Andrew Vine: EU propaganda is costly front for Tory party infighting

Yes, that’s £9m we’ve all paid out in taxes that could have been spent on flood defences, hospitals, schools, or help for the elderly, but it hasn’t.

Instead it’s been squandered on the stodgily-titled Why the Government Believes That Voting to Remain in the EU is the Best Decision for the UK, the official propaganda leaflet that starts being delivered to 27m households any day now.

How many leaflets are destined to be immediately hurled towards the recycling bin with the rest of the junk mail from pizza take-aways and credit card companies is anybody’s guess.

But the overwhelming likelihood is that those which are read and thought about won’t do much to clear the fog of uncertainty and confusion in the minds of many voters.

That is because we’ve heard what the Government has to say on the issue and it’s underwhelming.

In a nutshell, it amounts to: “We’d better stay in, because we don’t know what will happen if we come out, and it might turn out to be awful.”

As June’s referendum nears, we can safely expect a leaflet of some sort from the Brexit camp as well, and that is likely to be no more inspiring.

Its boiled-down message is likely to amount to: “We’d better come out, because we don’t know what will happen if we stay in, and it might turn out to be awful.”

The difference is, of course, that your money and mine will not have been spent by the out campaign.

This is a disgraceful waste of money. The Government’s position on EU membership has been plain for months. Not a day has gone by without David Cameron or senior ministers who support him telling us why we should stay in.

It simply did not need to be set out in a leaflet costing millions against a backdrop of a record deficit and cuts in public spending.

Indeed, the business of running the country has effectively been on hold since the beginning of the year because the Government’s entire focus has been on winning the argument over EU membership.

Yet neither the in nor the out camp is reaching out to voters who simply and honestly find themselves torn because they
do not know what to do for the best.

And a Government leaflet – carefully not featuring a picture of the Prime Minister on the cover, lest it offends those who don’t vote Conservative – isn’t going to make much difference.

It will only reinforce the impression that the entire debate is a narrow, doctrinaire punch-up between political factions jockeying for advantage.

The voters worrying about what the decision could mean for their jobs or mortgages are being left in limbo, while political rivals tear strips off each other.

The debate reeks of opportunism, and the stench grows stronger every time the shifty figure of Brexit’s star turn, Boris Johnson, puts in an appearance with his sham man-of-the-people manner.

However the country votes, Britain could potentially be a loser.

The Mayor of London, though, will win whatever happens, being hailed as poster-boy for a resurgence of the Tory right, and that appears to suit him just fine.

Yet the same whiff is drifting from the red corner. Labour’s peculiarly low-profile part in the debate so far has about it 
the air of a battered and weak party sitting back and enjoying the prospect of Conservatives openly at each other’s throats over an issue that has long divided them.

Jeremy Corbyn’s record over decades on the hard left marks him out as congenitally hostile to the EU and all it stands for, yet there is a duty on the Opposition to have a rational voice in the debate, and a stance of gleeful voyeurism at Tory discomfort is not good enough.

If Labour hopes to profit electorally from this – and Mr Corbyn’s first test at the hands
of the electorate comes next month in the council polls – then it is as guilty as Mr Johnson of having its eye on narrow advantage.

A leaflet from the Government will not dispel the air of political game-playing from the debate, nor is Mr Cameron now likely to win over anyone not already on his side.

But there is a voice here in Yorkshire which might just lift the debate to the level it deserves.

Alan Johnson, the Labour MP for Hull West, is a leading light of the campaign to stay in, yet he has so far been oddly muted, perhaps because of his party’s uncertain stance.

His integrity, common sense and appeal across party lines are sorely needed if the debate is to burst out of the bubble
of professional politicians pursuing their careers, and do what it must – connect with voters.