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David Keighley

Referendum Blog: May 26

Referendum Blog: May 26

BREAKFAST  BIAS: BBC1’s Breakfast programme examined, with glitzy but highly misleading graphics, the UK’s  contribution to the EU budget. The peg for the analysis is a claim by Brexit campaigners that membership of the EU cost the UK £350 million a week.  Emphatically wrong! said presenter Charlie Stayt. That figure is the headline UK contribution figure  but is actually substantially less because a) there is a rebate of  £85 million (negotiated by Margaret Thatcher); and b) the EU spends a further £88 million in the UK.  Stayt said:

…it’s divided up into five main areas. £50 million of that is spent on farming and fisheries. Most of it goes direct to farmers to keep them in business. Another £11 million goes to rural development to help them improve and maintain life in the countryside. Every week, £20 million is spent on developing less prosperous parts of the country, it’s spent on things like transport infrastructure and helping businesses to grow. £5 million goes to social development, tackling things like poverty and unemployment, and the money goes to education and training. And that last piece £2 goes to other EU projects here in the UK, we’re talking about things like medical research or low carbon energy funds. So if we subtract what the UK Treasury gets back, we end up with a weekly contribution of £188 million. But the UK private sector also gets money from the EU in three main areas. In scientific research, in university funding, and in engineering projects. Add that up, and it is £27 million a week. That means, when you take away the rebate, the EU money is sent to the Treasury, and the private sector funding £161 million a week is going to the EU.

The bias point here is entirely presentational.  The phrasing made it sound as though the EU has a strongly and wholly benevolent role in the UK, and indeed plays a key role in public spending.   Who would want to stop the EU’s assistance to farmers, to poorer communities, to helping small business start-ups, to improving transport infrastructure, universities, unemployment and scientific research?

What Stayt entirely omitted from his analysis is the eurosceptic perspective, that the money is taken out of the UK’s public coffers (tax receipts)  and that EU bureaucrats in the European Commission – an entirely unelected body –  decide how it will be spent. Once the money goes to Brussels, control over it through the UK taxpayer is entirely lost and, in the UK, those seeking to be ‘assisted’ by the EU have to bid for money. In that sense, say eurosceptics, the role of local and central government in providing help for deprived areas has been completely usurped by faceless EU bureaucrats.

Also missing was reference to that the remaining £161 million a week that  – irrespective of the amount of money coming back to the UK  – makes the UK a ‘net contributor’ (EU jargon) to the EU’s budget.  All he said on this topic (in sharp contrast to the detailed weight on the positive side of EU ‘contributions’ to the UK) was this:

So how does that stack up? Well, every week the UK spends £821 million on defence. It spends £1.4 billion on education. On the NHS, £2.6 billion. And on top of that, it spends £3.6 billion on pensions. So the price of EU membership, £161 million a week. Is it worth it?

The effort here was clearly and deliberately to make the £161 million a week insignificant – and in light of the detailed, positive list he had outlined of what the  EU provided – very good value for money.  A key factor here is how this money is spent.  The answer, it seems, is that no-one actually knows. The Full Facts independent charity says:

We can be pretty sure about how much cash we put in, but it’s far harder to be sure about how much, if anything, comes back in economic benefits.

“There is no definitive study of the economic impact of the UK’s EU membership or the costs and benefits of withdrawal”, as the House of Commons Library says.

What IS certain is that the money goes into the EU’s vast bureaucracy. Does it help to pay for roads in Latvia? The salaries of the 10,000+ European Commission employees who earn more than the British prime minister?  In paying for propaganda films about how disastrous leaving the EU would be for the UK?

Of course, that’s a eurosceptic perspective, but the point here is that Stayt did not mention it. He could have but did not; his emphasis was biased.  That skew in presentation was further emphasised by the feature that followed.  It was a location report on how EU money was spent. The reporter, Ben Thompson, said:

…But of course a century later, things aren’t looking quite so rosy for many former industrial towns up and down the country. And many of them now rely on funding from the European Union to, well, help rebalance the economy, to train staff to create jobs, to move away from heavy manufacturing and get us into those high added-value jobs that bring value to the economy. And they need money from Europe, there’s a big question about if we vote to leave the European Union, what would replace that money? Where would the funding come from, and what would it mean for former industrial towns like Manchester and the North West, but also places in Wales and Scotland that we’re told would be hardest hit.

Exactly as in the Stayt analysis above, this put detailed weight on what the  UK’s EU money is spent on. Who could quarrel with the need to inject new life into declining Northern towns?  The report presented the facts in the best possible light – this amounted to a detailed exposition of that the EU is s a vital force in the UK’s economic revival.

What of the eurosceptic perspective?  The reporter said:

Now those vote . . . er, that are campaigning for us to leave the EU, say well we spend so much money sending it to Europe that actually that money would be better spent ourselves here in the UK. So it is a big debate.

There was clearly no effort at this point to introduce any balancing comment about how the EU spent money, only a vague contention that this was a ‘big debate’.

Ten minutes later, Breakfast continued with this theme. Ben Thompson was still at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. He repeated that parts of the UK that had led the industrial revolution and were important manufacturing centres were now in decline, then said:

They have struggled in the wake of a decline in manufacturing. And many are reliant on money that we get from Europe to try and retrain people to create new jobs and to rebalance the economy, over six years we’ll get about £7.5 billion from Europe and it will be used to do just that, to train people in new industries and try to create more jobs.

The message of the importance of the EU and the effectiveness of its investment projects was rammed home to the audience yet again. There was then comment from a spokesman from the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institution, who explained that EU funding had to be matched by the UK government, and suggested that the EU component might continue to be provided in the event of Brexit.  But he finished with a question:

But it’s that uncertainty, will it . . . will the same kinds of projects be funded? What will the impact be over the longer term?

Ben then spoke to Christian Spence from the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce. He asked if he could give examples of how the EU money was used. Spence replied:

The big remit around things like the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) funding is exactly as the name suggests,, it’s about regional development, it’s about helping all aspects of the EU to contribute more successfully to the economy.

Ben wanted to know what this meant on a day to day basis, and that it was not just about ‘creating nice visitor attractions’, but about ‘reskilling, creating jobs and things like that’.  Spence was happy to oblige. He stressed that it was particularly about ‘business and skills development’. He added:

So how do we support new advances within our universities and research in the material science? How do we look to up skill our new generation, through new courses, new workforce skills providers, but also about how do we do innovation, how do we improve productivity, how do we help more businesses to start up? It’s ultimately about creating a more successful economy.

Ben asked what the danger was if the UK left the EU. Spence replied that the funding picture  for regional development was changing in in any case, and was up for debate regardless of the EU referendum. If Brexit happened his organisation would look for cash from alternative Westminster channels.

As the final part of the sequence,  Ben spoke to Nigel and Ian Baxter, brothers who each ran their own freight business, but who had different views on EU membership.  Nigel said he wanted the UK to take back control of borders, immigration and long term economic policy;  Ian worried that supporters of Brexit could not explain what ‘out’ would look like, that it would not be beneficial, and further exit from the EU would upset trading agreements.  Their contributions were reasonably balanced, but overall, the two sequences definitely put the EU and its contribution to the UK in a highly favourable light. Stayt and reporter Ben Thompson – each in his own way – structured the presentations so that it appeared that EU investment in the UK was vital to economic revival and focused on highly important and desirable projects. By contrast, they made virtually no effort to explore the eurosceptic perspective, and it was almost airbrushed out of the equation. An alternative approach would have been to investigate how effectively EU money is actually spent – the blanket assumption instead was that the British contribution is money well-spent, and contributors were found who reinforced this message.

 

 

 

 

Referendum Blog: May 24

Referendum Blog: May 24

NEWSNIGHT BREXIT HELL?  When it comes to impartiality, which planet does Newsnight  – the BBC’s television news and current affairs flagship programme – inhabit?

Over the past six weeks the programme has run six separately-themed referendum specials, a marathon six hours of broadcasting in which it has discussed sovereignty, the impact on the economy, security, immigration, how the EU works, and the options post-Brexit. The final one was broadcast last night.

Each programme on the surface was carefully balanced with prominent politicians from both sides of the debate, together with a weekly sprinkling of pro-EU and pro-Brexit experts. A feature throughout was a panel of eight allegedly undecided voters chosen, host Evan Davis said, by the Ipsos Mori polling company.

Was the series as a whole properly impartial? Measuring bias across six hours of broadcasting is immensely complex and labour intensive.

News-watch has already noted in previous postings major issues of negativity towards the Brexit case, for example choosing Sealand, an obscure, decrepit ‘independent’ platform in the North Sea to depict what the UK post-Brexit might look like, and opening the programme on immigration from Boston in Lincolnshire with a heavily pro-EU selection of views.

Further bias problems arose in the final programme. Daniel Hannan presented a short piece to camera about what Brexit would achieve and look like. This was the first time in the series that a deliberate production effort was made to explain this perspective.

However, it clearly did not work as intended. Seven of the eight ‘independent panellists declared at the end that they favoured ‘remain’ (of which more later) and when asked by Davis said they had found Hannam’s film ‘unconvincing’.

Part of the reason may well have been the gut-busting production counter-effort put into establishing the ‘remain’ case. This was another piece of film shot in advance by Newsnight.  It was undoubtedly the centrepiece of the programme – if not of the series as a whole – and featured Tony Blair’s former chief of staff Jonathan Powell – who has come out strongly on the ‘remain’ side – in a staged reconstruction of what post-Brexit negotiations might involve. His ‘opponent’ in these talks was Antonio Vitorino, the (Italian) European Commissioner for Justice from 1999-2004.

What emerged in the tortuous ten minutes was that whatever the UK opted for, it would be very costly, would not work and would lead to economic disaster. The Norway option? Forget it. Switzerland’s?  If you choose that, certain penury and an overwhelming tide of immigration. Canada’s trade agreement? Even worse. EFTA-style arrangements? Britain might as well jump into a pit of vipers.

This was weirdly compelling television, deliberately staged to be so. Every penny of the production budget was squeezed to maximum extent to show that ’out’ was horrendous, and no matter what the UK said, or hoped for, the EU would undermine it or put obstacles in the way.

It was clear that Powell was not really trying, to the extent that Davis was forced to say so after the film was shown, but the point was made with a vengeance: ‘out’ for the UK would be worse than anything that Dante ever remotely imagined.

A further issue on Monday night was that one of the guest experts in the final programme was a prominent Norwegian campaigner against the EU, who led the relevant Parliamentary group. But she was scarcely asked to contribute, and even then, her command of English was relatively limited, so her points did not come across as fluently as the ‘remain’ case.  Another reason why the Newsnight panel voted ‘in.’

Another big – and unanswered – question here is how Newsnight selected the so-called ‘undecided’ panel. How their status was established by Ipsos Mori was not revealed. Were they in any sense representative of the electorate? Three of the eight were obviously from ethnic minorities and one was an Irish national. There were three white women, but only one white man (the Irish national) and none was clearly over 65. Alarm bells ring here. Was the choice to meet the BBC’s version of ‘diversity’?.

Analysis of what they said over the six programmes shows that they raised or made (unprompted) pro-EU points more often than Eurosceptic ones, and in the final edition, a typical contribution was this:

PANELIST: Basically, I cannot see any, any (fragments of words, unclear) leaving the EU it makes us safer, it makes our economy stronger, and I can’t see any of that. In any case, I . . . I trust my Prime Minister with what he says . . .

