‘Failure’ to plan for Leave vote condemned by MPs
ASCATHING report today blasts David Cameron’s handling of the Brexit referendum and warns of the possibility of “foreign interference”.
MPs have flagged up the possibility that the crash of a key voter registration website could have been the result of a foreign cyber-attack.
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs committee is also alarmed at the lack of planning for an Out vote and claims the referendum “left the Prime Minister’s credibility destroyed”.
The decision to spend £9.3m sending a pro-Remain leaflet to all UK households is condemned as “inappropriate and counterproductive”.
They are also concerned by the perception that the civil service was biased and say this was “entirely avoidable”.
The UK Government comes under fire for actions the MPs say “increased public distrust”.
The report suggests the referendum was an attempt to “close down unwelcome debate”.
THE Brexit referendum “destroyed” David Cameron’s credibility, undermined trust in the UK Government, and may have been open to foreign interference, according to a hard-hitting report published today.
The UK Government is taken to task by Westminster’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs committee for failing to plan for a vote to leave the European Union yet spending £9.3m on a pro-Remain leaflet.
They state: “There was no proper planning for a Leave vote so the EU referendum opened up much new controversy and left the Prime Minister’s credibility destroyed.”
Here are the key points from the report:
1. The Government should have prepared for a vote for Brexit
The MPs insist the Government had a “constitutional and public obligation to prepare for both outcomes from the referendum”.
They argue that civil servants should “never have been asked to operate in a climate where contingency planning was formally proscribed by the Government”.
Today’s report recommends that in future referendums “civil servants should be tasked with preparing for both possible outcomes”.
2. The Prime Minister should take responsibility rather than resigning if a referendum is lost
David Cameron resigned in the wake of the referendum result but the MPs state: “The presumption should be that the sitting Prime Minister and his/her administration will continue in office and take responsibility for the referendum result in either eventuality.” 3. The £9.3m pro-EU leaflet and the Treasury reports were a mistake There was intense controversy surrounding a leaflet sent to homes across the UK that made the case for staying in the EU while Treasury forecasts outlining what could go wrong if the country backed Brexit also attracted criticism. The MPs write: “The manner of the presentation of government reports, particularly those from the Treasury, and the decision to spend £9.3m on sending a leaflet, advocating a Remain vote, to all UK households were inappropriate and counterproductive for the Government.”
They note that “polling undertaken by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) indicated that the level of importance voters attached to the Government as a source of information fell from 10% to 8% following the leaflet’s publication”.
Warning of the danger to reputations, they state: “During the run-up to the EU referendum there were many occasions when it appeared to many that civil servants were being drawn into referendum controversy. This damaged the reputations of the civil and diplomatic services for impartiality.”
4. The UK Government and the civil service lost public trust
The MPs were alarmed at how the Government used Whitehall resources to make the case for staying in the EU.
They write: “While it is perfectly legitimate for the Prime Minister and government to take an official position during a referendum campaign the fairness, and legitimacy, of a referendum rests on a careful and restrained use of the machinery of government. Unfortunately many of the Government’s actions in the run-up to the referendum appear to have increased public distrust...
“[The] use of the machinery of government during the referendum contributed to a perception that the civil service were, in some way, biased.
“That any such perception exists is deeply regrettable and was entirely avoidable.
“We recommend that the Government heed the lessons from this referendum of the implications of the use of the machinery of government during referendums on public trust and confidence in the institutions of government.”
5. The referendum was an attempt to shut down debate
The committee argues this was a “bluff call” referendum, stating: “The UK Government initiated the process which led to the referendum, despite being against the suggested proposal, and with the aim of using a negative result to shut down the debate about the question at issue.”
6. There may have been ‘foreign interference’
The MPs criticise the Government for the Register to Vote site crashing.
They say: “The Government has stated that this was due to an exceptional surge in demand, partly due to confusion as to whether individuals needed to register to vote... However, the Government clearly failed to undertake the necessary level of testing and precautions required to mitigate against any such surge in applications.”
Raising the possibility of foul play, they write: “We do not rule out the possibility that there was foreign interference in the EU referendum caused by a DDOS (distributed denial of service attack) using botnets, though we do not believe that any such interference had any material effect on the outcome of the EU referendum.”
7. Despite the problems, the referendum was ‘momentous’
The committee states: “The result was momentous: the victory for Leave – by a margin of 51.89% to 48.11%, representing 17.4m votes to 16.14m – was the first State-wide referendum in which the electorate rejected the advice of the Government.”
A Welsh member of the committee wishes the report had gone further though.
Newport West Labour MP Paul Flynn said the committee was “obsessed” about issues surrounding the impartiality of the civil service and the Government but there were more important aspects.
He said: “There are profound lessons of enormous importance to learn about the use of referendums.”
Mr Flynn is concerned that referendums involve “handing decisions to the propagandists, to the tabloid press and to millionaires”.
He said he was alarmed by the power of online campaigners to collect detailed information about people which will be used to shape their voting decision.
Bernard Jenkin, who chaired the committee and was a director of the Vote Leave campaign, said: “The use of the machinery of government during referendums has a significant effect on public trust and confidence. Referendums, therefore, need to be designed in such a way as to provide the utmost clarity for parliamentarians, campaigners and, above all, the electorate.
“It is of the highest importance that the referendum process is seen to be fair, by both sides, and that the result is agreed to, even if not with, by both sides.”
DAVID Cameron stood outside No 10 two days before the EU referendum last year and made an impassioned appeal for the UK to stick with the union, saying: “Brits don’t quit.”
But when a majority of the electorate in Wales decided they did want to leave the EU, Mr Cameron concluded his own prime ministerial career was toast.
In March he had unequivocally stated that he would not resign if the people voted for Brexit. But rather than trigger Article 50 himself, he said goodbye to Downing Street and Chequers, and very shortly after that quit as an MP.
A cross-party group of MPs have today delivered a damning verdict on his handling of the run-up to the referendum, stating: “There was no proper planning for a Leave vote so the EU referendum opened up much new controversy and left the Prime Minister’s credibility destroyed.”
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee – chaired by leading eurosceptic Bernard Jenkin – states: “The presumption should be that the sitting Prime Minister and his/her administration will continue in office and take responsibility for the referendum result in either eventuality.”
It is hard to imagine Mr Cameron staying in office to implement Brexit, a policy opposed by the majority of MPs and which he said was tantamount to putting “a bomb under our economy”.
Prime Minister’s Questions would have been even more of an ordeal. MPs from different parties would have stood up each week and read his apocalyptic warnings back to him.
The civil service would have gone into overdrive to devise a Brexit strategy but eurosceptics would have denounced anything less than a complete cutting of the cord with Brussels as a betrayal of democracy; his backbench critics would brief that he should step down so that someone who believed in the potential of a post-EU Britain could lead the negotiations.
Was his pledge to hold the referendum an irresponsible example of gamesmanship? Did he think he would be in another coalition with the Lib Dems and that he could safely promise a referendum – thereby shooting the Ukip fox – in the knowledge it would not take place?
Today’s report alleges the “aim” of the referendum was to “shut down the debate about the question at issue”. Its authors do not hide their frustration at the use of Whitehall machinery in the run-up to the vote, arguing that an “entirely avoidable” impression formed that the civil service was biased.
They are also adamant that civil servants should “never have been asked to operate in a climate where contingency planning was formally proscribed by the government”, recommending in future they “should be tasked with preparing for both possible outcomes”.
We are only now getting glimpses of the government’s strategy for leaving the EU and it is clear the negotiations will be tough. We can only hope Theresa May has a brilliant plan and a fine rudder to steer us through this creek.