Britain Stronger in Europe launched yesterday at a packed event in East London introducing a range of our Board members including Karren Brady, June Sarpong, Richard Reed, and Caroline Lucas.
Since then, I’ve been asked repeatedly what sort of campaign we plan to run. In particular, people ask:
1. Will ours be a re-run of the ‘project fear’?
2. Is ours the campaign of ‘the establishment’?
I will deal with each, but first, here’s a description of the campaign we will run: we will make a positive, patriotic case that it is in our national interest to remain in Europe because Britain is stronger in Europe and we will provide voters with the evidence to back up that core proposition.
Now, the answers to the two questions some are asking.
‘Project fear’
We will absolutely not turn our campaign into ‘project fear’. Rather, we will do four things: first, second and third, we will set out a positive case for why Britain’s economy, security and leadership is stronger for being in Europe. Fourth, we will set out the risks of leaving. This is, I would think, a statement of the obvious but it seems it needs to be said.
Any campaign – indeed all campaigns in history – explain why they believe their opponents are wrong. In any referendum, voters have a choice, and it is essential to make that choice clear.
This, incidentally, is exactly what the Out campaigns both do. In fact, the Out campaigns both seem to spend most of their time focusing on what they believe are the downsides of being in Europe, presumably because they are unable to explain what Out actually looks like.
Fear seems to be the animating emotion that underpins their world view. Consider for example the difference between their opening video and ours. Theirs focuses on the contribution Britain makes to the EU budget but fails to reference the benefits our membership brings such as those from lower consumer prices, more investment and jobs, or trade. It’s fundamentally dishonest. One understands why they have chosen this approach: they know that when people weigh up both the costs and the benefits, they tend to conclude that the latter outweigh the former.
Our opening video, by contrast, features a range of people speaking from experience about the benefits of being in Europe. It’s entirely the positive case for staying in.
So no, we’re not running a ‘project fear’ campaign. We are focusing primarily on positive and patriotic arguments, whilst making clear the downsides to Britain of leaving the EU.
The ‘establishment’ campaign
Our campaign is broad-based, representing all of Britain and speaking to all of Britain. That’s why our board includes entrepreneurs, entertainers, students, academics, trade unionists, and people from the military and politics.
We make no apology for putting forward people who are experts in their field because people need to be able to trust those making our case, but we will also mobilise the voices of ordinary people. So in the coming weeks we will be taking our campaign across the nations and regions of the UK too.
And just for the record, Vote Leave launched their campaign by announcing that three multi-millionaires were backing them, so we’ll take no lessons from them on what the ‘establishment’ is.
What matters most in this campaign is that voters are given enough information to make up their minds. In the end, they will weigh up the competing cases and make a decision on what is best for them and for Britain.
Ryan Coetzee is Director of Strategy for Britain Stronger in Europe. He was previous electoral strategy director for the Liberal Democrats in the 2015 general election.
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