EVAN DAVIS: Okay.

PANELIST: We have elected the government and he says, and he cannot make anything . . . make it up. So I (fragment of word, unclear) put my trust in him, and what I hear (fragment of word, unclear)

Those do not sound like the words of someone who was deeply ‘undecided’. Whatever else is involved in the referendum saga, David Cameron has staunchly pro-EU throughout, and is now emerging – in his Project Fear utterances – as probably more fervent in his adoration of Brussels than even Edward Heath.

Referendum Blog: May 23

Referendum Blog: May 23

FAIR’S FAIR?: With bias, the devil is often in the detail. A sharp-eared listener noticed on his rather congested drive back from London to his home in County Durham that on Radio 4’s PM  BBC correspondents were doing some alleged ‘fact-checking’ in response to queries from listeners about aspects of EU operations. One wanted to know about the European Arrest Warrant. Now that’s a subject that has not figured much so far in the EU referendum debate, if at all – the last references to it on the BBC website via its own search engine are mainly from 2014, when David Cameron – in line with his usual posturing over Brussels – first suggested that the UK might withdraw from EAW arrangements and then a few months later, accepted without a murmur or a fight, all its  provisions. Since then, zip. So how did PM handle this?  Correspondent Norman Smith declared:

Well, the European Arrest Warrant is basically a scheme to enable villains to be picked up wherever they are in the EU, if they do a runner from one country to another, so if you have a villain in Paris who goes and mug someone and goes and steals their jewellery and then does a runner to London, the French gendarmerie can ring up the Old Bill and say, ‘Would you mind picking him up, putting him on a train back to Paris, and we’ll bung him in jug here.’ The problem with it, or perceived problem with it is the view that we’re very good and very diligent and very honest about kicking out foreign villains and everyone else isn’t so good at it. Actually, when you look at the figures, it seems to me to be fair’s fair, because, just looking at the figures here, between 2009 and 2016, we kicked out around 7,500 foreign villains and got back around 800 British villains, which is about 10% in comparison, which is roughly about what the UK is population is as a proportion of the whole EU. So, it seems to be, by and large, the European Arrest Warrant seems to be operating on a fairly fair basis.

So according to the BBC and Smith, fair’s fair, and that’s it.  No reference to concerns such as those expressed, for example, in this Daily Telegraph editorial, that Britons are being unfairly imprisoned abroad without due process by legal systems such as those in Bulgaria and Romania which are primitive and unfair. Instead, a simple focus on numbers which, according to Smith, showed that the UK has kicked out 7,500 EU-based villains since 2009 and in return have got 800 back – in line, according to Smith,  with what would be expected because the UK’s population is around one tenth of that of the EU.

Closer inspection suggests a very different interpretation is possible. Smith got his statistics from the National Crime Agency, and while he gave the basic figures for actual extraditions, he made no reference at all to another rather important statistic –  that in the fiscal year 2015/16 (presumably ending in April 2016, so bang up to date) there were a total of 14,279  requests for the extradition of Britons  from the other 27 EU countries, whereas the UK made only 241 requests. The UK population is around one twelfth (8%) of the total of 508m in EU countries, and yet the total number of EAW requests made by the UK was only one sixtieth of the EAW total.

Now of course, requests are not the same as actual extraditions, and the number of ‘surrenders’ (1,271 to the rest of the EU, 112 to the UK) was more closely in line with the EU/UK population ratio. But offset against that is that all of the 14,279 EAW requests coming to the UK have to be investigated and dealt with. The individuals involved are spoken to, investigated, and often put in great fear of ending up in foreign jails. The Daily Telegraph editorial indicated that at least £27m each year is being spent by the Home Office in processing applications. That’s likely to be the tip of the iceberg and is a hefty price to pay,

Another dimension here is that the NCA figures cover only UK/EU interactions under the EAW.  As with so many aspects of EU operations – which are shrouded in bureaucratic  obfuscation – research by News-watch has drawn a blank in finding up-to-date figures for EU-wide statistics. The newest figures available relate to 2009.  Then,  across the EU as a whole, 15,827 EAW extradition requests were made, and 4,431 were executed;  of that total, the UK made 220 requests and 80 were executed. The NCA figures for the same year are that EU countries made 3,826 requests for extradition from the UK, and 673 (c.20%)  of these were actually executed.  So put another way, almost a quarter of all extradition requests under the EAW were made to the UK. The UK, for its part made only 1.5% of EAW applications, around a third of which were successful.

All this is by necessity rather a complex analysis but it shows that Smith’s ‘fair’s fair’ claim is to put it mildly, open to debate. Britain spends millions enforcing the EAW.  Each extradition costs, if the Daily Telegraph figures are accurate, in the order of a minimum of quarter of a million pounds. The UK is bombarded by requests from other EU countries for EAW extraditions at a far higher level that can be accounted for by differences in population.  The UK does not accept the majority of these, but proportionately, far more UK citizens are extradited to the EU from the UK than are extradited from the EU to the UK.

What does this show? That in ‘fact checking’ mode, the BBC cannot be trusted, nor in its analysis of EU affairs, is it impartial.  Yet again, it erred on the anti-Brexit side. Norman Smith’s fault here may have been that he too hastily looked at the basic NCA statistics without properly examining the framework , controversies  and complexities of the EAW. But whatever the cause, he made sweeping conclusions that were highly simplistic and deeply misleading.

 

Transcript of Radio 4, ‘PM’ ‘News at Ten’ 17th May 2016, Listeners’ Questions, 5.52pm

EDDIE MAIR:      For a third week, we’re setting aside time in the programme to talk about the EU.  Not what pundits want to talk about, not what politicians want to talk about, but what PM listeners want to talk about.  You are still welcome to send us your question, and our assistant political editor, Norman Smith and our Europe correspondent Chris Morris will do their best.  Will start tonight with Alan Beamish, who asks about the European Arrest Warrant.  How many UK citizens have been arrested and extradited to other EU’s states, compared with citizens of other EU states extradited to the UK?  Norman Smith has the answer.

NORMAN SMITH:             Well, the European Arrest Warrant is basically a scheme to enable villains to be picked up wherever they are in the EU, if they do a runner from one country to another, so if you have a villain in Paris who goes and mug someone and goes and steals their jewellery and then does a runner to London, the French gendarmerie can ring up the Old Bill and say, ‘Would you mind picking him up, putting him on a train back to Paris, and we’ll bung him in jug here.’ The problem with it, or perceived problem with it is the view that we’re very good and very diligent and very honest about kicking out foreign villains and everyone else isn’t so good at it.  Actually, when you look at the figures, it seems to me to be fair’s fair, because, just looking at the figures here, between 2009 and 2016, we kicked out around 7,500 foreign villains and got back around 800 British villains, which is about 10% in comparison, which is roughly about what the UK is population is as a proportion of the whole EU.  So, it seems to be, by and large, the European Arrest Warrant seems to be operating on a fairly fair basis.

EM:        Liz Matthews says, can you please explain the difference between European Union, the European Commission and the European Council.  Chris Morris can help you.

CHRIS MORRIS: Basically, Liz, the European Union is the name given to the grouping or partnership of the 28 member states.  28 European countries including the UK that all belong to the EU.  The Commission and the Council are institutions that form part of the European Union and help to run it.  The Commission is like a civil service or an executive body, it proposes new legislation, it draws up the EU’s annual budget, and it manages and supervises EU funding.  At the top of the tree in the Commission are 28 national commissioners, one from each member state.  The Commission’s president is officially nominated by national leaders and then elected for a five-year period by the European Parliament.  Right now, the man in charge is Jean-Claude Juncker from Luxembourg.  The European Council is different.  It has its headquarters just across the street from the Commission, and the Council sets the overall direction and priorities of the EU.  It’s formed by the individual heads of government of the 28 member states, so when David Cameron goes to Brussels for what we tend to call an EU summit, in official language, that’s a meeting of the European Council.  Its president is elected for a 2½ year term by all those national leaders, and part of the role of the president of the Council is to represent the EU as a whole oversees.  The current president is the former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.  So, just to make it clear, if we vote to leave the EU, we’ll be leaving the European Commission and the European Council as well.  But not, sadly some might say, the Eurovision Song contest.

EM:        Titus Alexander says, ‘in the EU referendum debate, much is made of the cost of our EU membership, it would be interesting to put this in context with our membership of other global organisations, how many international bodies does the UK belong to, and what’s the cost in us participating in them?’  Norman Smith can help.

NS:         Well, the answer to this is we belong to an awful lot of international bodies, an awful, awful lot. And some of them cost a lot and some of them don’t cost very much at all.  So, if you look at something like the OECD, well, that costs us around £40 million a year, similarly, the World Health Organisation around £16 million a year. The UN – well, we contribute about £90 million to the UN’s regular budget each year, and a voluntary contribution of £2 billion goes towards the UN’s development and humanitarian operations.  How does that compare with our contribution to the EU? Well roughly we contribute about £18 billion a year, but as we know, we get an awful lot back in terms of our rebate and money that goes to various deprived parts of the UK, which means, in total, we probably contribute about £8 billion-£9 billion.  But I guess the difficulty with all this is your kind of comparing apples and pears, with the EU, clearly, we hope to get a lot out of our contribution to the EU in terms of access to the single market and that sort of thing, with contributions to the World Health Organisation and the UN, we’ll, we’re not really anticipating and getting much back, we’re trying to promote overseas aid and global development, so, the difficulty really is you’re comparing very, very different organisations.

 

Photo by Luke McKernan

Referendum Blog: May 22

Referendum Blog: May 22

BORDER TROUBLES?: On the BBC Weekend News this evening, the main item was hinged on that Vote Leave was wrong to suggest that the UK could not veto Turkey’s application to join the EU. At the end of the bulletin, reporter Chris Buckler presented a package which examined  whether border controls would be introduce between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Eire in the event of a UK exit from the EU.

In some respects senses there was ‘balance’ in that there were a mixture of concerns about what might happen. But Buckler was oddly unfocused and unclear in elements of what he told the audience and his main goal appeared to whip up the idea of trouble in store.

First, there was a major omission that affected the veracity of his entire package.  What he did not say was that  the current border arrangements between the UK (including Northern Ireland ) and Eire are nothing to do with the EU, and never have been .  They are based on a bilateral agreement between the Irish and British governments formulated under the title the CTA (Common Travel Area). The CTA stipulates that there is free movement between all parts of the UK and Eire. The arrangements have evolved considerably over time, but, in effect, have been in existence since Eire’s independent in 1923.

It is hard to understand why Buckler did not explain or mention this. Instead, he focused on that   there had been checkpoints on the Eire/NI border during the Irish troubles (presumably referring to the political and civil unrest that began in the 1960s and continued until 1998, though he did not say so) and added that ‘some are asking whether checkpoints would return if the UK was to vote to leave the EU’. The question here is why this would happen, and who was suggesting it would; Buckler’s narrative gave no clue. Such checkpoints on the border he was describing only existed because of security reasons linked to the political and civil unrest, the CTA free movement principles were not suspended.

Buckler then jumped to trade. He observed  that ‘some had suggested’ that the £1bn trade each week between Ireland and the UK would be affected adversely by Brexit. Was he claiming that problems would arise because of the new border checkpoints that he had imagined might be introduced?  He did not say, nor did he explain that most of the trade between Eire and the UK is not via border roads in Ireland.

