One of the great pains of working in the media, is that what I often discuss is tied to the news cycle. As I write this, Andy Burnham has arrived in London, Wes Streeting has backed him for the Labour leadership and – to quote The Thick of It – everything has “all gone a bit J G Ballard.”
But despite the psychodrama happening in Westminster, today marks 10 years since the British public voted to leave the European Union. I feel that, whilst the public may well be fixated on Andy Burnham, I have a duty to discuss the impact of what is quite possibly the most significant political event in British history in the last 40 years. I hope that, as ConservativeHome readers, you agree – and find this interview rather fruitful.
It was early 2023 when I first encountered Matthew Elliott, now Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell. As a soon-to-be student at the London School of Economics, I wrote to him to ask for some advice on making the most out of my time at university.
“Come September” I said in my cold call message to him, “I will be studying at the LSE, and as someone who went there yourself, I wanted to ask what activities or societies you would recommend for me to build connections and experience in the political world”
“Depending on your political persuasions, I can recommend the Hayek Society. Not aware of any political comms / campaigning societies. Best of luck!”
Setting aside the cringe-inducing nature of my sixth form LinkedIn messages, I find myself having left the LSE – and having served as President of the very society he recommended – now interviewing Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell in preparation for the release of his new book, Brexit: Ten Years Later.
He invites me to the House of Lords on a rather pleasant day. Dressed in his signature navy suit and red tie, he guides me up to a small office, book in hand, and we begin.
There is something which is somewhat incongruous about his life’s trajectory. He grew up far from the corridors of Westminster, influence and politics. When he expressed interest in attending his local fee-paying school, his mother, he reflects in the book, “went back to work to pay for it.” Indeed, he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, which perhaps explains why the House of Lords still strikes him as strange. “It’s a huge contrast” he tells me. “It has been quite a journey from there to where I am now.”
It was not a journey he had planned, however. Asked whether, when growing up, he had any idea that he would end up as a Lord, having ran multiple, successful national referendums he answered very plainly: “No.” Though his passion for politics, he adds, was “instilled at an early age.”
When it comes to the book itself, some have interpreted it as an act of score-settling. As a means of getting back at those who Elliott perhaps felt had wronged him. But he is quick to shoot this idea down. “I hope people don’t read it like that. It’s meant to be a fair reflection of the leave campaign – the plusses and minuses of individuals, and the truth of what went on.”
Before any of that, though, before the red buses and the pasties of independence, there was the question of who would actually lead the official Leave campaign. The Electoral Commission had an important decision to make. To crown either Vote Leave, or Leave.EU – the rival outfit funded by Arron Banks.
Whilst he writes in the book that he was “always confident” that Vote Leave would “win the designation” he accepts that there were some quiet periods of anxiety and worry. When asked if he was ever concerned that Leave.EU could secure the designation, he replies directly. “Definitely.” Though, by the time of the official designation, he admits that much of that worry had faded.
He makes it clear that the Electoral Commission was looking for a group that “represents as wide a body as possible and is also competent to run a campaign.” On the latter point, he concedes that Leave.EU had a number of talented individuals who could run a campaign very effectively, just “not as well as us.”
On the point about breadth, Elliott points to Vote Leave’s strategy to secure as wide a base of support as possible. Securing the backing of groups such as GreenLeaves, LiberalLeaves and even fringe groups such as Vapers For Britain were all instrumental in demonstrating Vote Leave’s wide ranging appeal, and provided a “a very big reach, a tangible reach.”
But political alliances were also at play too. Here, Elliott offers a, “big, big hat tip” to Douglas Carswell, the former UKIP MP, for his decision to support Vote Leave. As a result of the internal mechanics of the Electoral Commission, Elliott notes that Carswell’s letter of support to Vote Leave “carried as much weight as the whole of the UKIP delegation in the European Parliament” and that without such support, the race for designation would have been significantly tighter.
Carswell, of course, was then estranged from Nigel Farage, and this tension would prove emblematic of the wider challenges Elliott faced throughout the campaign.
Indeed, Elliott acknowledges the difficulties of having Farage on his side, but not in his camp. “You have to deal with electorates, and electoral situations as they are” he says. In this particular instance, the electorate was broadly divided into thirds. Those who would vote leave no matter what, those who would vote remain come what may, and a group of undecided swing voters who were the real target of the campaign.
This particular group of voters was incredibly sensitive. They were sceptical of the EU, but “they didn’t want to feel that they were voting UKIP, or voting for Nigel Farage by voting leave.” It was because of this that big name establishment figures such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Gisela Stuart were so instrumental in Vote Leave’s wider appeal.
But, Farage, Elliott notes “was frustrating at times during the referendum.” In particular, he draws focus to the now infamous ‘Breaking Point’ poster, which Farage unveiled shortly before polling day. At a time when Vote Leave were trying to make people feel that they could “vote leave in a very positive way”, Farage’s “efforts with Breaking Point were undermining that.”
And yet, despite such frustrations and issues, Elliott still possesses a certain level of respect for the current leader of Reform UK. To dedicate one’s life to a sole political cause is something that “you have to admire” Elliott says, arguing that when it comes to the successes of the Eurosceptic movement more generally, that “Nigel Farage and UKIP deserve a role in that roster of glory.”
