EU referendum: cue dramatic headlines

Monday’s Daily Mail front page

Whatever the papers say, it is very likely the ‘Scottish referendum effect’ will come into play and produce a vote for the status quo, writes Raymond Snoddy.

National newspapers will find it difficult to cover the EU referendum campaign fairly – even the ones who want to try, and that obviously doesn’t include everyone.

As we found out to a limited degree in the Scottish referendum campaign, those trying to overthrow the status quo not only have the best tunes but can generate the most dramatic headlines.

There is nothing harder to do than defend the present with all its obvious imperfections against futuristic day dreams. The plain old vanilla present is always going to sound boring by comparison. Try to emphasise doubts about the future and the defenders of the status quo are denounced in the papers for “scaremongering.”

In the case of Scotland it would have been entertaining to see how an independent Scotland would have dealt with the scare stories that particular levels of oil price could not be relied on in future.

With much bigger fish to fry in the EU referendum there are already piles of evidence that the more xenophobic members of the press have already made up their mind and most of the rest are in thrall to the drama of the No campaign and the dramatic personalities who have sometimes belatedly hitched themselves to the bandwagon.

There was near universal press condemnation of the “deal” that Prime Minister David Cameron brought back from his English Dinner in Brussels. When compared with the high but utterly unrealistic expectations he himself created with his Bloomberg speech, perhaps he deserved much of what he got from the press – the “bucket of shit” former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie promised to pour over Cameron’s Conservative predecessor John Major.

But what the universal ire has managed to obscure is the two significant concessions Cameron did wring out of Brussels – protection from being dragged into further moves towards a single federal state and protection for the City of London. Payments to the children of migrant workers not living in the UK was fudged, as it was destined to be, and was anyway little more than symbolic in the greater scheme of things.

The most dramatic evidence of the press being doomed to being led by the nose came with the carefully orchestrated announcement by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

When he joined the Brexit camp of ministers – deeply unimpressive with the exception of Justice Secretary Michael Gove – Boris was on every front page with a picture, the drama and the news value being enhanced by the mayor’s apparent inability to make up his mind.

Boris is a character and Boris is news, even if there is often more froth than substance to his views. So Boris got his publicity even from those newspapers who will probably end up supporting UK membership of the European Union and naturally broadcasters followed suit.

You would need to be an expert Kremlinologist to work out exactly why Boris has jumped the way he has into alignment with Nigel Farage, gorgeous George Galloway and Culture Secretary John Whittingdale.

Boris has been accused by some papers of taking his decision with an eye to succeeding David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party. If so, he has got it wrong and is perhaps better at garnering headlines than votes.

It is more than possible that his is a romantic, uncynical decision that will nonetheless expose his lack of political judgement and tie him to the losing side – missing the chance of high office as a result.

With public opinion so divided and so many complex matters to access, it ought to be a glorious opportunity for newspapers over the next few months to make a valuable contribution to a vital debate. Not all will rise to the occasion.

You can be sure that the Daily Express and the Daily Mail will be little more than cheerleaders for exit.

It was of the then proprietors of those two newspapers that Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was speaking in 1931 when he said they wanted power and “power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot through the ages.”

The Sun will be more than tempted to have a populist go at the wickedness of the unelected Brussels Commission but might well pull back from an Out vote just as it did in the case of the Scottish referendum.

Above all else Rupert Murdoch likes to be on the winning side – and he has business interests in both Germany and Italy these days.

The Daily Telegraph is already firmly in the exit camp while The Times will be much more objective and could easily come to a balanced view on remaining in the EU.

From now until 23 June the national press has an opportunity to behave in a statesmanlike manner. If they can’t manage that they should at least remind their readers that 47 per cent of UK exports go to EU countries and that the UK attracts the largest proportion of inward investment to the EU – for a reason.