His next point was another non sequitur: that towns along the Eire/Northern Ireland border had benefitted from ‘European peace money’. His example was a new sports centre where boxed Barry McGuigan trained. His statement was both disingenuous and misleading.  Yes, Northern Ireland and Eire have received from the EU (not ‘Europe’) millions from a specially established peace fund. Relevant here, however, is that the cash ultimately comes from the UK’s overall contribution to the EU and that the peace fund further relies on the UK government because elements of its contributions are dependent on match funding from national and local government, and from private enterprise.

Buckler concluded by acknowledging (again without mentioning the CTA) that concerns about immigration if Britain was outside the EU ‘some had suggested’  border controls and passports could be needed in future.  There was a vox pop from one woman who wanted such restrictions on ferries to stop terrorism, then from another female who thought the reintroduction of controls would be ‘completely insane.

He concluded:

Britain and Ireland have always sat apart from the rest of Europe geographically, but this referendum is about where the UK sits politically, and the final decision will make a difference across both islands.

The implication – from all that had gone before – was clearly that Brexit would lead to significant changes in the border arrangements, and the impact could be severely inconvenient and financially negative.  The spectre he had invoked was a return to the arrangements of the troubles, border checkpoints, restricted trade. The bias here can only be fully identified  through very careful fact-checking and examining alternative perspectives. Again the devil is in the detail.  Why did he not start from the premise that the long existence of the CTA suggested that free movement would continue?

 

Transcript of BBC1, Weekend News, EU Refrendum and Northern Ireland, 10.49pm

MISHAL HUSAIN:       What would next month’s EU referendum mean for Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK to have a land border with another European country? In the first of a series of reports hearing views from around the UK – our Ireland correspondent Chris Buckler has been travelling along that border. Chris?

CHRIS BUCKLER:              Mishal, I’m standing right at the border, not that there is much sign of it today. Of course, it was very different during the years of Northern Ireland’s troubles when there would have been checkpoints, often queues of cars. And Leave and Stay campaigners have been involved in a heated debate about what would happen if the UK were to leave the EU. Could it mean a return of checkpoints and the end of completely open roads? As it is, the easiest way of knowing whether you’re in the north or the south is by looking at the speed limit signs. In the Republic, they’re in kilometres per hour, in the North they’re in miles per hour. And I’ve been taking a journey along that border, and I should warn you my report does contain some flashing images. Fermanagh sits at the edge of the UK. There is a point in this land where Northern Ireland ends and the Republic begins. But could that invisible border soon mark the line where the UK meets the EU? What looks like a haphazard red line on that map is actually the border and on this one road, as you’re travelling down it, you move in and out of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland several times. In fact, coming up here we’re just going back into Fermanagh, back into the UK. But during the violent years of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, there was huge security where the two countries met, and some are asking whether checkpoints would return if the UK was to vote to leave Europe.

ARLENE FOSTER MLA First Minister of Northern Ireland: We have such good relations now that we will be able to build on that, and I don’t foresee watchtowers going back in South Armagh, if that’s what the question is.

CB:        Nobody means watchtowers, but we need some kind of checkpoints, or something that says there’s a physical border there?

AF:         Well, as I say, there are borders all across Europe and those things will be negotiated if there is to be an Out vote.

CB:        Northern Ireland’s First Minister is a supporter of the Leave campaign. But other parties at Stormont are worried about the potential impact of an exit on the economy here, and the government in the Republic share some of those concerns. Approximately £1 billion of goods and services is traded between the UK and Ireland every week. Towns along this shared border have benefited from European peace money. It’s helped to build among other things this sports facility in Clones in County Monaghan. The town’s most famous son is former world boxing champion Barry McGuigan. But in the fight over Europe, he’s not sure which corner to be in.

BARRY McGUIGAN:        The south has benefited enormously from being part of Europe. I’m still relatively undecided about whether I now live in the UK or whether they should be part of Europe or not, and none of the politicians have convinced me, that’s the interesting thing. But my gut feeling tells me that the UK should be part of Europe.

CB:        Politically and practically, checkpoints on Irish roads might not be an option, but if Britain was outside of the EU and the Irish Republic within, migration controls might be necessary. Currently, you don’t need a passport to travel between these islands. But with modern security concerns, some have suggested that that could change.

VOX POP MALE:                            I think you should have to show passports regardless. You’re on a ferry, it could be anybody getting on this ferry. It could be terrorists getting on the ferry.

CB:        But other travellers, used to crossing seas and borders, don’t like the idea of new restrictions.

VOX POP FEMALE:          Where we live borders is completely . . . it’s completely insane, like again to re-establish a border.

CB:        Britain and Ireland have always sat apart from the rest of Europe geographically, but this referendum is about where the UK sits politically, and the final decision will make a difference across both islands. Chris Buckler, BBC News.

Photo by Christopher Elison

Referendum Blog: May 21

Referendum Blog: May 21

BLATANT BIAS:  Each daily BBC programme does not have to be balanced, due impartiality can be achieved over time. But who at the BBC is keeping check on these equations and where are their findings so that their version of ‘balance’ can be properly checked? Last night the main BBC1 bulletins were blatantly biased against the ‘leave’ side, confirming longer term trends.  Michael Gove from Vote Leave had  presented findings which showed that if Turkey and four other countries joined the EU, the health service could be inundated with unbearable workloads. Deputy political editor John Pienaar, in reports for both News at Six and News at Ten, worked flat out to debunk the claims primarily by stating, in effect, that despite what Gove said, it was impossible that Turkey would be allowed to join soon, if at all.  In his choice of words, he also introduced the concepts that those who worried about immigration were bigots and that making such claims were ‘scaremongering’.  His emphasis and phraseology were fascinating object lessons in how bias can be introduced. He actually said that those who were concerned about immigration were ‘not bigots’, but his words had the opposite effect. He was actually presenting the views through the bigotry lens.  Overall, it looked at 6pm that the main aim of coverage of the Gove statement was to rubbish it on three levels: that it was no credible, that bigotry was behind it; and that Boris Johnson, the (undeclared)leader of the Vote Leave campaign had said in the past that he did not think Turkey would be able to join the EU.  The latter point was particularly underhand and misleading. It was not said when Johnson had made the remarks, and the context in which he had made them was not disclosed; nor was he or Vote Leave given the opportunity to comment.  The desire to rubbish Vote Leave was confirmed at 10pm when claims by George Osborne that house prices would fall by 18% in the event of Brexit were elevated to the lead EU referendum item. Osborne’s claims were not subjected to the same type of scrutiny as Gove’s, and indeed, business editor Kamal Ahmad worked to increase the strength of the Chancellor’s warning by also including comment that the French finance minister that Britain would not be allowed to have a free trade agreement in the event of Brexit. Gove’s claims were demoted in the running order.

 

Transcript of BBC 1, News at Six and News at Ten, 20th May 2016

News at Six, 6.11pm

REETA CHAKRABARTI:    Well, there was a warning about more pressure on the NHS today. The Vote Leave campaign in the EU referendum say that staying in the European Union could add over five million people to the UK’s population by 2030 – ramping up demand on hospitals and GPs. That’s disputed by the Remain campaign – as our Deputy Political Editor John Pienaar reports.

JOHN PIENAAR:      Which way to the worst crisis yet in A&E? Stay in the European Union and watch our Accident and Emergency wards being overwhelmed by demands for treatment from millions of new migrants. Scared? Well, today, the Leave campaign’s minister of the moment, was doing his best.

MICHAEL GOVE Justice Secretary, Vote Leave:    The idea of the asking the NHS to look after after a new group of patients, equivalent in size to four Birminghams is clearly unsustainable.

JP:       You just said that the equivalent of four Birminghams, a population the size of Scotland could arrive in the country within 15 years. Do you believe that is remotely likely or are you scaremongering?

MG:     The document that we are releasing today lays out in detail a series of projections, a modest, a medium and a high level projection on the level of migration. And they reflect both economic reality and what’s happened in history as well.

JP:       But will the warnings about migration bring in votes? Probably yes.

VOX POP FEMALE: I think it would have a huge effect not only on public services, it would have an effect on education and the housing crisis that’s commencing at the moment.

VOX POP MALE:      Immigrants are used as a erm . . .  sort of a scapegoat from certain parties to sort of push their agendas. It’s easy to do, it’s been done for as old as time itself.

JP:       The Leave campaign deny they’re scaremongering but some of the numbers today do look scary and they are meant to. They are also open to question. Take a look. We are told if we stay in the EU that will add between 2.5 and 5 million to the population. Why? Because it assumes that five countries, including Turkey, all join the Union by 2020, which is doubtful.  It takes no account of new controls. David Cameron says Turkey won’t be joining for decades.  But the Leave side say it would add between 6 and 13 visits to A&E departments, and increase of 57%. Why? Because migration and A&E visits have both gone up – there’s no conclusive evidence that the two sets of numbers are linked.

PHILIP HAMMOND MP Foreign Secretary, Remain:         Well, I think these figures are very often just plucked, er, from thin air, and they’re not designed to inform, they’re designed to confuse. Every single member state has a veto on any additional member, er, joining. So this decision that we will make, when the time comes for each individual applicant country.

JP:       The leading Leave campaign wasn’t convinced countless Turks were coming quite recently.

BORIS JOHNSON Conservative, Vote Leave:          Turkey’s been a candidate for membership of the EU since 1963.  I think the chances of the Turks readily acceding to the European Union are between, you know, nil and 20%.

JP:       Today, the head of the European commission has warned that Britain would be seen as a deserter if it left the EU, and struggle for good terms outside.  David Cameron’s been posing with performers and celebrities, claiming Britain’s more creative inside the EU.  But claims and counterclaims on both sides are getting more creative by the day.  John Pienaar, BBC News.

 

News at Ten, 10.10pm

REETA CHAKRABARTI:    The Chancellor George Osborne has told the BBC that house prices could be up to 18% lower if the UK left the EU. It’s a claim made in a Treasury report out next week, which argues that Brexit would create a series of economic shocks to housing, employment and wages. But Leave campaigners say lower house prices would be good for first-time buyers. Mr Osborne, who’s in Japan at a meeting of the G7 finance ministers, has been speaking to our Economics Editor Kamal Ahmed.

KAMAL AHMED:    Thousands of miles away in Japan but still trying to hammer home the message – leaving the EU is no laughing matter, it may be bad for the British economy. I met George Osborne at the G7 summit, and he revealed the first details of another Treasury forecast on the costs, as they seem them, of Brexit.

GEORGE OSBORNE MP Chancellor of the Exchequer:     One consequence of leaving the European Union is that there would be a hit to the value of people’s homes of at least 10%, and up to 18%. At the same time mortgages will get more expensive and mortgage rates will go up. Some people say that is a price worth paying. I say we are stronger and better off inside the European Union.

KA:     But surely, Chancellor, some people might say that lower house prices is good for people, it makes houses more affordable?

GO:     We all want affordable homes, and the way you get affordable homes is by building more houses, you don’t get affordable homes by wrecking the British economy.

KA:     His allies in the Brexit debate agree with a lot of the analysis – rising mortgage rates and slower economic growth could all reduce housing demand and therefore prices. It is also claimed there will be other costs. The French Finance Minister told me that leaving the EU would bring a bill, although any negotiations would be friendly.

