Unleashing Demons

by Craig Oliver

  Much of that immigration is good. But we have had too much of a good thing.

  I am also clear that trashing our economy is no way to deal with immigration

  and given a straight choice between our economy and controlling immigration, I believe we should choose our economy. It is the foundation of everything from jobs to opportunity.

  But I no longer believe there should be that straight choice.

  We should vote to remain in the EU AND impose limits on immigration. I will do that by x, y and z …

  I know this is tough and rough and some is unworkable … but is there something in this? Of course there are downsides – and maybe we just need to hold our nerve, but a lot of people feel they are being confronted by an unfair choice.

  I decide not to send it tonight – and go back to bed. Five minutes later I am still wide awake, I sit up and press send.

  I wake up to a series of texts sent late at night. They are summed up by this one from Robert Peston: ‘Can you do anything to regain the initiative?’

  DC responds to my late-night email: ‘Spot on. Always been my worry. We shouldn’t be asking people to choose between immigration levels they don’t want and an EU they don’t love.’

  I show this exchange to Will Straw, who says he completely agrees – there is a huge amount of anecdotal evidence that we are in trouble on the doorstep.

  I feel I am on a journey on this – as I jump on the Tube to Westminster, three hours after my day has started.

  It’s packed with commuters. I try to think my way through this. This is where I get to:

  Is this real? It’s definitely the case there has been a shift to Leave, but has it been decisive?

  If it is real, in the sense that they are riding a wave that is in danger of taking them over the line, do we make a grand gesture or do we hold our nerve?

  If we do that people will say we have panicked.

  Can we have credible voices from Europe who will support us if we do? And if we do, will anyone believe that they are any more than panicked sailors urging us to join them on a sinking ship?

  I talk this through with Ameet and Graeme at my table in my No. 10 office. Both are worried and think we should not do anything rash. Ameet says one of our biggest issues has been the idea that they need us more than we need them. This has the danger of making it look like only when the British people held their feet to the fire were they prepared to listen – and so we should vote out to get more.

  For Graeme it’s simple. A big promise now simply won’t look credible.

  There’s a brief 8.30 meeting at Downing Street. As I walk through, I run into a series of ministers, including Patrick McLoughlin, Anna Soubry and Sajid Javid, all of whom have turned up for a non-existent political cabinet. They are all clearly on hot bricks. Anna is saying how bad it is on the doorstep. Sajid thinks we’ll be all right.

  I go through for a meeting with the PM, George, Ed and Kate. DC isn’t quite ready for us. I slump down on the sofa outside his office next to George, who is sniggering as he looks through a piece on his phone. It’s by Matthew Parris and has six reasons to vote Remain. His final one is the personality of those supporting Leave:

  Michael Gove is someone you’ll not hear a word against, because we all like him, respect his intelligence and believe him to be a fundamentally good man. But when he grows eloquent, I cannot quite banish from my nostrils the smell of burning witches. These people do not make a government. There are too many there that you’d want for your lively dinner party, but would hesitate to leave in charge of your goldfish.

  George and I are unable to stop laughing.

  Inside the meeting, DC reads out the email I sent him last night. I then feel bad putting the other side of the argument: we’d need to be damn sure we have rock-solid support in Europe if we go forward, and the likelihood has to be that we won’t.

  DC laughs and says, ‘This is evidence that you can be very persuasive whichever side you argue.’ I think it’s meant as a compliment. I feel trapped – understanding the need for radical surgery, but now thinking it might kill the patient.

  There’s some discussion about saying that freedom of movement would be on the agenda at the first European Council meeting after the referendum. This sounds like a total non-starter – ‘Don’t worry guys, we’re going to have a chat about it after you vote!’ There is zero credibility in that option.

  We come to the conclusion that we should not throw everything up in the air. Instead, we should make sure we have several moments where the PM levels with the nation – ‘We are on the verge of making a catastrophic mistake, where the future of your family is at stake. Don’t risk it.’

