Firm EU action on multinational tax scandals could help the In campaign

Jonathan Lindsell, 21 October 2015

I wrote last week that, following the Stronger In launch and appointment of Lord Rose as leader, the EU In campaign ran a serious risk of coming across as elitist, blinkered, focussed almost entirely on business economics. This worryingly implied important issues would be ignored: voters could find the river of trade statistics and investment data overwhelming or off-putting, important debate swamped in dry numbers. (The same is a danger for Out.)

Three developments this week could help the pro-EU side shed this image.

Firstly, the In campaign explicitly told the European commission not to get involved in the British referendum. A British employee of the commission, Jonathan Faull, will vet Brussels’ messages and even stop commissioners visiting during the campaign.  An official told Politico.eu they accepted their intervention would be ‘counterproductive… It’ll be incredibly sensitive for anybody with an EU salary to involve themselves in the U.K. debate.’ The source said the commission may play a small role mythbusting, ‘But at the end of the day, the British don’t like to be told what not to do.’

This is a vital tactical revelation for the In side. Commission money, really any European involvement, is unhelpful for those supporting In. This is why we have heard, and will hear, allegations that pro-EU groups and institutions receive EU funding.

The second change is the intervention of Alan Johnson, former home secretary and now leader of Labour In For Britain. Johnson spoke at Chatham House last night, presenting a pro-EU case targeted at the ordinary Briton, not the business owner. His arguments were nothing new asides a celebration of EU labour law but his delivery – recalling his history as a postman living in council housing, his government experiences of EU cooperation thwarting crime – was more compelling than that of Rose.

The Out campaign has, for the last few months, poked fun at established EU supporters by lambasting their early-2000s support for the euro currency and declaring ‘Wrong then, wrong now’. Johnson upturned this recalling the 1975 Out campaign’s bizarre predictions. That the EU would become ‘one single country in which Britain would be reduced to a mere province’ looks absurd, and allowed Johnson to turn the charge of scaremonger against Brexit supporters.

The third boost to In is the Commission’s action against corporate tax avoidance. Today Margrethe Vestager ruled Fiat and Starbucks must pay €20-30m as their tax deals were ruled illegal. More rulings on Amazon and Apple will come next week. This signals that Brussels is not an uncritical vehicle for big business, that it wants corporations to pay their fair share of tax and play by the rules – rhetoric reminiscent of David Cameron lambasting Starbucks’ tax arrangement in 2013.

Can the Out campaigns respond with messages that resonate with the voter on the street? They certainly have opportunities: the refugees at Britain’s Cyprus air base, and the release today of CBI research which plays right into their hands, lauding EU rules and immigration for profit-driven reasons.