Godfrey thinks a full on out message may scare many voters, so suggests considering an alternative exit path. He suspects that this is what we will get anyway, so promoting it now may be a useful tactic.
Will EEA/EFTA membership make #Brexit more palatable? Will we have a choice? : @goddersbloom
It will NOT be a useful tactic. It would be betraying all of those hat vote to leave the EU. You, as an MEP know full well that such a move would take us from the frying pan into the fire.
The EEA has to comply with well over 500 parts of the EU ‘Acquis’ including ‘Free movement’ which will leave us with the perils of uncontrolled immigration. You also know that the EU frequently flouts the EEA Agreement, even more so than the Lisbon Treaty. Helle Hagenau of Norway’s “Nei til EU (Opposition to the EU)” Campaign has warned that recent trade deals between Norway and the EU have been forced to accept conditions outside of the EEA Agreement in order to get them through. She also says that there is a strong popular movement for Norway to pull out of the EEA altogether though it is proving difficult because of the intricacies of trans-National agreements
I am afraid, Godfrey, that you have been seduced by Richard North’s ‘Flexcit’ plan which has always advocated that Britain joins the EEA as an interim move before final secession from the EU at some unspecified date. We all know, just as you do, that once inside the EEA, there will be no popular or political will to go through the referendum process a second time.
In any case, there is no need to go the route that you advocate. My site, theunituk.org.uk regularly features an independent, online poll that publishes weekly results that make a nonsense of the around 50/50 state as published by the various public polls.(http://www.tradersadvocate.com/pages/orphan_pages/ExclusiveBrexitPollUpdateDoTheMat#.Vy9bYPkrKUl). Contributors (verified by email) are asked to say whether they expect Brexit to occur and the figures (published since March) regularly show the expectation, both from UK and non-UK voter that the Brexit vote is around 80 -90% for Brexit.
The pollster recognises that much of the high percentages are cause by the fact that those who want to leave are generally more committed and are therefore, more likely to vote.
However, the current edition under the heading “Exclusive Brexit Poll Update: Do the Math” hypothesises that even using the public poll consensus of 50-50, there is an extremely good chance that Brexit will occur:
“In this theoretical example, I will explore why public polls should not be taken at face value as potential turnout needs to be factored in. For example. let’s assume the split in public polls is 50-50 and the assumption is that 80% of those favoring Leave will vote in the referendum. The Remain side would then need to at least match the 80% turnout to make the 50-50 public polls an accurate assessment of the potential vote. However, what happens if the turnout on one side (e.g. Remain) is below that of the opposition.
Example:
Assuming 80% turnout for Leave
If the turnout for Remain is 75%, it would mean that the public poll would need to show Remain in the lead by 53.33%-46.67% to be a 50-50 split in real terms due to the lower turnout for that side.
Given that those wanting to leave are generally more committed, they will vote whatever happens whereas of the undecided, many may come over to the leave side, some may even not bother to vote and there is a general figure in most of the public polls that 4-5% have stated that they definitely will not vote at all.
The ‘Silver vote’ is more likely to vote to leave and there are a considerable number. The real clincher may be that many of the Younger voter who may decide for staying will be more concerned with the Glastonbury Festival which occurs at the same time.
So, please, no more of this negative thinking that will leave us in just as much of the proverbial as staying in the EU.