MICHAEL SAPIN French Finance Minister (Translated) It will be costly for the UK. It is an illusion to think by having a free trade negotiation with the EU, you will have more than you have right now.

KA:     Here at the G7 Summit where I interviewed the Chancellor, there has been a definite change of tack when it comes to the European Union referendum. Yes, there is still the big macro-economic arguments around the impact of Britain leaving the EU but also there’s a new message that this stuff matters. It’s about the everyday, it’s about the voters, it’s about their house prices, it’s about employment, it’s even about how much people earn. In Britain, a land of high house prices, economists who support the UK leaving the EU put the argument very differently.

GERARD LYONS Former Advisor to Boris Johnson:         The outlook for house prices does not depend on the EU or on Brexit. We have not built enough houses for the last four decades. Young people will still need to buy houses whether we are in or out of the EU. The froth may be knocked off the top of the market but the reality is this: we need to stop focussing only on the short-term.

KA:     And it’s the same for trade.

GL:      Trade is a big positive for Brexit. Currently in the European Union, our trade demands are only one of 28 countries, services do not figure prominently in the EU trade deals and the EU is slow at doing those trade deals.

KA:     On June 23, referendum day, the train will leave the station, its destination either to remain in or leave the EU.  Neither side wants to come second in that battle. Kamal Ahmed, BBC News.

RC:      Well, meanwhile, there was a warning from the Vote Leave campaign that staying in the EU could add over 5 million people to the UK’s population by 2030 – putting the NHS under “unsustainable pressure”. The claim came from the Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who said the rise would come from countries like Turkey joining the EU. But campaigners against a British exit dismissed the calculations as “absurd”, as our Deputy Political Editor John Pienaar reports.

JOHN PIENAAR:      Which way to the worst crisis yet in A&E? Stay in the European Union and watch our accident and emergency wards being overwhelmed by demands for treatment from millions of new migrants. Scared? Well, today the Leave campaign’s minister of the moment was doing his best.

MICHAEL GOVE Justice Secretary, Vote Leave:    The idea of the asking the NHS to look after after a new group of patients, equivalent in size to four Birminghams is clearly unsustainable.

JP:       You just said that the equivalent of four Birminghams, a population the size of Scotland could arrive in the country within 15 years. Do you believe that is remotely likely or are you scaremongering?

MG:     The document that we are releasing today lays out in detail a series of projections, a modest, a medium and a high level projection on the level of migration. And they reflect both economic reality and what’s happened in history as well.

JP:       But will the warnings about migration bring in votes? Probably yes. Worrying about migration doesn’t mean you are a bigot.

VOX POP FEMALE: I think it would have a huge effect not only on public services, it would have an effect on education and the housing crisis that’s commencing at the moment.

VOX POP MALE:      Immigrants are used as a erm . . .  sort of a scapegoat from certain parties to sort of push their agendas. It’s easy to do, it’s been done for as old as time itself.

JP:       The Leave campaign deny they’re scaremongering but some of the numbers today do look scary and they are meant to. They are also open to question. Take a look. We are told if we stay in the EU that will add between 2.5 and 5 million to the population. Why? Because it assumes that five countries, including Turkey, all join the Union by 2020, which is doubtful.  It takes no account of new controls. David Cameron says Turkey won’t be joining for decades.  But the Leave side say it would add between 6 and 13 visits to A&E departments, and increase of 57%. Why? Because migration and A&E visits have both gone up – there’s no conclusive evidence that the two sets of numbers are linked.

PHILIP HAMMOND MP Foreign Secretary, Remain:         Well, I think these figures are very often just plucked, er, from thin air, and they’re not designed to inform, they’re designed to confuse. Every single member state has a veto on any additional member, er, joining. So this decision that we will make, when the time comes for each individual applicant country.

JP:       The leading Leave campaign wasn’t convinced countless Turks were coming quite recently.

BORIS JOHNSON Conservative, Vote Leave:          Turkey’s been a candidate for membership of the EU since 1963.  I think the chances of the Turks readily acceding to the European Union are between, you know, nil and 20%.

JP:       Today, the head of the European Commission has warned that Britain would be seen as a deserter if it left the EU, and struggle for good terms outside.  David Cameron’s been posing with performers and celebrities, claiming Britain’s more creative inside the EU.  But claims and counterclaims on both sides are getting more creative by the day.  John Pienaar, BBC News.

Photo by Policy Exchange

Jeremy Vine presides over EU love-in

Jeremy Vine presides over EU love-in

Has Jeremy Vine presided over the most biased programme so far of the referendum campaign? And possibly the most biased programme that could be devised?

Someone on the BBC Radio 2 production team – the same service, it may recalled, that thought Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand’s humiliation of the gentle Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs was acceptable entertainment – had a brilliant wheeze.

Plan A was that they wanted to reflect the ‘diversity’ of views about the EU by sending Vine round all 27 member countries. That was ruled out as impracticable, so it was on to Plan B. Instead they invited someone living in the UK from each of the 27 countries to come to the Radio 2 studio. Vine would then chat casually to them for an hour or so to provide deep insight into the key issues of the referendum debate.

Vine claimed – as this slow-motion car-smash unfolded – that they had no idea in advance about what any of them thought about the EU.  But it soon became clear.  And golly gosh, how they loved the EU – and hated the idea of Brexit.  Jana Valencic, from Slovenia, set the tone  as she was asked if she enjoyed living in the UK:

I enjoy very much the country, I’m, lately, I’m coming across some pretty nasty people just because I’m European.

JV:         Oh, lawks, really?

YV:        Yesterday they said ‘get back to my country’?

JV:         Really, for real?

YV:        And I was told, erm, in a department store in Norwich that people come to their store and don’t want to be served by Eastern Europeans, and this is what this Brexit has done to us.

Guest number 22 was Szofi Barota from Hungary.  She said:

…and I was born and raised in the tiny country, controversial country of the EU, Hungary, and er . . .

JV:         Why is it controversial?

SB:         Well, you know, we have a bit of a controversial Prime Minister called . . .

JV:         (interrupting) Oh, is that the right-wing thing, or the left-wing thing, I can’t remember.

SB:         Absolutely right-wing.

There was no doubt whom she meant – that nasty, immigrant-resisting, racist Viktor Orban.  By this time, the programme was  getting into its stride and Vine started quizzing his guests.  First up in the comment stage was Yana Valencic again. She declared:

Well, increasingly, I think this country (the UK) is spoiling Europe for everyone else, er, because it insists on opt out of many things like Workers Rights and a few others, and the one I’m particularly unhappy about is that it, it’s er . . . it erm vetoes any good European, anybody who could be a good European official, and insists on the lowest common denominator.

Angela from Bulgaria then said that the EU was very important because it facilitated ‘cultural exchange’ and engendered ‘a broader view of the world’. Monica from Romania agreed and added that it also meant that people could ‘travel easily’ and ‘had more information about Bulgaria, for example’.

Imke Henkel from Germany now chipped in. She said:

Erm, actually, can I say that I think, from a German perspective, Britain is not at all spoiling the party, although there is quite a bit of annoyance with, with the British always being difficult, but I think from a German perspective it’s actually very important for Britain to stay in, and that is precisely because of the balance of power.  Because Germany has become, in a way, powerful within Europe, which is not good for Europe which is not good . . . The UK must save the EU from Germany.

Vine tried to get more people to agree, but Austrian, Susanne Chishti had a different point:

I mean, from our point of view it’s about collaboration, you know, because you need to collaborate on the innovation side, and London and the UK is a tech nation and I think we have got so many entrepreneurs, you know, who need to work together, and for the UK, within Fintech, you know, in the technology sector, we have got a talent pool coming from Europe, and we just don’t want it to stop, because it would be just negative.

And Andres, a Cypriot opined:

I believe Britain should stay, should stay as part of the European family, it should stay here, and if we spend all these millions and billions to go to war for the principles, they have to spend some pennies for the, for the Europeans.

Rob from Malta said:

Well, I think it doesn’t get any smaller than Malta, so I mean, for us, Czech Republic is quite a big country, so I obviously concur with what Sweden and the Czech Republic were saying immigration wise.  However, it’s important to point out that immigration is a phenomenon which will exist regardless of what happens. Erm, and I think the positives of the EU outweigh the negatives.

With that cue, Vine began to fish for other negatives. Marta from Poland was worried that too many Polish doctors were working in other EU countries. Vine asked Dina from Portugal to respond. The problem was that pesky national sovereignty. She said:

   Yeah, well I agree with, I agree with these guys, I mean it was good to, it is good to belong to . . . to EU, but I think, as Europe, er, we, we, we’re all getting a bit older and we need new ideas, new ways of being, of being a group and not being separate countries. I think er . . .

JV:         You want to get even closer?

DINA:    Yeah. We (fragments of words, unclear) I think we can . . .

JV:         (speaking over) Why would you want, why would you want France to make your laws . . .

DINA:    . . . forget about borders and forget about all these things that are just . . . you know, scrubbed or whatever in er . . .

JV:         (interrupting) Hang on, hang on, are you saying . . .

UNKNOWN FEMALE:      It’s not about France making laws for Portugal, it’s rather about all make laws together, and that is always forgotten (people say ‘yes’ in agreement) if, if they say that Brussels actually makes the laws, it’s all the 28 countries who come together and agree together which will be the laws.

Ever closer union. Vine noted at this point that this was now a ‘really interesting discussion.’ Michael from Ireland jumped in Did he agree? He said:

   It is Jeremy, but I think, first of all, symptomatic of how great the European Union is, is this gathering here today.  And we’re all likeminded people, not so long ago we didn’t even know some of the countries that are actually part of the European Union, that’s extremely important.  But like every organisation it’s about compromise, (someone says ‘hm-hmm’ in assent) and it’s not always going to work perfectly, erm, but if you’re not in it, you can’t fix it.

In other words, avoid Brexit at all costs. Michael’s enthusiasm generated a strong round of applause and Thanasis from Greece decided to comment.  Vine first observed that his country had been through ‘an absolute horror show’. Surely he would not back the EU?  Wrong. Thanasis said:

   Yeah, you name it we’re there (female giggles) the euro disaster that you mentioned, the refugee crisis and everything, and you add a thing, the democratic deficit and the lack of accountability. But the thing is that’s why . . .  even we want to stay in the EU and we want Britain in, because with you, you know, with this instinctive scepticism towards the EU . . .

JV:         Oh, you like Britain because we, we think it’s not working properly as well?

THANASIS:         Well, someone needs to be there and change it.

JV:         Why don’t you just leave, you guys, I mean, even the currency doesn’t work now?

THANASIS:         Of course the currency doesn’t work, but . . . it would be great if (fragment of word, unclear) if everyone left the eurozone, but not just Greece, because we would be doomed, even, I mean, I think . . .

JV:         So you’re, you’re kind of . . . what, regardless of whether the EU is a good thing or not, you feel Greece is trapped in it?

THANASIS:         No, I think (fragment of word, unclear) the EU is a good thing, I mean, in principle, we just need to make it work better.

