Saturday, March 30, 2019
'Take out the trash day' for Vote Leave
There is a well-known manoeuvre in public relations in which a heavy news day is used to release controversial or damaging stories in the hope that nobody will notice. The most notorious example of the was the email sent by UK Government spin doctor, Jo Moore, as New York's twin towers burned, suggesting that 11 September was a good day to "bury" bad news.
Yesterday, as hundreds of excitable and confrontational protestors surrounded Parliament to demand that the Government should respect the 2016 referendum result, and leave the EU as scheduled at 11pm that evening, and as MPs debated Theresa May's woefully inadequate deal for the third time, the Leave campaign used the opportunity to drop their own bombshell.
As the Guardian reports, Vote Leave dropped its appeal against a £61,000 fine for electoral offences committed during the Brexit referendum. The fine was imposed on the group, which was the lead campaigner for a leave vote, last year after the Electoral Commission concluded that it broke legal spending limits by donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to another leave campaigner, the then 22-year-old fashion student Darren Grimes, founder of BeLeave.
The fact that I could not easily find this story on the main paper's politics pages and had to google it, indicates that the tactic of hiding the organisation's climbdown has largely worked. Nevertheless, this is significant news.
Effectively, Vote Leave have now conceded that they broke the law in campaigning for us to leave the EU. That is no small admission, and adds to the overwhelming sense that the result in June 2016 was illegitimate. I am not sure though whether the protestors outside Parliament yesterday would agree.
Yesterday, as hundreds of excitable and confrontational protestors surrounded Parliament to demand that the Government should respect the 2016 referendum result, and leave the EU as scheduled at 11pm that evening, and as MPs debated Theresa May's woefully inadequate deal for the third time, the Leave campaign used the opportunity to drop their own bombshell.
As the Guardian reports, Vote Leave dropped its appeal against a £61,000 fine for electoral offences committed during the Brexit referendum. The fine was imposed on the group, which was the lead campaigner for a leave vote, last year after the Electoral Commission concluded that it broke legal spending limits by donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to another leave campaigner, the then 22-year-old fashion student Darren Grimes, founder of BeLeave.
The fact that I could not easily find this story on the main paper's politics pages and had to google it, indicates that the tactic of hiding the organisation's climbdown has largely worked. Nevertheless, this is significant news.
Effectively, Vote Leave have now conceded that they broke the law in campaigning for us to leave the EU. That is no small admission, and adds to the overwhelming sense that the result in June 2016 was illegitimate. I am not sure though whether the protestors outside Parliament yesterday would agree.
Comments:
<< Home
Very true Peter. However, if I may point it out, who (other than a LDV anorack) would find your post pointing it out, when you title your post "Take out the trash day for Vote Leave"?
We all need to really sharpen up our publicity, if we really want to be noticed.
David
P.S. Keep up the good work.
We all need to really sharpen up our publicity, if we really want to be noticed.
David
P.S. Keep up the good work.
Thank you Peter for flagging this up but I agree with David Evans' comment that it is such a big story it needs a different headline - and other outlets - if it is to catch the attention of the general public.
Ceri Thomas
Post a Comment
Ceri Thomas
<< Home
