The New “PROJECT FEAR”: – the EU!
Those who want Brexit must campaign to make voters FEAR the EU.
It is now orthodoxy that the way to people to vote No to any proposition on a referendum ballot paper is to make them fear the risk of change to something different. That has worked on the AV referendum and most notably in the Scottish Independence Referendum. The Scottish nationalists called this “Project Fear”.
As we can see almost daily in the newspapers it is clear that those that are going to campaign to Remain in the EU are going to use the fear of change to persuade the wavering centre-ground of opinion to vote to remain.
It is not enough for Eurosceptic MPs and MEPs to preach about the need for us to get control back of “our country” because of course this subliminally plays into the fear that the people that are getting control back of “our country” are “them” rather than “us” i.e. the People!
Even for those people that can understand the concept of sovereignty, it is not a sufficiently emotive basis for enough people to be willing to stand up and be counted. I think that the danger to a Brexit vote is the presentation of the risks that will be portrayed of voting to come out of the EU.
For those who wish to achieve practical things in politics, it is not enough to wring their hands and say it is not fair or the ‘Remain Campaign’ are telling lies, the point is to be realistic and do what it takes to get a majority vote to Leave.
It is in this context that I have been turning over in my mind what kind of slogans and images need to be projected by the ‘Out Campaign’ to achieve an Leave Vote.
The newspaper report below gives a strong hint for those who have “eyes to see” and “ears to hear”! Because even in general elections “Project Fear” works well.
It is no accident that the most successful image that the Conservatives deployed in the General Election was the above “Project Fear” image of Miliband in the pocket of Salmond.
£40m Spent On General Election Campaign, But Winning Tory Attack Ad Was Put Together For Just £950
The Huffington Post | By Graeme Demianyk
The Tories spent more than £15.5 million on winning May’s general election – but was a canny investment of £950 the best investment they made?
A Conservative attack advert featuring a mini-Labour leader Ed Miliband literally in the pocket of Alex Salmond, the former leader of the Scottish National Party, was hailed by some Tory MPs as its most effective weapon in the battle.
Used on billboards, social media and leaflets, the ad writ large a centrepiece of the Tory campaign: a vote for Labour was a vote for a coalition with the SNP, and Scotland’s interests being put before the rest of the UK’s.
However far-fetched the claim, many felt it played well on the doorstep – especially in the South West where the Tories demolished the Lib Dems.
Electoral Commission records published today featuring a breakdown of how almost £40 million was spent by all parties in the campaign includes one where the Conservative Party paid £900 for the use of an image of Mr Salmond on a billboard.
Another shows how just £43 was lavished on an unflattering picture of Mr Miliband.
While possibly not the exact images featured in the final cut, they suggest how such a brutally simple advert could have been put together on a shoestring amid increasingly sophisticated campaigning techniques.
The Mirror calculated how the Tory election supremo, Lynton Crosby, pocketed £24 million for his work.
BuzzFeed News figured out the Tories spent £1.2 million on targeted Facebook advertising, compared to less than £16,500 by Labour.
In another attempt to have an iron-grip on the media presentation, the Conservatives spent more than £40,000 on a photographer to trail David Cameron and senior Tories during the election campaign.
The Tory general election campaign was tightly choreographed – such as “rallies” featuring supporters and made to look more impressive than they actually were
Mr Cameron received flak in 2010 for putting a personal photographer on the public payroll, but denied it was “vanity”.
The records show how I-Images were paid £40,119.39 over a series of 10 invoices. Accompanying receipts detail travel between Glasgow, Darlington, Crewe, London and Cornwall in March alone.
The move may well have been a sound one given unfortunate pictures of Ed Miliband, notably eating a bacon sandwich, which haunted the Labour leader.
The records do not say how much Labour paid for the infamous “Edstone”, and a party spokeswoman admitted the data was incomplete.
She said: “Due to an administrative error these invoices were not included with other items of campaign spend. We have informed the Electoral Commission and will seek to rectify this error as soon as possible.”
Almost £40 million was spent on the 2015 general election, with the Conservatives digging deepest at £15,587,956.
Labour spent £12,087,340, the Liberal Democrats’ £3,529,106 and Ukip’s £2,851,465, said the Electoral Commission.
But 2015 was still cheaper than the record-breaking 2005 campaign when £42 million was lavished on wooing voters.
For original article click here >>> £40m Spent On General Election Campaign, But Winning Tory Attack Ad Was Put Together For Just £950
Our first effort in this endeavour was the image below of Cameron in Merkel’s Nazi pocket which ticks some of the boxes but does not fully hit the bullseye of getting Remainers to HATE it and Leavers to LOVE it. That is the test which we have to apply to any image or slogan.
As that was not quite on target I wondered if this might do better?
What do you think? An idea for a caption is:-
“Come to Mutti little man!”
The direction of travel of the European Union ought to be easy to attack since remaining in the EU is a vote to change along with the way that the EU will be changing over the next generation. The sort of things that we can see happening are more determined efforts to eradicate traditional European cultures and traditional ethnic groups in a multi-culturalist mix; the eradication of all traditional European values, especially Christianity and most especially Protestantism; the creation of a EU Super State with its own undemocratic governmental structure and central bank; the creation of an EU world-wide diplomatic presence and armed forces, the current focus being on an EU army; EU-wide police force; and an EU legal system; and elimination of any democratic impediments to the project, including an authoritarian crackdown on any activists opposed to it.
Each of those threats to our People’s way of life ought to be the focus of our “Project Fear” to wake people up to the fact that by voting to remain in the EU they are voting for change and change which will be at least as radical as any change that will occur if they vote to Leave!
What do you think? Have you any good ideas?