That promoted Yorick from the Netherlands to reinforce how wonderful the EU was and to point out that nasty, negative forces in his country were daring to conspire against further integration and expansion by disagreeing that the Ukraine should come on board. He said:

   Okay, this is er . . . something, you might remember about a month ago, the Dutch had their own vote on one part of legislation within the EU, which is to come closer to Ukraine.  Er, was that reported at all on the BBC?  I don’t think it was, because the BBC is quite insular, with the rest of the British media . . .

JV:         Well, our bulletins are only half an hour long, but yes.

YORICK:                             Absolutely. Erm, there was a referendum about one particular piece of legislation which was funded and fuelled by the far-right, in which er . . . in the end, the far-right won, so Holland is the only country which doesn’t agree with closer union to the Ukraine.  And so, what we realised is that the people who are voting and profiting from a Brexit situation would be the far-right.

Bingo! Vine now had a full-on attack on the right and the idea that the BBC was being moderate and ‘insular’ by not reporting such extremism.  Next came another attack on Brexit, this time from Luxembourg:

   The main compromise cost for Luxembourg was giving up privacy and banking secrecy (some light laughter) and that was a pressure put on us by many of the other nations.  On the other hand, Luxembourg may be one of the only countries benefiting from Brexit more than, more than other countries, because . . .

JV:         Why’s that, why’s that?

JOHN PIERRE:    Because possibly, the financial institutions, if they have to open branches in other places, they may choose Luxembourg to do that. (male says ‘hm-hmm’ in assent, some laughter).

Michael from Ireland now returned to the fray. He wanted to point out something else that Brexit would not solve. Supporters were living under an illusion:

   Just a point that people need to be aware of, and Sweden have raised the refugee crisis, it’s important for the people to understand that Britain’s obligations under international law will not change if they leave the European Union.

Michelle from Belgium now wanted to contribute with another point about the wonders of the EU; why it was necessary. She observed:

   So, I’m from Belgium, a small country that really benefited from, from the EU and that . . . a country that suffered so much during the, the, the last war, so I think people generally do not complain (fragments of words, or words unclear) about the whole project.

She thought that economies might be made in how many languages the EU used.  Then came a bombshell. Inese from Latvia declared:

Yes, erm, being in the EU, it meant our fishermen got quotas, they’re not allowed to fish any more as much as they did before, a few of our factories were closed, we are not allowed to produce our own sugar, we have to buy it from Denmark for some reason, er, ignoring the fact that we were producing sugar for more than 100 years . . . Also many young people are coming to . . . EU to live, this is economic migration, and our country is losing people, losing children, we have to accept refugees . . .

At that point Vine suggested she was a Eurosceptic.  Shock horror. Was she? Of course not:

anyway, no, I’m not Eurosceptic, but I’m pointing out minuses and you said, as you required . . .

The next component of the show was a phone in.  Gary from Plymouth opined that the reason that the 27 supported the EU so strongly was because most contributors – unlike Britain – were net beneficiaries, that is, they got more out of their EU membership than they put  in. Patricia from France observed:

Actually, Gary, I would agree on one thing, with you, is that France is benefiting most when it comes to farming, erm, because they do actually have a big chunk of the, of the farming budget.  But, in terms of anything else, especially when the UK benefits from highly educated (phone ring tone) people coming into erm . . . into the UK . . .

Charlotte from Sweden claimed:

Even though if UK pays a lot of money to EU (sic) they actually get (fragment of word, unclear) 75% back from the EU, that’s the deal that Thatcher did, ’84 with the EU.

This, of course was blatantly untrue, Britain’s rebate reduces its contribution from (roughly, under a very complex formula) £18 billion to £13 billion (around 30%). But Vine did not challenge her. Instead, the ever-eager Michael from Ireland had another pro-EU point:

   It’s also important to point out that, like Switzerland and Norway, for Britain to continue to trade with the EU, outside the EU, they will have to make massive contributions in any event.

JV:         Yeah, but you gave up your currency, Michael?

MICHAEL KINGSTON:     We did, but it’s about . . .

JV:         (speaking over) Don’t you regret that?

MICHAEL KINGSTON:     No I don’t, because it’s about compromise, and we’re in a much better position now in Europe with peace and everything else that we benefit than, than the situation we were in.

Susanne from Austria wanted to answer the point made by the listener who called in:

   It’s Austria, yes, so we all live in London since many years, and I live since 20 years here, and what we can see as Londoners, you know, as UK, we all are UK residents now, that the UK benefits so much from being in the EU, and getting access to the talent, to the investors who invest here, and if the UK would leave, the talent wouldn’t come (words unclear due to speaking over)

She added that if the UK had not been in the EU, she would not have come at all, and she had stayed because the UK was in the EU.  Thiana from Croatia said her country had only been in the EU for only three years so it was hard yet to say what the benefits were.  But Vibne had different ideas. He suggested it had ‘helped stop fighting’ with its neighbours. Thiana agreed.  Vine then asked Johanna from Finland whether she thought the UK would stay in.

I think UK should stay in, I (fragments of words, or words unclear due to speaking over)

JV:         (interrupting) Will, will it stay in?

JOHANNA:  I mean, all of us, most of us are living here, working here, paying our taxes here, you know, consuming our salaries on, on the UK soil, so we are actually boosting your national economy as well, so it’s also a benefit for the UK.

JV:         Germany . . .

JOHANNA (shouting, but away from mic) Don’t leave!

Vine returned to Imke from Germany. She said:

I fear if Britain really were to leave that in 10 years’ time, 5 years’ time, everyone will turn round and say, ‘Whatever possessed us, what folly possessed us actually to leave this . . . very powerful community of countries where we . . . where we can actually have an impact.’  Just look at TTIP – people are very sceptical . . .

JV:         (interrupting) The transatlantic trade deal, yeah . . .

IMKE HENKEL:   With the United States.  Europe and the United States are about on equal terms, if the UK would leave they would either have an independent deal with the United States, which would be (voice says ‘Yeah’) which would be much worse, because the United States is far . . . or they would have no deal at all, and then hardly any trade.

JV:         Alright. Thank you, well listen, I think we’ve got to play some music now, but listen, thank you so much we’ve . . . to get 27 of you . . . has anyone not spoken?  Can I just check, I’m looking round the room, it’s really important.  Every single 27 – and I spoke a bit as well as number 28, so . . . I think . . . yes, hang on.  Slovakia?  Did you have one more thing?

ZUZANA SLOBODOVA:   Yes.

JV:         As the most senior person here.

ZUZANA SLOBODOVA:   (laughs) Well, what I want to say is that . . . er . . . people who come here from European countries work for very little money and are very well qualified, so (sounds of assent from others) so . . . who benefits from the difference is the country where they work, which is Britain. (male voice says ‘great’, there is cheering and applause).

In summary, this programme by Jeremy Vine whipped up in the studio a pro-EU frenzy; in an hour only three or four mildly sceptical EU points were made.

As already noted, it was not explained how the guests had been selected but it very quickly became clear that every one of them were supporters of the EU to the point of fanaticism. Of course Vine might host a future edition of his daily show with a pro-Brexit bias. But it’s hard to see how this huge level of support for the EU could be balanced without filling the studio with a similar number of hand-picked supporters of ‘leave’ with a widely varied background.

Another major production issue was that Vine failed to challenge a blatantly wrong claim about the level of the UK’s EU contribution. It’s hard to think why a presenter of his experience and declared passion for statistics would not have known instantly that Britain’s rebate is not 75% of its contribution.

This show was massively biased, and the show’s producers – despite Vine’s claim to the contrary – must have known this was virtually a foregone conclusion of assembling 27 guests on this basis. Vine tried a few times to evoke eurosceptic responses, and made a few Eurosceptic points, and there was one phone-in call from someone who thought they could explain the in-built bias. But overall these negativities about the EU were only tiny fig leaves; Vine presided over a programme that at every turn  was rammed full of reasons why Brexit was a bad idea. This is impossible to justify in a period when there is supposed to be balance in the referendum debate.

 

Main Photo: Tweet from Jeremy Vine’s account, posted on May 18 2016, with the text: “TWENTY-EIGHT guests in our EU discussion just now – the British one (circled) seemed curiously neutral on #Brexit”

Referendum Blog: May 18

Referendum Blog: May 18

BBC HEZZA BIAS:  It has already been shown conclusively that the BBC1 bulletin headlines over the past month have strongly favoured the ‘remain’ side in the EU debate. Last night, this bias continued with a vengeance. The eight-minute sequence after the headlines amounted to a sustained, deliberate attack on the ‘out’ case. Newsreader Huw Edwards introduced the item:

The deepening divisions in Conservative ranks on Britain’s future in the EU were exposed when Lord Heseltine accused Boris Johnson of losing his judgment, with “preposterous, obscene remarks”. Mr Johnson had compared the EU with Hitler’s desire to dominate Europe.

The report that followed was in three parts. In the first, political editor Laura Kuenssberg emphasised how deep the Conservative divisions over the EU are becoming; in part 2, about Nigel Farage, deputy political editor John Pienaar included a vox pop claiming that Farage was a ‘Nazi’, suggested that he had perfected the technique of faking sincerity, and concluded by saying that ‘he split opinion like no-one else’; in the third, business editor Simon Jack, noting that many employers were writing to their staff to urge a ‘remain’ vote stressed that ‘the weight of opinion’ of employers was with ‘remain’.

The first sequence was focused most on what Lord Heseltine had said about Boris Johnson. He was quoted as saying

….I think the strain of the campaign is beginning to tell on him. I think his judgment is going. This is the most serious decision Britain has faced in a generation and it’s descending into an extraordinarily nasty situation…He is behaving now irresponsibly and recklessly and I fear that his judgment is going…. Every time he makes one of these extraordinary utterances, people in the Conservative Party will question whether he now has the judgment for that position.

Laura Kuenssberg then noted that Boris Johnson had said that people wanted facts about the EU, not arguments about personalities and suggested supporters of \remain’ were colluding with big business. She included a direct quote to the effect that immigration was hitting wage packets and big business wanted it that way.  There was then a quote from Labour deputy leader John McDonnell, prefaced with an observation that he had claimed that ‘Tory in-fighting is dragging the whole campaign down’; and finally, there was a quote from David Cameron in which he claimed that the Islamic State, the regime in Baghdad and President Putin would be happy if the UK left the EU. Kuenssber concluded:

Boris Johnson had already been accused of choosing Out because of his own ambition. If it all goes wrong, perhaps that decision could be burn his future chances.

Huw Edwards then said that Nigel Farage had warned that anger over current levels of immigration could lead to blood on the streets, and claimed that the only solution was an ‘exit’ vote. John Pienaar included comment from Farage to that effect, and also that the rancour within the Conservative party was now so great that if there was a narrow ‘remain’ vote, it could lead to a second referendum. Pienaar then observed that ‘in a campaign that is getting more bitter by the day’, he (Farage) ‘splits opinion like no-one else’. There was then a vox pop from someone who said ‘he’s a Nazi, he’s too far-right’. Someone else said Farage ‘told the truth’, and the third vox pop said he was ‘not the guy who stands with working people’. Pienaar then repeated that Farage was a ‘divisive figure’ who was either loathed or liked him, which was why the Vote Leave campaign was ‘keeping a safe distance’.

