David Cameron appears to have made two concessions to his Eurosceptic backbenchers over the EU referendum. Firstly, the referendum vote won’t be next year. The decision against holding the vote in May 2016 was taken yesterday, against the will of some Downing Street advisers according to Newsnight’s Allegra Stratton. The signs coming from No.10 have been that the Prime Minister was keen to get the referendum out of the way as soon as possible — hence the desire to hold it on the same day as next year’s elections. Eurosceptics on the other hand have pointed out that rushing the referendum will make it harder for the Prime Minister to achieve substantive reforms, given the slow pace of change in Brussels.
However, confirming that the referendum won’t be held in May next year has as much to do with keeping Labour and the SNP happy as Tory Eurosceptics. Both parties have reasons for opposing a May 2016 referendum: Labour because it would interfere with the Mayoral and local elections and the SNP because it would clash with the Holyrood elections. They will both be campaigning hard for their own causes and the EU referendum would distract from this.
Secondly, there are signals that the government may give way on the lack of purdah during the referendum. This morning’s Daily Telegraph reports that Tory whips and Downing Street understand concerns about how the referendum could be delegitimised if the government machine aggressively backs the ‘In’ campaign. To keep Eurosceptics at bay, the government will reportedly promise limits on the use of public funds. As we reported on Coffee House recently, concerns about purdah will become increasingly vocal as the Referendum Bill reaches the committee stages.
The government may believe it has the right to ‘sell’ the deal it has collectively renegotiated but scrapping purdah will go against the Electoral Commission’s recommendations — they believe it should be in place for the whole period of referendum campaigning, not just the final 28 years. It’s worth noting as well that purdah regulations were put in place following the 2000 Neill Committee Report on Standards in Public Life, which included the following recommendation:
‘the government of the day in future referendums should, as a government, remain neutral and should not distribute at public expense literature, even purportedly ‘factual’ literature, setting out or otherwise promoting its case’
At that time, the then-shadow leader of the House George Young backed the Neill committee’s recommendations and warned the Labour government of the day not to tinker with them. When considering what to do over purdah, the Tories would do well to heed Young and Neill’s advice.
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