  All the way through this we have held to one core belief: telling people they will be poorer if they leave the EU trumps controlling immigration. Late in the day, none of us are quite so sure of that any more, particularly when people are being told they can control immigration and improve public services. But after walking through the arguments, it’s evident we can’t shift now.

  A call has been set up with Angela Merkel. It now seems pointless. The idea was to test the water with her to see if we can agree to make plain that much more will be done on immigration, but as the time approaches, we realise it’s a fool’s errand. Even supposing a magical plan can be set in train – and it certainly isn’t – it will look desperate.

  Angela Merkel comes on the line. DC explains the situation and that he has now decided this is not the moment to ask for more – though it will obviously need to be revisited if we win.

  Chapter 28

  Nigel, You’re No Fisherman’s Friend

  BY WEDNESDAY 15 June I feel certain: whatever the outcome of the referendum – we’ll be out of No. 10 quite quickly. I don’t see how the PM can survive.

  I mention this to Kate Fall, who doesn’t even blink. ‘Oh, yes … this is the burning of Moscow stage.’

  DC disagrees – he is sure that we will be able to steady the ship and continue. A win, combined with a strong will, is going to see us through.

  George is doing his emergency budget today – it’s already top of the news and it is very specific. It warns that he’ll have to increase income tax by 2p and reduce spending on the NHS.

  He talks it through on the early call – explaining the pressures he will face, with questions like, ‘You passed a law saying you wouldn’t raise tax … you made a series of promises based on an economic plan … why are you breaking that?’

  His answer is that ‘I made those promises on the basis of a properly planned economy – not the idea we’d back Brexit … and my role as Chancellor is to warn about risk.’

  The phone rings as soon as I’ve hung up. This time it’s Norman Smith asking if I have seen the letter from fifty Tory MPs saying they would refuse to support any such budget. It’s a clever response – it drags it into a blue-on-blue process row.

  My phone lights up on the way to the Tube. This is catnip to hacks – the Chancellor being told his job would be untenable in the event that he suggested such a budget.

  As I am walking down Devonshire Road in the early morning sunshine, I call George. He hasn’t yet heard about the letter. I say he needs to emphasise the point that someone would have to deal with the massive black hole that the IFS say would exist. He says OK, but I can hear that he’s taken aback. Thinking about it, it feels more and more that he’s acting like he is prepared to sacrifice himself. He’s forced it back onto the economy, but at what personal cost? And nagging at the back of my mind is this question: has this misfired? Should we have been so specific – suggesting such horrific solutions? Could he not have had more impact with less, simply saying there’s going to have to be an emergency budget, and none of the options are palatable?

  At the 8.30 meeting, the Chief Whip and Gavin Williamson are both worried, knowing there will be blood come what may. All of us can see the emergency budget news is going down like a cup of cold sick with MPs.

  Later that morning
, as I arrive in DC’s Commons office, he’s obviously concerned PMQs will be a bit of a nightmare, with Conservative MPs waiting to stick the knife in over what’s being called George’s ‘punishment budget’.

  My old friend, Oliver Dowden, now an MP, is sitting opposite me. He says, ‘The MPs have gone “potty pots” about it!’ He has a wonderfully nursery-school way of putting things, which makes everything seem even more absurd.

  As we are talking, the daily tracker comes through. It puts us on 52.7 against 47.3 for Leave. That counts as good news at the moment.

  DC is antsy – he doesn’t really see the point in having practice questions fired at him and decides to go down to the Commons to ‘soak up the atmosphere’.

  Corbyn is surprisingly helpful in his approach – pointing out how repugnantly disingenuous the Leavers are being by claiming to be on the side of working people and the NHS. It doesn’t really matter. The whole of Westminster is focused on something going on outside the chamber. Nigel Farage is on the Thames with his flotilla of fishermen complaining about the EU, while being comprehensively trolled by Bob Geldof shouting, ‘Nigel – you are no fisherman’s friend.’ Geldof has the advantage, because he brought a PA system. Farage is clearly incensed.

