Sunday 8 November 2015

EU Referendum: Leave.EU Gets It Wrong Again.

My previous post about Leave.EU's ill-advised tweet regarding Guy Fawkes suggesting they were advocating murder attracted some criticism not least from commenter AndrewZ who noted:
You will only damage your own credibility with that kind of hyperbole.
My comment in response outlined the danger to the leave movement when it makes such comments:
People's true feelings are often expressed using humour. We remember the 10:10 video campaign which featured people being blown up. They said it was a joke but Franny Armstrong's subsequent comments showed she clearly meant it.
More importantly though, the EU referendum has a huge number of vested interests riding on it. Therefore when we enter the campaign proper (particularly if polls show a strong leave vote) then the fight will be very dirty.
The leave.eu is going for official designation and if it wins it will come under sustained and vigorous attack. -no-holds barred. If it produces tweets like that then they will be condemned across the establishment in precisely the language I have used above.
Dismissing it as silly is no excuse, there's going to be no prisoners taken during this fight and the criticism leave.eu will face with tweets will leave this blog piece looking mild by comparison.
It's a warning to Banks' of what he can expect
And so it proves on Remembrance Sunday again resulting from a tweet posted by Leave.EU:
Campaigners who want Britain to leave the European Union sparked a furious row today after using Remembrance Day poppies to attack Brussels.

Organisers of the Leave.EU campaign were branded 'shameful', 'disgraceful' and 'disgusting' for posting a tweet which said suggested staying in the EU would 'give up values for which our ancestors paid the ultimate sacrifice'.

Critics said Remembrance Sunday should not be used to score political points before the tweet was deleted.
I didn't anticipate such evidence to back up my previous post would happen so soon.

And this is how a referendum will be played out - every misguided tweet will be highlighted, reported and taken out of context. Deleting said tweet by Leave.EU is an admission that it is portraying itself as a bunch of amateurs.

This referendum is going to be a brutal fight, yet both of the leave campaigns attempting to win official designation are showing a worrying lack of appreciation of this reality.

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