While Corbyn dominates the news, a couple of other campaigns are quietly grouping: those who want us to say “yes” or “no” to the EU. This autumn the long campaigns begin in earnest. While planning their strategies, both sides should consider the story of antibiotic resistance. It contains parallels with Britain’s increasingly febrile public debate.
Penicillin, cephalexin, tetracycline— weapons so rampantly and sloppily overused that they are losing their power. The germs are resisting. The returns are diminishing.
Hyperbole, fear, outrage, offence — weapons so rampantly and sloppily overused that they are losing their power. The people are resisting. The returns are diminishing.
Hyperbole is the weapon heroically overused by the anti-austerity mob, who have been warning for years that public spending at 2003 levels would mean the end of the NHS, civilisation, life as we know it. Five years ago their prophecies had some power, but now, tested against reality, the returns have diminished. By going over the top they lost the ear of mainstream Britain. Polling conducted for Labour after the election showed that anti-austerity was a turn-off for voters. As Jon Cruddas, MP, put it “anti-austerity is a vote loser” — perhaps in part because of the ludicrous hyperbole it is habitually dressed in.
Fear is the weapon directed against Jeremy Corbyn; fear of Labour annihilation. David Miliband warns of a Tory imperium, a “one-governing-party state”. Alastair Campbell says Labour risks “driving itself off a cliff”. Blair, Kinnock and Brown swing the great clunking fist of fear. Will the sky really fall in? No. Corbyn will probably be ousted fairly quickly, a footnote in a future politics textbook. But for now, every time Labour “moderates” immoderately stoke fear, more supporters are driven into his camp. Tired of the hectoring and bullying, they are rebelling against Project Fear.
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Outrage was the weapon blasted at the BBC for filming Songs of Praise in the migrant camp at Calais. Tabloids fulminated at “hymnigrants”. MPs attacked the BBC’s temerity. One even demanded the show be axed. Furious, Trump-strength outrage — and at what? Desperate people singing in a rickety tarpaulin church. Again, going over the top has undermined the wider argument, tarnishing those asking reasonable questions about the difference between genuine asylum seekers and economic migrants.
Offence (taking), is the weapon overused by the militant feminist tendency. No slight is too trivial. There are storms about pink-wrapped Kinder eggs or an African advert for pens. When everything registers high on the Richter scale of offence, public sympathy wears thin. Look at the case of Sir Tim Hunt, the story that refused to die. And why? Because it touched a nerve, marking the moment the quiet majority ran out of patience with over-sensitive feminism.
As bacteria have started to resist the power of antibiotics, so we have started to resist the power of the shrill, the shouty, the hyperbolic. These tactics aren’t shocking people into changing their minds; at least not in the way intended.
JG Ballard talked about the death of sensation — the public’s nerve endings deadened by a modern diet of porn, violence and constant media — and this feels like the death of reaction, our response to these shrieking hyenas deadened through over-stimulation. We are over-loaded, over-tired, over it. If people bark at us to jump one way, we are increasingly likely to jump the other.
There are lessons here for campaigners in the European referendum debate: show restraint; speak reasonably; use your big guns and starkest rhetoric sparingly.
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It will be sorely tempting for the “yes” camp to dramatise the risks of Brexit: to warn of a jobs apocalypse, with tumbleweed blowing through manufacturing plants and Little Britain shivering in the geopolitical wilderness. We can imagine a series of grim-faced business people warning of disaster, Treasury dossiers lending credibility to theories of risk.
Such tactics would be understandable. Resentment of the EU runs deep and bitter. The Yes campaign might calculate that the only way to beat this is with the stronger weapon of fear: cling to nurse for fear of something worse.
This would be a mistake. It’s not just that the “yes” camp has an embarrassing record when it comes to predicting disaster (Peter Mandelson warning that not joining the euro meant “economic isolation”, for instance) — it’s a question of tone.
The central danger for the “yes” camp is in looking like a gilded, status-quo loving establishment, which is telling the little people what to do. Stoking fear will play into that perception. It will irritate. If vast swathes of waverers feel bullied into accepting the devil they know, many will rebel and vote “no”.
Far better for the Yes campaign to strike a reasonable tone and acknowledge that Brexit would not be a disaster. The UK is one of the top five trading nations in the world. We have a growing trade surplus outside the EU. It is not cuckoo economics to think we can make a success of life after EU membership.
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Their position must be the nuanced, generous one that while it might be perfectly possible for Britain to thrive outside the EU, the brighter future lies within.
It will be even more important for the No campaign to choose the path of moderation over fulmination.
Some might argue that with recent polling showing “no” trailing “yes” by 12 points, the Eurosceptics need a campaign of high outrage: outrage at free movement, outrage at bureaucracy, outrage at Juncker & Co, outrage at the yoke of Brussels oppression. Whip up a wave of public anger and ride it to victory.
But given that the No campaign’s central difficulty is being the untried, risky option, such an approach would be wrong. Its job is to take the edge off that leap into the unknown by being all calm, sweet reason and logic.
The sidelining of Nigel Farage suggests the “no” camp gets this. Though few beat him on charisma, he is seen as too angry, too much. It’s not a John Bull they need but a John (or Jane) Doe — anonymous, anodyne. Campaign insiders admit that whoever leads the fight might be someone most have never heard of, and they see this as a virtue.
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We are still just at the beginning of a marathon national debate. So let’s hope — for their sake and ours — that campaigners leave hyperbole, fear, outrage and offence at the starting blocks. Ultimately, slow and steady will win the race.