For decades the UK public have been told the EU is a force for bad, so why now are we surprised to see them walk away?
If we are confused as to the rationale of the electorate in its decision to reject the EU it is because we have just witnessed a large-scale gut reaction – something we really should not be surprised by given that for decades the UK public have been exposed to high levels of hyped negativity about the EU.
I am not suggesting for a moment that the EU is perfect but one must remember that having joined the EU at the same time as the UK, Ireland has been subject to exactly the same EU directives and regulations but yet Ireland's political and media classes have maintained a more measured approach to the vicissitudes of EU membership.
Meanwhile, in the UK there is now a well-worn career path by politicians and journalists who have successfully raised their profiles through the mass propagation of Euromyths (EU scare stories) that were strategically designed to create outrage in the UK public. Over time, this Euromyth phenomenon has provided an army of straw men for these fearless politicians to slay. The established narrative is one where good EU deals are portrayed as ‘triumphs over Brussels’ and all disasters eventually find their way back to the EU’s doorstep.
Boris Johnson gained great traction in his career as a journalist whilst reporting for The Telegraph from Brussels and was later to write that when he wrote his articles about the EU, it "was having this amazing, explosive effect on the Tory party, and it really gave me this I suppose rather weird sense of power."
This telling quote gives great context to a heady media environment where headlines continually scream “EU to ban cricket bats, straight bananas, Fish n’Chips, the humble pint, and axe the Queen’s head from birth certificates”. The fact that few, if any of these prophesies came to fruition did little to stop journalists adding to the list.
In nearly a decade as a senior press officer for the EU in the UK, much of my time was spent countering these types of stories in a UK media that was only too happy to stoke the flames of stories which were based on patchy evidence at best, and sometimes outright lies. The old adage “why let the truth get in the way of a good story” was never more apt than in the case of bashing the “faceless, unelected, gravy-train-riding eurocrats of ‘Brussels”.
This point was recently underlined by former foreign editor of The Times, Martin Fletcher, when he wrote of his experience as Brussels correspondent in the late 1990s.
In an online posting last week, Fletcher recalled that editors only wanted stories about “eurocrats imposing absurd rules on Britain, or scheming Europeans ganging up on us, or British prime ministers fighting plucky rearguard actions against a hostile continent” whilst stories recognising that Britain had many natural allies and very often got its way in negotiations, were consigned to the waste paper basket.
When the referendum was first mooted in 2013, over coffee I asked a senior editor of a bestselling tabloid if they were planning to tone down the more spurious EU stories in favour of more factual reporting for the benefit of referendum voters. Without hesitation he smilingly retorted: “We simply play to the gallery and give them what they want”.
Now that the UK public will no longer be subject to Euromyths, let’s hope this new reality is what our closest friends and neighbours really wanted.
David D’Arcy is the Director of Communications for Irish4Europe and a senior consultant with the Powerscourt Group.