Dominic Cummings

The ERG are Remain’s useful idiots

Watching SW1 these days reminds me of that scene in Citizen Kane when Boss Jim Gettys confronts Orson Welles (Kane):

Gettys: ‘You’re making a bigger fool of yourself than I thought you would Mr Kane…With anybody else I’d say what’s going to happen to you would be a lesson to you, only you’re gonna need more than one lesson — and you’re gonna get more than one lesson.’

Kane: ‘… I’m gonna send you to Sing Sing Gettys, Siiinngg Siiiiinnnnngggggg…’

These guys didn’t learn from the 2004 referendum (on a North East regional assembly) before 2016. And even now, very few seem to realise that a ‘second referendum’ would, given minimal competence from ‘Leave’, be a mega-repeat of 2004 in which ‘the EU’ would not even be the main issue.

Remember: we won the 2004 referendum after starting 60-40 behind with no money, no digital campaign, no ground campaign, every force in the North East hostile, and with the campaign consisting of not much more than my girlfriend, dad, uncle and literally a handful of people. I think we spent £50-100k. We won 80-20. (It was a training exercise that turned out surprisingly well.) SW1 100 per cent ignored it, thankfully. The intricacies of the Regional Assembly were not central to how the campaign developed, just as the EU will not be central to a second referendum — it will be about you and your parties, dear MPs, and if you think 2016 was bad, you will find the next one somewhere between intolerable and career-ending.

They didn’t learn from expenses or from 2008. They didn’t learn from Vote Leave. They need more than one lesson and they’re gonna get more than one lesson. The Commons Privileges Committee has sent through two documents you can read here with my last email to them.

Last year, Damian Collins asked if I would give evidence to his committee.

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