{"id":237,"date":"2016-02-23T14:12:06","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T14:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.edgehill.ac.uk\/comment\/?p=237"},"modified":"2016-02-23T14:51:38","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T14:51:38","slug":"eu-referendum-campaign-should-we-stay-or-should-we-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edgehill.ac.uk\/comment\/2016\/02\/23\/eu-referendum-campaign-should-we-stay-or-should-we-go\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Referendum Campaign – Should we stay or should we go?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

If there\u2019s one book you\u2019ll find on most politicians\u2019 bookshelves it\u2019s Drew Westen\u2019s The Political Brain<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 This 2007 work said that facts and logical arguments are not enough in political communication.\u00a0 Even those who are hyper-logical make emotion-based decisions.\u00a0 And if politicians or campaigns speak to feelings, they are more likely to succeed.\u00a0 Think back to Gordon Brown\u2019s often statistic-laden statements and contrast with Tony Blair\u2019s emotional, but often fact-free passages.\u00a0 It\u2019s clear which cut through to the audience.<\/p>\n

With this in mind I have looked at\u00a0 communications by both sides in the debate around Europe.\u00a0 Should we stay or should we go?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is an area of contested fact and we\u2019ve already seen a blizzard of arguments. But as the referendum date (23 June) is now known, it\u2019s useful to see how both sides\u2019 comms are shaping up.<\/p>\n

There is more than one group on each side.\u00a0\u00a0 The Electoral Commission<\/a> will make two of these \u201cofficial\u201d shortly. But we don\u2019t need to look at every single campaign group to get a sense of what strategies are being pursued<\/p>\n

Britain Stronger in Europe<\/a> looks set to be the official Remain group.\u00a0 BSE (slightly unfortunate choice of initials) has already attracted an impressive list of supporters.\u00a0 Field operations (that\u2019s handing out leaflets and knocking on doors to you and me) have started.\u00a0 But the front window currently is the website.\u00a0 So what sense of communication and messaging does this give us?<\/p>\n

The first thing that sprung to mind when I looked at www.strongerin.org<\/a> was British Airways!\u00a0 It feels very corporate (unlike my sense of what an active campaign normally looks like). The slogan, that Britain will be Stronger, Safer and Better Off, if we stay in Europe, is prominent and repeated.\u00a0 Front page material included (on Sunday 21st<\/sup> Feb) two \u201cself-interest\u201d type messages and two attacks on, or challenges to, the opposing camp.\u00a0 A sign-up form for potential supporters is given much space.<\/p>\n

Some key components of active campaigning are missing here.\u00a0 As of 12 noon on Sunday 21st<\/sup>, the website was reporting that the organisation hoped \u201cto see the completion of the Prime Minister\u2019s renegotiation package shortly\u201d. Now I know that this is from a press release issued a few days earlier but given that David Cameron\u2019s announcement came on the Friday night, the lack of a speedy update or editing job should concern campaign managers.<\/p>\n

The attack material consists of a challenge to the other side to spell out the likely outcomes if Britain withdraws from the EU and an \u201caha we got you\u201d type release reporting statements by prominent Brexit supporters.\u00a0 This second piece focuses on whether Britain would be able to take part in the single market post-withdrawal. <\/a>\u00a0It\u2019s not a bad subject. In fact it\u2019s a very good and key subject.\u00a0 But here it\u2019s presented in an overly technical way in which the main message is somewhat lost. (I was itching to rewrite this!)<\/p>\n

As a reader, I didn\u2019t feel emotionally engaged by the messages on this site.\u00a0 It felt very safe, almost uncommitted in parts.\u00a0 Someone already supporting the Remain message would find helpful material, but a neutral reader would, I suspect, stay neutral.<\/p>\n

On the Brexit side we have Vote Leave<\/a> and this campaign was quicker to react to the Cameron announcement. In fact its press release is timed 10.01 pm on 20 Feb which is a whole minute or so after David Cameron\u2019s announcement started!\u00a0\u00a0 Leave also had the Michael Gove<\/a> announcement lined up so was able to post a lot more news more quickly over the weekend. (Surprisingly, the Boris Johnson announcement<\/a> does not appear on the Leave front page or news section as of 22 February. This may be because he has yet to formally contact the campaign, or because of agreements with the Daily Telegraph<\/a>, for whom Boris writes a column).<\/p>\n

The first thing anyone visiting the\u00a0 Leave website sees is a sum of money, increasing\u00a0 roughly\u00a0 once a second, which is described as\u00a0 the UK\u2019s total contributions to the EU.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know the start point for this sum, but that niggle aside it is a very clear piece of communication. And is of course to be expected from a campaign run by a former head of the Tax Payers Alliance.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just money though.\u00a0 Frankly a message that is only about money won\u2019t cut through to emotions.\u00a0\u00a0 A short video about British \u201dheroes\u201d is clearly designed to reinforce pride in a distinct, shared identity.\u00a0 Winston Churchill\u2019s appearance was 100 percent expected, but we also see Emmeline Pankhurst and Alan Turing among the personalities featured.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s tempting to argue about inclusions or exclusions from material like this, but the existence of this video is significant for the messages this campaign clearly wants to communicate.<\/p>\n

Website names, the actual words that will appear on a url, can be key evidence of the core of a campaign\u2019s message.\u00a0 Vote Leave\u2019s name is not Vote Leave (which after all is about rejecting something) but Voteleavetakecontrol (a much stronger piece of messaging).\u00a0 How many of us, given the chance to take control rather than be told what to do, would turn that down?<\/p>\n

Vote Leave\u2019s website, like Stronger In, doesn\u2019t feel like an active campaigning website yet either.\u00a0 Both however are e mailing supporters and asking for activity on social media.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be looking at the communications by both sides over the next few weeks.\u00a0 I\u2019m interested in how the tone and content changes.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll be using Benoit\u2019s Functional Theory<\/a> of Political Communication to do some analysis.<\/p>\n

June 23rd<\/sup> will be a key date for our country.\u00a0 I hope the communications will help us all become engaged in the decision and cast our vote in an informed and committed way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

This post was originally published on the CIPR’s Influence<\/a> website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there\u2019s one book you\u2019ll find on most politicians\u2019 bookshelves it\u2019s Drew Westen\u2019s The Political Brain.\u00a0 This 2007 work said that facts and logical arguments are not enough in political communication.\u00a0 Even those who are hyper-logical make emotion-based decisions.\u00a0 And if politicians or campaigns speak to feelings, they are more likely to succeed.\u00a0 Think back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1269,"featured_media":240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1688],"tags":[32372,28741,32340,32374,32373],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-brexit","tag-campaigns","tag-politics","tag-public-relations","tag-referendum"],"yoast_head":"\nEU Referendum Campaign - Should we stay or should we go? - Comment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edgehill.ac.uk\/comment\/2016\/02\/23\/eu-referendum-campaign-should-we-stay-or-should-we-go\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EU Referendum Campaign - Should we stay or should we go? 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