report would have been scrutinised at an early stage for the pro-staying-in content and announced quickly. Notwithstanding that such reports are based on predictions using all of the weasel words and ranges of outcomes as befits the different economic vista should the UK exit the EU. And anyway, it might be wise to consider the record of economic forecasting regarding the financial meltdown of 2007-8. In the words of the noted economist J K Galbraith: “The only function economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”.
The decision of David Cameron not to debate head-to-head with his Conservative cabinet colleagues who are in favour of an EU exit, has led to the strange sight of him sharing a stage with his political opponents. This includes Labour shadow cabinet ministers. It’s difficult to see which would be the most detrimental to party unity.
Perhaps we should always beware politicians coming to their end of their time in high office. Not only are they looking for some sort of legacy, but if they’re relatively young where is there for them to go in their search for another high status job? Why Europe of course!