Simon Jack opened by saying that Microsoft and Aviva, with 17,000 UK employees were among the private companies pointing out that it was their view that the UK should remain in the EU and that exit would mean a reverse of economic recovery.  He then noted that it was not all ’one-way traffic’ and that the chairman of Weatherspoon’s had claimed that ‘remain’ would mean giving power away to an unelected elite in Brussels.   Jack noted that ‘the weight of opinion is with remain’ and then said that the Confederation of British Industry had declared that it was ‘quite right and proper’ that employers should lay out the facts as they saw them. He pointed out that Brexit groups had claimed that what employers said was not necessarily right and also that some of these pro-EU groups had in the past supported joining the euro. Jack concluded that it was hard to ignore in-box messages.

Overall, detailed analysis of the transcript reveals a number of bias issues.  In the Jack sequence, the main thrust of his argument was that most employers wanted to ‘remain’ and bolstered the scale involved by specially noting that Aviva had 17,000 employees in the UK. By contrast he decided not to mention that that Weatherspoon’s has 35,000 staff, or give any evidence why he was so sure that the ‘remain’ numbers were so high.  Pienaar seemed , as has already been noted, to be most determined to say that Nigel Farage was ‘divisive, and he bolstered his argument by choosing to include a vox pop which contained the observation that5 he was a ‘Nazi’.    Was this fair?  How did Pienaar justify bracketing the support of 4m voters at the last general election with such a verdict?   The Kuenssberg sequence placed heavy emphasis on Lord Hesletine’s views and they seemed to confirm that there was indeed civil war in the Conservative party. The inclusion of the comments from David Cameron and John McDonnell heightened that projection, and also bracketed the ‘leave’ case with extremist regimes.

The issue here is rather large.  Since 1999, when the News-watch first began monitoring the BBC’s EU’s content, Heseltine has been very regularly used by BBC to highlight such problems about ‘Europe’. Kathy Gyngell explained the history of this issue during last year’s General Election, when yet again, he was wheeled out to warn  about the dangers of  not supporting the EU; that there would be no co-operation from the EU over immigration unless, in effect, the Conservative party became more enthusiastic about the EU.

The fact is that Heseltine stopped being an active politician in 2001, but the BBC has regularly used him over the years to draw attention to, ‘Tory splits’. This BBC1 News at Ten sequence continued that tradition. The programme editors elevated the importance of his remarks to a major level, and then buttressed that ‘row’ with two items which drew deliberate attention to the weakness of the ‘leave’ case by emphasising how deeply divisive Nigel Farage was and then by ramming home how much big business was supporting ‘remain’.

Here is the transcript in full:

Transcript of BBC1 ‘News at Ten’ 17th May 2016, Boris Johnson and Lord Heseltine, 10.07pm

HUW EDWARDS:             Well, it’s policies that matter, not personal attacks – that’s the response from Boris Johnson’s team following highly-critical remarks made by the former Conservative minister, Lord Heseltine. The deepening divisions in Conservative ranks on Britain’s future in the EU were exposed when Lord Heseltine accused Boris Johnson of losing his judgment, with “preposterous, obscene remarks”. Mr Johnson had compared the EU with Hitler’s desire to dominate Europe. Our political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, has the story.

BORIS JOHNSON Conservative, Vote Leave:         Take back control of this country. Can you hear me at the back? (cheering)

LAURA KUENSSBERG:     Whose side are you on? Outers and Inners were both desperate to get him on theirs. But with recent claims about President Obama, invoking Hitler in the EU debate, and today, claiming, wrongly, that EU interferes in bunches of bananas, someone who knows a thing or two about the Tory leadership said Boris Johnson has gone too far.

LORD HESELTINE Former Deputy Prime Minister, Remain:             I think the strain of the campaign is beginning to tell on him. I think his judgment is going. This is the most serious decision Britain has faced in a generation and it’s descending into an extraordinarily nasty situation.

LK:         Campaigns often get very dirty. People say things they don’t necessarily mean because they’re trying to win?

LH:         He is behaving now irresponsibly and recklessly and I fear that his judgment is going.

LK:         Do you think he still could potentially be the leader of the Conservative Party?

LH:         (fragment of word, or word unclear) Every time he makes one of these extraordinary utterances, people in the Conservative Party will question whether he now has the judgment for that position.

LK:         But look at this. Boris has political pulling power.

BJ:         Are we going to turn out on June 23rd everybody? (crowd shouts ‘yes’) Yes, they are.

LK:         His team say tonight people want the arguments about the EU, not personalities. He made his strongest attack so far on his Tory opponents in the Remain camp, claiming they’re colluding with big business.

BJ:         Some of the people on the FTSE 100, they don’t care about uncontrolled immigration, of course they don’t. But what happens is that their pay packets go ever higher and higher whereas the wages of most people in this country have not increased and in some cases have actually been going down. My friends, it is a stitch-up.

LK:         The decision for all of us is much bigger than the career of any one Conservative politician. But this is a significant slap-down for Boris Johnson and the bitterness inside the Tory Party is hard to ignore. But both sides have to make this feel like it really matters and they’ve both been accused of hype. But Labour says the Tory in-fighting is dragging the whole campaign down.

JOHN MCDONNELL Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Remain:             I think the debate has degenerated into the worst form of negativity and brought out the worst in Westminster politics. And the negativity has been overwhelming at times. It’s time to turn this debate around, drive out the politics of despair and offer a vision for Britain in Europe.

LK:         But in the glitter of the City, the Prime Minister claimed today the leader of so-called Islamic State would be pleased if we vote to leave.

DAVID CAMERON:          It is worth asking the question, who would be happy if we left? Putin might be happy. I suspect al-Baghdadi might be happy. When we’ve got a difficult decision to make, you should ask what it means for your country’s prosperity, what it means for the families, what it means for jobs and you should ask your friends what they think.

LK:         Boris Johnson had already been accused of choosing Out because of his own ambition. If it all goes wrong, perhaps that decision could be burn his future chances. Laura Kuenssberg, BBC News, Westminster.

HE:        Well, the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, has warned that anger over levels of migration could lead to violence on the streets – and he insists that the only answer is for Britain to vote to Leave the European Union. He’s been talking to our deputy political editor, John Pienaar.

JOHN PIENAAR: Nigel Farage, 37 days to go, are you sure you’re going to win?

NIGEL FARAGE UKIP Leader, Leave:         Well, I’m confident. The other side won’t talk to me, that must be good.

JP:          Perfect sincerity. When you can fake that, you have cracked it. Not that his desire to see Britain quit the EU isn’t real, it’s his life. But he’s such a performer that for many Nigel Farage is the UK Independence Party and, for him, win or lose, this is no farewell tour. The message couldn’t be clearer.

NF:        When Isis say they will use this migrant crisis to flood the Continent with their jihadi fighters, I suggest we take them seriously.

JP:          Get the message? Well, over a curry lunch, there is more. Anger over EU migration might, just might, lead to blood on the streets.

NF:        I think it’s legitimate to say that if people feel they have lost control completely, and we have lost control of our borders completely, as members of the European Union, and if people feel that voting doesn’t change anything, then violence is the next step. Now, I’m not . . .

JP:          Even in this country, in peaceful Britain?

NF:        I find it difficult to contemplate it happening here, but nothing is impossible. I’m meeting people (fades out)

JP:          And what if Britain voted to remain, pressure for a second referendum?

NF:        The rancour between the two sides of the Conservative Party is now so great that if the Prime Minister was to pull off a narrow victory, I have a feeling that a lot of them simply wouldn’t be reconciled to it.

JP:          Today’s debate audience showed the Farage effect. In a campaign that is getting more bitter by the day, he splits opinion like no-one else.

VOX POP MALE:              To me, I’m afraid it’s (sic, means he’s) a Nazi, he’s too far-right.

JP:          A Nazi, that’s a bit strong?

VPM:     I know it’s a bit strong.

VOX POP FEMALE:          I personally, I think he’s been brandished (sic) a racist because he’s talking common-sense about numbers.

VOX POP MALE 2:           He is the only person that is telling us the truth, whether we want to hear it or not.

VOX POP FEMALE 2:       He’s not really the kind of guy who stands with working people. I think he does a good job of making it look like he is though.

JP:          It was arguably fear of Nigel Farage and Eurosceptic feeling that drove David Cameron to promise this referendum in the first place. He is a divisive figure. People either tend to like him or loathe him and that is one big reason why the official Vote Leave campaign is keeping a safe distance. (at an ice cream van) Nigel, what are you going to have?

NF:        A 99, please.

JP:          For this political outsider, nothing would taste sweeter than a vote to leave.

NF:        There are 37 days to go, we are in battle, we are charging and I’ll keep doing it!

JP:          Yes, Nigel Farage preaches best to the converted.

NF:        (to voter) Hello, you alright? But so much depends on getting your supporters to turn out and vote. Who’s to say he won’t have the last laugh.

NF:        Are we voting out?

UNNAMED VOTER:         Yes.

NF:        Good.

JP:          John Pienaar, BBC News.

HE:        And some of Britain’s biggest private companies have entered the referendum debate by sending letters directly to staff outlining the impact a British exit would have on their businesses. Let’s talk to Simon Jack, our business editor, what are they saying Simon?

SIMON JACK:     Well you know, even if you wanted to avoid this debate, this is going to be hard because these are messages dropping into the in-boxes of tens of thousands of employees, a real flurry of them.  Let me give you a quick flavour, we’ll start with Microsoft, who say, the boss says in a blog, ‘our view is that the UK should remain in the EU.’ Aviva, 17,000 UK employees, they warn the economic recovery could go into reverse. Now, it’s not all one-way traffic, the boss, the chairman of Wetherspoon’s says that a vote to remain would give power away to an unelected elite in Brussels. So, it isn’t one-way traffic, but I would say the weight of opinion, of employers, is with Remain. Is it OK for employers to, you know, get involved in this way? The CBI, the employers groups says yes, it’s quite right and proper that they should lay out the facts as they see them. The Vote Leave campaign describe this as a Government and big business stitch-up. So, you know, a difference of opinion there. One other Brexiteer says, look,  the CBI can say what it likes, what your employer says does not mean that it’s right, harking back to the fact that some of these groups were ones which supported joining the euro all those years ago.  But as I say, very hard to ignore some of these messages, so even if you didn’t want to be involved in the campaign, when it’s in your inbox it’s very hard to ignore indeed.

HE:        Okay, Simon, again, thanks very much, Simon Jack there for us, our business editor.

Photo by Chatham House, London

BBC passes the buck over pro-EU website ads

BBC passes the buck over pro-EU website ads

The eagle-eyed people over at Heat Street website noticed at the weekend that the BBC overseas website was running very prominent ‘remain’ banner ads, targeted at the 2 million ex pats in Europe, from the Britain Stronger in Europe group. They contained the highly misleading Project Fear message from Chancellor George Osborne that exiting the EU would cost every British family £4,300 a year – a claim that BBC home editor Mark Easton was busy debunking on the Today programme as the ads ran. The BBC took the ads down as soon as they were challenged about them by Heat Street. A BBC spokesman said they had been run ’in error’.  The statement in full was:

“This advert appeared outside the UK as the result of a third party error and was blocked as soon as we were alerted to it. We are investigating how this happened and we are taking steps to prevent this happening in the future.”

There was no further information, leaving unanswered how long the ads ran, how many page impressions they generated, and thus the extent of their overall impact. And it also remains a mystery how they ever saw the light of day. Surprise, surprise, the BBC slipped up in exactly the direction that its editorial output so strongly favours. Important here is the background. BBC services in overseas areas (primarily BBC World News) are allowed to take ads, and they raise substantial revenues, a total of £72m from around the world.