But one cannot talk about individuals within the Vote Leave campaign without discussing the elephant in the room – Dominic Cummings. The man who was immortalised on screen by Benedict Cumberbatch, Elliott offers an honest reflection of his impact on the campaign.
“If there is a single task at hand, that he believes in, that requires that sole focus for a definite period of time, he can ace it. There’s nobody better.” The campaign needed that certain level of oomph, and a willingness to attack Cameron and his record directly. Whilst other campaign directors may have been slightly more reserved about such an ask, Cummings “didn’t give two hoots what David Cameron thought.”
But campaigns also require the management of a coalition, of bringing together different stakeholders under one wide umbrella. It is here that Elliott identifies a drawback with Cummings’ approach.
Cummings, he writes, “felt he had a licence to say whatever he liked, whenever he liked” and that “there were frequent shouting matches” where, oftentimes “sparks flew”. Such a personality is difficult to manage in a campaign. “Was he [Cummings] able to pull together the wider coalition that basically got us the designation?” Elliott asks rhetorically. “No.”
It is not a criticism for the sake of criticism. Elliott recognises that in the campaign war room, Cummings was instrumental, but when it came to managing relationships outside of that, Vote Leave’s campaign director sometimes struggled.
As a key individual in the campaign too, Elliott himself has not escaped scrutiny. The Financial Times named him one of the “campaigning masterminds” alongside Cummings; and his former rival (now turned colleague) Nick Tyrone went further and called him an “evil genius.”
On the first label, he is unapologetic: “Yes, 100 per cent.” On the second, he chuckles before artfully dodging the question. “That’s for Nick to say.”
He is similarly unapologetic about the campaign’s most contested claims, though he frames his defences with some care. In the book, Elliott recognises the importance of two main arguments – the NHS, and Turkey. Indeed, the issue of Turkey was so instrumental to Vote Leave’s campaign strategy, that it was often joked that “every week is Turkey Week.”
When pushed on the fact that, 10 years later, Turkey is still not a member state of the EU, Elliott notes that it remains an accession candidate, and is regularly talked about in a positive light by higher-ups in the EU. “Regularly, you’ll get European Commissioners and indeed heads of government within the EU talking very favourable things about Turkey and welcoming the fact that it’s on the path to join the EU.” This, he says, is enough to vindicate Vote Leave. “We can only take them at their word.”
When it comes to the claim that leaving the EU would mean £350 million more per week for the NHS, Elliott is similarly steadfast in his defence of the figure. In the book, Elliott writes that Vote Leave “were careful not to explicitly say that all of the £350 million would be spent on the NHS” and that even within the Vote Leave camp, there were disagreements on whether to use the net figure or gross figure, whether to include the rebate and much more. Other figures from the Leave side, such as Richard Tice, emailed senior members of the Vote Leave team saying that “most of the campaign appears to be based around £350m a week to spend on the NHS… the wrong number on the wrong thing.”
But Elliott rejects the accusations of dishonesty that are often levied against him and the Vote Leave campaign on this matter. “By 2019” he tells me, “the NHS was getting an additional £350 million a year” which I found to be a somewhat odd rebuttal given that we hadn’t left the EU by 2019, but alas. When pressed on whether he contributed, in part, to deceiving the electorate with such claims, Elliott puts it bluntly to me – “I think you’re underestimating the intelligence of the electorate.”
When asked if he has any regrets over Brexit, his answer was not to do with the campaign itself, but what followed immediately after. “There weren’t really the voices out there to make the case for Brexit” in the days and weeks after the vote. “We’d left the battlefield” at a time when there was a need for “practical, pragmatic and rational” leadership, who could talk “about the possible next steps for the country without pre-empting anything.” Had that happened, Elliott says, then it would’ve been a “very reassuring thing.”
Looking forward towards the next General Election, and the utterings of Labour leadership hopefuls about possibly rejoining the EU, Elliott is quick to make the case against any possibility of rejoining.
“No. Flat out no.”
Despite polling figures showing that a majority of Britons would vote to rejoin the EU, Elliott views the numbers with a heightened sense of scepticism. “As soon as you add in the details: the fact that we wouldn’t have the rebate were we to rejoin, the membership fee, we may have to join the Euro – all these different things, when you add in these details, people switch decisively to stay out.”
He also argues that the complexities of a drawn out process would also deter voters from seeking to rejoin. “If they started talking about rejoining, and there’s a prospect in front of us of basically the next Parliament after the general election being dominated by wrangles with the EU, and negotiations and possibly referendums” then many voters, “quite rationally, would say ‘we don’t want any of that.’”
He even jokes that Gina Miller, once the sworn enemy of Brexiteers across the country, has concluded that rejoining the EU is not the answer to Britain’s problems. Gosh, how times change.
And so, as we look at the Brexit vote 10 years later, we see a markedly different country from the one in 2016. Having gone through 6 prime ministers and 3 general elections, it would be foolish to deny that Brexit has had a lasting impact on Britain. Whether such an impact has been positive or negative is for the public to decide, but Lord Elliott most definitely believes that it has been a positive experience.