Two weeks can be a long time in politics, hell two minutes can be a long time in politics. Careers can be broken, made and remade; politicians can go from the flavor of the month to the poor cousin and vice versa. It has been more than two weeks since David Cameron announced the EU referendum and a serious contest has gradually emerged from all the bravado and maneuvering.  In the grand scheme that is the EU referendum two weeks is a small amount of time, but these two weeks determines the flavor of the next six months and beyond.

Keen to make an immediate gain in the contest were the Bremain campaign, who exploited their existing connections in the business world to produce a 200 business strong letter in The Times newspaper voicing their businesses support for staying in the EU.  The implication of this being that their businesses and their employees would both support this intention.

Prominent members of the Brexit campaign made statements in the press denouncing this as governmental propaganda, also citing the notable absence of two thirds of the UK’s main FTSE 100 companies from the letter. It is clear that many of the UK’s businesses remain undecided on whether exit from the EU is good for the UK.

Outside of the campaigns the director of the British Chambers of Commerce, John Longworth was forced to resign after expressing pro Brexit opinions. It was an exit that the campaign rounded on, with cries of double standards and accusations of governmental pressure being brought to bear on the BCC. Some have expressed the belief that Mr Longworth was made to resign by the Brexit campaign rather than the Bremain, as a political bear trap that the government was made to step into, however the truth remains elusive in this regard.

Boris Johnson and the other politicians in the Brexit campaign have been keen to stress the presence of Project Fear: a concerted governmental effort to make the general public so afraid of the consequences of an EU exit that they are forced to vote to remain.  It was a campaign that was very effective in the Scottish referendum and could quite easily be in operation here in the UK.

A major consequence of the EU referendum has been the dropping by the government of plans to reform pension’s tax relief. It is an abandonment of plans that smacks of electioneering, in so much as higher and additional rate taxpayers are the bedrock of the conservative party and to bring these changes now could result in a revenge EU exit vote from them.

It has been a long time since wholesale appeasement was the flavor of the month in British politics, but with so many interested parties in this referendum debate we can expect a climate of voter grabbing headlines, statements in both parliament and the media all designed to gain one thing above all: Your Vote. It’s up to you to decide how you use it.

© R Simmons. All Rights Reserved.