This being the BBC, however, the precise information on revenue is not available. Efforts in the past have been made to get at the exact figure through freedom of information requests, but the Corporation has resisted on grounds of ‘commercial sensitivity’. The only information in the public domain is that around £20m of revenues was generated by relevant European operations in 2011.  The proportion of that from website advertising, as opposed to on television output, would almost certainly, of course, have been relatively small, but nevertheless significant.

The second important point, this being the BBC, is that advertising and sponsorship is regulated by a 28-page publication called Advertising and Sponsorship Guidelines for Commercial Services, last updated in 2015.  One look at it makes it very clear that the appearance of the BSE ad was a jaw-dropping breach of the codes. Why? Well first of all, the main purpose is to ban very firmly numerous categories of commercials and to emphasise that any transgressions will be viewed very seriously.   Paragraph 1.4 says (in bold red):

Any proposal to step outside these guidelines must be editorially justified. It must be discussed and agreed in advance with a senior editorial figure. BBC Director Editorial Policy and Standards must also be consulted.

It goes on (2.3):

Advertising must not jeopardise the good reputation of the BBC or the value of the BBC Brand. It should: a) be suitable for the target audience; b) meet consumer expectations of the BBC brand; c) not bring the BBC into disrepute d) not give rise to doubts about the editorial integrity and independence or impartiality of the BBC.

And 2.9 is this:

Advertisements in the following categories must be approved by a senior editorial figure before they can be accepted for broadcast or publication: a) political advertising (on services where this is allowed); b) advertising by governments and government agencies (except tourism boards and trade or investment boards); c) advertising by lobby groups; d) advertising for infant formula or baby milk; e) advertising for any product or service which shares a name or trademark with a prohibited product or service, sometimes referred to as ‘Surrogate advertising’.

And then there is 2.13 (also in red):

Any advertisements that deal with a controversial issue of public policy, or which raise doubts about the BBC’s editorial integrity, must be referred to a senior editorial figure.

Every page is filled with similarly strong warnings and prescription. What this boils down to is that whatever happened over the BSE advert, it was a major breach of the advertising code and a clear failure of management procedures at a particularly sensitive period when the EU referendum was underway. Almost certainly, there was also a breach of the BBC’s (separate) specially-devised EU referendum coverage guidelines.

The BBC blamed a ‘third party error’ for the breach. But how on earth was supervision allowed to be so lax during the referendum campaign?  This was a gaff on a gargantuan scale. To blame a third party when the codes make it clear that decisions in this arena are of central importance to the reputation of the BBC is a total disgrace. But, then, at the very top (the BBC Executive Board) has got extensive form in blaming the wrong parties for its own mistakes.

Finally, an issue here is that it is impossible to gauge the likely impact of this breach on the referendum. How many ex pats and British holidaymakers did it actually reach? All the signs are that the poll remains on a knife-edge and overseas votes could well be crucial in determining the outcome. Tellingly, the ‘error’ was in favour of the pro-EU side, in line with much of the BBC’s other referendum output.

image: Peter Thompson, Heat Street

 

Referendum Blog: May 17

Referendum Blog: May 17

NON-BIAS BIAS? With the BBC, the devil is often in the detail. And even when figures from the Corporation set out to be ‘unbiased’, they fail dismally.  On Saturday, the Radio 4 Today programme lined up four of its most senior editors to analyse claims being made by the main two sides in the referendum debate.  Broadly, this is what they did and said:

Economics editor Kamal Ahmad analysed the claims of Vote Leave that EU membership costs the UK £350 million a week. His conclusion was the figure is much less; Vote Leave was not taking into account the UK’s rebate or the amount that the EU spends on the UK.

Home editor Mark Easton investigated similarly sweeping claims from Chancellor George Osborne that households would be £4,300 a week worse off by 2030 if the UK exited the EU. Easton decided the Chancellor was wrong because he was basing the forecast on an over-simplistic division of GDP, rather than actual incomes.  He also pointed out that the Treasury forecasts also assumed that most Britons would actually be significantly richer by 2030.

‘Europe’ editor Katya Adler examined whether Michael Gove’s warning that EU expansion would lead to an extra 88m people who are much poorer than those in the UK being able to settle here. Adler said that this was extremely unlikely to happen, not least because it was not certain that Turkey – with 75 million – would be able to join

Business editor Simon Jack checked David Cameron’s claim that 3m UK jobs were ‘linked to the European union’. Jack said that not all jobs would be at risk if the UK left the EU because they were dependent on trade with EU countries rather than EU membership.

Two claims each by the Leave and remain sides were thus debunked. That looks balanced. But closer inspection of the transcripts yields other problems.  First Katya Adler. The claim by Michael Gove, contained in article he wrote for the Daily Mail, was that the EU was considering applications to join from Albania, Turkey, Macedonia. Montenegro and Serbia, countries with a combined population of 88m, most of whom had significantly lower living standards and incomes than those in the UK. He said if the applications were approved, which seemed increasingly likely, these people would have the right to use UK facilities, including the NHS. His argument about the dangers to the UK from these countries was also framed in parallel with observations that the influx from countries which had recently joined the EU had been significantly higher than predicted. Overall, his warning was that the EU was on a course which could add substantially to the UK’s existing infrastructure and security problems, and if the UK remained a member of the EU, it could little or nothing to stop this. The bias point here is that Adler, in framing her response, chose to put the emphasis completely elsewhere. She said first of all that the barriers to entry to the EU by the five countries were unlikely to be resolved until at least 2020 and even then, agreement to their accession had to be unanimous among the 28 existing members. She also asserted that for Michael Gove to be right every man, woman and child – all 88 million of them –  would ‘have to move to the UK’.  Gove’s arguments in the Daily Mail feature, however, were not hinged on either point.  He was rather arguing that joining was on the cards (it is) and that potentially significant numbers of their citizens were likely to come, as had happened when other poorer countries had joined the EU.  Overall, of course, no one knows when or if or on what terms Turkey and the other countries will join the EU. But the purpose of Gove’s feature was to point out that this issue is live, that other similar accessions had already taken place, and that potentially, a further 88m would have access because of EU rules to the UK. Nothing of what Adler said disproved that, and especially her bald assertion that:

so, for Michael Gove to be right this would mean that all the citizens of these countries, every man woman and child would have to move to the UK.

Simon Jack’s ‘debunking’ of David Cameron’s claims about 3m jobs being dependent on the EU was also not what it seemed. The problem was that he looked at trade only through a very narrow prism. Brexit campaigners argue that EU membership forces the UK to rely too much on trade with EU countries; if there was an exit, trading possibilities and patterns would change and would result new business opportunities with countries throughout the world. The whole point of exit is thus to end reliance on the shrinking (in global terms) economies of EU members. Jack, however, did not even consider that, he looked only at what would happen within the current EU trading framework.  Yes, he pointed out that these jobs are dependent on trade with the EU, rather than membership of the EU, but the narrow prism he used meant that exiting the EU could have a negative impact, and pointed out that countries outside the EU but within Europe suffered from not being members.

Overall, Adler and Jack – far from definitively affirming or debunking anything – showed only that senior BBC reporters consider EU-related issues through skewed lenses of their own choosing.

Here is the transcript:

 

Transcript of BBC Radio 4, ‘Today’, 14th May 2016, EU Referendum, Four Correspondents, 8.37am

JOHN HUMPHRYS: The referendum campaign’s about as close as these things get – if there’s one thing we can say with certainty it is that there is a huge amount of uncertainty, and if there’s one refrain you here over and over again from the voters, it is this: why aren’t we being told the facts? Which raises the obvious questions: whose facts?  You’ll hear an ‘in’ campaigner asserting one thing, and an ‘out’ campaigner asserting quite the opposite.  Here’s a flavour.

GEORGE OSBORNE:          Britain would be permanently poorer if we left the European Union, to the tune of £4300 for every household.

UNKNOWN: We would be better off out, we would be richer and more successful.

DAVID CAMERON: Indeed, three million people’s jobs in our country are already linked . . .

MICHAEL GOVE:    What is a fact is that give more than £350 million to the European Union . . .

ANDREW MARR (?) Well, hang on.

JOHN MAJOR:          The fact that we are the access point to 500 million people market produces a great deal of investment in this country.

MG:     . . . you don’t have tariffs then both sides can accept but there’s no need to erect them . . .

GO:     And that would be catastrophic people’s jobs and their incomes and their livelihoods.

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH:       All forecasts (word or words unclear) are wrong, you should take them all with a pinch of salt whether they come from the Governor of the Bank of England, the IMF or any other organisation.

JH:       So, how are the poor old voters expected to make up their minds if the campaign leaders can’t agree on even the most basic facts? Well, that’s where we come in.  We’ve rounded up four of our own editors to put you straight, well, to try to put you straight on for of the most contentious areas.  They, the editors that is, Kamal Ahmed, Mark Easton, Katya Adler and Simon Jack, and the facts, Kamal – Kamal Ahmed that is, our economics editor, your fact: ‘We send the EU £350 million a week’ that is what the Leave campaign says?  Is that true?

KAMAL AHMED:    Right, well I do love the whiff of a statistical chart in the morning, so I have been digging through figures behind this to save our dear listeners from having to do such a painful thing.  Table 9.9 of the Office of National Statistics Pink Book, 2015 . . .

JH:       (speaking over) Know it well.

KA:     That is going to be my start point for this.  The big point to make, I think, the beginning is the UK pays more . . . sorry, the UK pays more into the EU than it receives, that is the big first point.  Is it £350 million a week?  Let’s see.  So, £350 million a week is our gross contribution to the European Union, that’s just over £19 billion, but we get a rebate from the EU (words unclear due to speaking over)

JH:       (speaking over) The (word unclear, ‘famous’?) Thatcher rebate?

KA:     Yes, rebate is a bit of . . . a bit of a misnomer here, actually, because we never pay the money in and get the rebate, we actually get the rebate first, and then pay the money in.  That rebate is worth £4.4 billion a year, so that makes our actual contribution to the European Union £14.7 billion, which is actually £285 million a week. But hang on . . .

JH:       (speaking over) It’s still a lot of money.

KA:     . . . this is Europe, this is Europe John, got to be complicated, got to keep those Brussels officials in work obviously.  We also get erm . . . money from the EU to support the UK economy, farming, we get regional funds, there’s some money for science research, that amounts to about £4.8 billion a year, so that makes a net contribution that the UK gives to the European Union of £9.9 billion, or about £190 million a week. That is from the ONS statistics.

JH:       Right, so when they say on the side of their battlebus and in every other interview that you do with them, ‘We pay in 350 million quid a week’ that is not true.

KA:     That is the gross contribution, which does not take into account the rebate we receive from the EU and the money we receive from the EU by way of grants and support for research and science.

JH:       Right. Thank you for that Kamal.  Er, let’s turn to Mark Easton, our home editor, and your question, well it isn’t a question, your statement if you like, Mark, families would be £4,300 worse off by 2030 – that is George Osborne who made that claim, the Remain camp, of course.  True or false?

MARK EASTON:      Right (laughs) Okay. Erm, I haven’t got any charts for you this morning John, but I can tell you the Treasury claim is based on GDP per household.  What they’ve done is they forecast what they think GDP would be in 2030 . . .