  I look back at the TV covering PMQs and think: if someone had told us two years ago we’d be in a position where Corbyn and the SNP’s Angus Robertson would be supporting us while our MPs remained silent – and Bob Geldof was screaming abuse at Nigel Farage on the Thames …

  How did it come to be this surreal, through-the-looking-glass, topsy-turvy madness?

  I get back to Stronger In in time to watch the six o’clock news. Completely against my advice, Theresa May has done an interview with Laura Kuenssberg. Whether it’s by accident or design, she has reopened the debate about if we need to do more about freedom of movement.

  I find the interview frustrating – it’s not clear what point is being made. It would be better if she had stuck to her submarine strategy.

  The calls start to flood in. I do my best to smooth it over with Francis Elliott. But it’s clear he is having none of it. I am short with him. You know we aren’t reopening this before the referendum – you know this wasn’t a deliberate attempt to do that. Talk to the Home Office.

  I call Liz Sanderson, who is one of Theresa’s SpAds. It seems to be news to her that this is starting to spin badly out of control, with the Home Secretary and Chancellor looking at odds. I ask her to get on it.

  I call the BBC and ask them to change their online page, which headlines a stark statement that doesn’t really reflect her view. They agree. But the genie is out of the bottle.

  Next up is Peter Dominiczak of the Telegraph, eager to compare her words to George’s earlier, which the Home Secretary seems to contradict.

  I call one of the Home Office’s senior civil servants, focused on media, and point out an intervention that I was told was meant to be helpful is having the opposite effect. He keeps telling me he cannot be fired for acting in this, when he supposed to be an impartial civil servant. I tell him bluntly that what I am asking of him as a grown-up at the Home Office is to recognise there is a problem here and get someone to deal with it.

  It’s all happening while Gove is on Question Time. Adam Atashzai is marching up and down the office shouting things for people to tweet. I intervene at one point – Gove’s just said there will be ‘bumps in the road’ if we leave, we need to hammer him on that.

  I feel knackered. We are being knocked about by indiscipline from all sides in this ramshackle coalition. More to the point – I am worried by the extent to which Gove and Leave are running an anti-expert, anti-establishment, anti-sense strategy that is gaining traction.

  As I go to bed, Graeme texts me the results of the Ipsos MORI poll that is to come out tomorrow and in the Evening Standard: ‘Usual terms: Standard poll – Leave 53, Remain 47.’

  This is very bad news.

  One of the key points of comfort – in the general, confusing muddle of different voting poll numbers – had been the fact that phone polls, which we believed to be more accurate, had consistently shown us in the lead.

  Thursday 16 June begins with a pre-6 a.m. call from James Chapman, George’s director of communications. It’s a cri de coeur. The BBC is leading on IDS, Nigel Lawson, Michael Howard and Norman Lamont criticising the Treasury and the Bank of England for ‘peddling phoney forecasts’ to scare people into voting to stay in the EU.

  The BBC seems to be just running it straight. Have they stopped to deconstruct what is going on here? It’s being claimed that our central bank, set up to ensure economic stability, is part of a conspiracy to keep us in the EU regardless of the harm it causes to the people of this country. I find myself questioning if I really understand what is and isn’t acceptable any more. Surely the BBC should be properly taking this to task in their bulletins, running the story as outrage at such an irresponsible claim?

  James wants us to make it as uncomfortable for them as they are for us, saying, ‘George really went for it yesterday – and win or lose, he’s going to have to live with this for years.’ I agree.

  I call the PM, having drafted some tweets. I suggest, ‘It’s deeply concerning that the Leave campaign is criticising the independent Bank of England,’ and, ‘We should listen to experts when they warn us of the danger to our economy of leaving the European Union.’

  The Standard poll drops, and you can almost hear the Westminster village take a sharp intake of breath. Ben Page, the chief executive of Ipsos MORI, is tweeting that the reason for the huge swing is purely and simply down to immigration.