JH:       (speaking over) Gross Domestic Product.

ME:     Gross domestic . . . all the stuff that we produce, what GDP would be in 2030, so they’re throwing quite a long way ahead, and they’ve done it for both staying in the EU, and leaving the EU and then calculated the difference. But GDP per household, it’s not the same thing as household income (laughter in voice) as most people would tell you – if you simply divide current GDP by the number of British households, you get a figure of around £68,000 per household, well, we know average household income, what we would regard as, you know, what money we’re getting in, as about £44-45,000 so the, the idea of a cost to UK families of £4300, it’s not cost in the way that most people would think of it.

JH:       So, we won’t actually be worse off by £4300? I mean, that’s the bald fact?

ME:     No, exactly, the, the Treasury model doesn’t suggest UK families are going to be poorer than they are now, in fact, the modelling suggests families will be richer in 2030 if we leave the EU, what they’re saying is their models suggest we wouldn’t be quite as rich as if we stay in the EU, and that’s a difference of £4300 per household.  The last point I think, to be made is that financial modelling, as we heard in the introduction there, is obviously only as good as the information and the forecasts that you put into it . . .

JH:       Right.

ME:     . . . and often they have been proved quite wrong.  One aspect of the modelling that’s raised eyebrows is that it uses the number of households now, today, to divide estimated GDP for 2030, taking no account of population growth or the effects of . . .

JH:       (interrupting) Ah.

ME:     . . . changes to net immigration for instance . . .

JH:       (speaking over) And, and you lead us nicely into our next thought then, er . . . contentious area, if you like, and that is up to 88 million people from nations much poorer than our own will have the right to live and work here, that’s what Michael Gove said in the Daily Mail just the other day, the Leave campaign of course, Katya Adler is our Europe editor – right or wrong Katya?

KATYA ADLER:      Well, Kamal likes to start the morning on a Saturday with statistical charts, I’m . . . quite fond of crystal ball gazing on a Saturday morning myself, so if we look into our crystal ball, Michael Gove is right, there are five countries that have started talks with the EU about becoming a member one day, that’s Turkey, Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia. The population of all those countries roughly adds up to 88 million, so, for Michael Gove to be right this would mean that all the citizens of these countries, every man woman and child would have to move to the UK, and it would also mean that (sic) the countries actually getting into the EU, which is not impossible, but it’s difficult.  The European Commission . . .

JH:       (speaking over) Especially with Turkey.

KA:     Especially with Turkey, but . . . for any of them, er, the European Commission has said there’ll be no new members in the EU until at least 2020, even then, erm, their membership would have to be approved by every single EU leader, by the European Parliament and by national parliaments. Every mem— every new member has to apply all EU current rules before they can join, that’s in 35 different policy areas, and you mentioned there Turkey, of course Turkey is the most controversial of the five, and the biggest, out of the 88 million, it’s 75 million.  And Turkey started its talks to join the EU ten years ago, in those 10 years it’s only managed to adopt EU rules on one area, that’s science and research.  Difficulty . . . well, we can look at human rights, we can look at limits on freedom of expression, the state of public administration and very key for the EU, Turkey has to recognise fellow EU member Cyprus, which it doesn’t. And then . . .

JH:       (speaking over) Alright . . .

KA:     . . . if we look at the politics of the EU these days, John, as well, we’ve got populist parties doing very well in many countries across the EU, fears of migration dominating politics, so no one really is trumpeting the case for Turkey’s membership at the moment.

JH:       Right, Katya, thank you for that. And our final question: 3 million jobs are linked to the European Union – this is according to David Cameron.  Simon Jack, our business editor, is that right?

SIMON JACK:           Yes.  But does that mean that 3 million jobs would go if we were to leave the European Union, er, absolutely not.  There are two pieces of work done on this, one was by the South Bank Institute, back in 2003, which said just over 3 million, there’s a new piece of work out last year by the Centre for Economic and Business Research, which puts it at over 4 million.  Now, obviously, those jobs are linked with the trade, no one assumes that the trade would disappear and go up in smoke the day we left, which then puts us into this rather vexed position of looking at what our trade would look like, and you may have heard of the Swiss model, the Norway model, the WTO, even the Albanian model.  But, the rule of thumb basically, is that the more independent the UK gets, the less access you get to some of the things that you actually want, that is the trade-off, so in the Swiss model, for example, banks are allowed to sell, you know, Swiss Banks stationed here can sell throughout the rest of Europe, they can’t sell from Switzerland, it’s a system called passporting. So we would see, potentially, some jobs go in The City. In a chat with the boss of Barclays the other day, he said, ‘Would this threaten London’s place as the pre-eminent financial centre – no.  Would it make life a bit more difficult – yes.’ So basically, 3 to 4 million jobs are associated with trade, not with our membership of the European Union, how m— . . . how many jobs would go depends on how much access you get and what model you think, er, which model would erode some of that trade, and that, of course a judgment where there aren’t any settled facts, and even the Albanian model that Michael Gove wanted, the Albanian Prime Minister thought, he thought it was a bit weird that the UK wanted that, so erm . . . I’m afraid the er . . . that was his very words, so I’m afraid the chat about the different models will continue when it comes to how many jobs are at risk.

JH:       And so will this debate, Simon, Katya, Mark and Kamal, thank you all very much, I think we can conclude that none, not one of those four claims have been stood up by our editors.  Kamal’s nodding at that so I’ll take that as approval.  Thank you all very much indeed, we may very well return to this over the weeks to come.

 

 

Photo by James Cridland

Referendum Blog: May 16

Referendum Blog: May 16

BBC BORIS BIAS:  Was Boris Johnson wrong to refer to Hitler in a point about the history of attempts to unite Europe? Was what he said as controversial as was projected? Senior Labour figures Hilary Benn and Yvette Cooper certainly thought his mention was below the belt, and so did several figures in the Conservative ‘remain’ camp such as Lord Soames.

The tone of the BBC’s coverage also suggested that there were problems in his approach.  He had sent ‘sparks flying’. This is what newsreader Clive Myrie said in the BBC1 News at Ten bulletin;

The prominent Vote Leave campaigner in June’s EU referendum, Boris Johnson, has compared what he claims is the ambition of some in Europe to create a single Superstate to the aims of Adolf Hitler.  In an article for a Sunday newspaper, he said both the Nazi leader and the EU, shared similar goals but today’s politicians were simply using different methods. The shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn who backs the Remain campaign said his comments were offensive and desperate.  Here’s our political correspondent Ben Wright.

BEN WRIGHT: It’s a time for hard hats. Boris Johnson rarely does subtle but his latest intervention in the referendum campaign has sent sparks flying. A leading Leave campaigner, Mr Johnson said the last 2,000 years of European history had seen doomed attempts to recreate the Roman Empire by trying to unify it – Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods, he said.

Wright also included opinion from Hilary Benn:

I think to try and compare what Hitler and the Nazis did, the millions of people who died, Holocaust, to the free democracies of Europe coming together to trade and cooperate, and in the process to help secure peace on the continent of Europe is frankly deeply offensive.

BW: Europe’s history and Britain’s place in it has become a battleground in this referendum. Glowering over Parliament is Churchill, whose own views on Europe are being pressed into service by both sides. And the past is being invoked to stir our emotions, our gut feelings, and that’s why Boris Johnson mentioned Churchill’s wartime enemy. But of course, this referendum is really about the future, the political and economic repercussions of staying in or leaving the EU. And today the governor of the Bank of England, who does not do interviews often, decided to repeat a warning he made last week.

MARK CARNEY Bank of England Governor: What our judgement is, as a risk, is that growth will be materially slower and inflation notably higher in event of a ‘Leave’.

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH MP Conservative Vote Leave: The Governor has strayed now into the expression of what is a simple, personal prediction. I don’t actually think that it is possible to say with any absolute accuracy that that will happen.

BW: Boris Johnson’s comments have whipped up a controversy this weekend. The Leave campaign knows that many big economic voices are sceptical of their case, but this referendum is about hearts as much as heads. Ben Wright, BBC News.

Wright thus two important claims based on his opinion as a BBC correspondent. First that Johnson was trying to stir up emotions and gut feelings ’and that is why he mentioned Churchill’s wartime enemy’; and second, that the leave campaign was trying to appeal to people’s hearts rather than their heads because they knew that ‘many economic voices are skeptical of their case’.

So what did Boris Johnson actually say that was so emotive and so calculated, according to Wright, to appeal also to people’s emotions?  In his interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Johnson actually said:

The whole thing began with the Roman Empire. I wrote a book on this subject, and I think it’s probably right. The truth is that the history of the last couple of thousand years has been broadly repeated attempts by various people or institutions – in a Freudian way – to rediscover the lost childhood of Europe, this golden age of peace and prosperity under the Romans, by trying to unify it. Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically.

The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods. But fundamentally what it is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void.

Points about this are:

  • Johnson’s remarks were based on his considered judgment as a historian who has studied and written about in depth European history.
  • Attempts to unify Europe by Napoleon and Hitler had ended in tragic failure,
  • The EU was also an attempt – by clearly different methods – to unify Europe, but it was also likely to ultimately fail because there was no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe, and there was no single authority that anyone respect6ed or understood.

What he did not say directly was that the EU and its operations are  ‘like Hitler’ or ‘like Napoleon’; his central assertion was rather that all attempts to achieve ‘European unity’ are ultimately doomed because there is no underlying allegiance to ’Europe’. Newsreader Myrie was this wrong and over-polarising in drawing the conclusion that Johnson had asserted that Hitler and the EU ‘had similar goals’. The Johnson claim was rather that the goal of ‘European unity’ was unattainable, whoever tried to achieve it, and it was based on false illusions about ancient Rome.  Ben Wright missed completely from his analysis the key point that ‘there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe’ and thus misled viewers.

The BBC did include in the sequence comments from Jacob Rees Mogg:

Boris was making a carefully calibrated comparison. And all these figures, Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV of France, Napoleon and Hitler were all trying to create a United States of Europe, though admittedly they wanted to do it by force whilst the EU is doing it by stealth.

The issue here is that the ‘remain’ side pounced on the Johnson remarks to suggest the Leave side was desperately trying to evoke comparisons to Hitler in order to discredit the EU. The BBC seemed to be too eager in its flagship bulletin to jump on the same bandwagon and constructed a report which seemed to be deliberately calculated to exaggerate the evocation of Hitler’s name.

Interestingly, earlier in the day, Andrew Marr appeared on his BBC1 show to strike a very different approach. In the newspaper review, Julia Hartley-Brewer said:

‘This is being overplayed. He’s saying the European Union are looking towards a federal superstate, and various people have tried this: Napoleon, Hitler…of course Hitler is the mention everyone gets, but what he is saying is true.’

Marr responded:

‘It’s much more nuanced than the headline suggests. I’m not normally one to say ‘Boris is very, very nuanced’ but he’s very careful. He specifically says ‘I’m not saying the EU people are like Hitler.’ He’s saying, ‘Again and again and again we’ve tried to have a united Europe and every single time it’s ended in tears’.

Actually, Marr also got what Johnson actually said wrong. He missed the key point about a lack of underlying loyalty. But the overall observation that his statement was ‘more nuanced’ than the headlines suggested was spot on.

 

Photo by BackBoris2012