  There’s a small group meeting with the PM. I’ve just heard it’s been confirmed that Corbyn is replacing Alan Johnson on Marr this weekend. Stephen says, ‘It’ll be a rough ride and we will all be sitting on the edge of our sofas,’ but we agree it’s probably the right thing to do.

  At the end of the meeting, we hear about some more of Jim Messina’s modelling. He reckons it is currently 51–49 to us.

  I have a fifteen-minute break before the PM does an interview with the Sunday Times. I’ve talked DC through what I suggest he should say and I decide to write it out, instead of print it, because I can’t use No. 10 computers for campaigning:

  Make a big deal of ‘there is no turning back’ if we decide to leave. It’s final. Make clear that getting this point across is ‘mission critical’ to the final days of this campaign. We are talking to people who don’t realise it is final.

  Make a meal of your ‘deep concern’ about how experts are being trashed. If a mechanic said to you, ‘I wouldn’t go on the motorway with my family in that car – the brakes are faulty and it’s leaking oil,’ you wouldn’t do it. So why don’t we listen to the ‘independent experts’ who tell us jobs are at risk, prices will rise, the economy will shrink, putting pressure on public services?

  Key message – tell him, ‘It’s your family’s future. Don’t risk it.’

  I place the hand-written piece of paper on his desk and run my fingers along my words saying them aloud in case he cannot read my handwriting.

  He picks up the piece of paper and places it beside him, as Tim Shipman comes in with a photographer. DC is very ‘hail fellow, well met’ with him, talking about his wife, who is now a key member of the events team, despite having been furious about last week’s front-page splash, claiming there’s a secret plan to let a million Turks into the UK.

  DC goes for it in the interview. The most telling moment is when he specifically names Gove for his ‘bumps in the road’ comment and does a riff – ‘Lost jobs, a bump in the road. Bang! Higher prices? Bang! Another bump.’

  Almost as soon as we are done, we go on to a call with Martin Ivens. We’ve heard the Sunday Times is on a knife edge as far as which way it’ll declare – Remain or Leave.

  DC has a go, but Ivens is cagey. Instead of making clear which way he’ll jump, he asks, ‘What are the messages out of Berlin?’ It seems an odd question. I
think he’ll do a massively equivocal editorial, but who knows on which side of the line it will fall.

  Back at Stronger In we discuss what our best approach is in the dying days. Ryan is clearly wound up by what we’re dealing with. He looks at me and says with real despair, ‘A revolution of idiocy is happening across the Western world and it’s landing in Britain on Thursday.’

  The office is crowded round the monitor above my desk to watch the England vs Wales match in Euro 2016 and I go for a coffee with Lucy Thomas to wake myself up and get some space.

  As I’m ordering, Lucy gets a call from Simon Darvill, who is our youth coordinator. He’s heard that Jo Cox has been stabbed at a Leave rally. We pause for a moment in shock. It’s curious that she would have been at a Leave rally, but coming from a news background, I’ve learned to be cautious about first reports and head back to the office to see if we can find out more.

  It looks as if there will be nothing but uncertainty for a while. I feel physically sick – the combination of this news and the campaign catching up with me makes me feel that if I don’t lie down soon, something bad will happen. I walk back up the road towards the flat I’ve been allowed to use. Sir Alan Parker, the chairman of Brunswick, calls for a general chat about the campaign. As I talk to him, I lie down on the bed. My other phone is going wild.

  I don’t want to be rude, but I really need to attend to this.

  It’s more news on Jo Cox. The Labour party has decided to suspend campaigning. Will wants us to do that, too. The PM is on a plane to Gibraltar, where he is due to talk to a few thousand people. I want to be able to have the conversation with him, because he’s going to have to turn the plane round. But I realise that’s not going to work – and I agree there should be no more from the campaign.

  I drag myself up and walk back down to the office.

  There is a conference call as the PM lands in Gibraltar. We are brought up to speed with the latest. Jo Cox has died. It will be announced when the family has had a chance to deal with the news. The police are making raids.