This is the second in a series of pre-referendum opinion pieces, Defenestrations: (Un)Framing the EU Referendum Debate. The first one addressed the issue of the referendum itself, and attracted a powerful rejoinder from Roberto Orsi

Radice, Henry

LSE Research Online

Eurocrisis in the PressWill The Real Project Fear Please Stand Up?blogs.lse.ac.uk/eurocrisispress/2016/06/09/will-the-real-project-fear-please-stand-up/By Henry RadiceThis is the second in a series of pre-referendum opinion pieces, Defenestrations: (Un)Framing the EUReferendum Debate. The first one addressed the issue of the referendum itself, and attracted a powerfulrejoinder from Roberto Orsi.One of the earliest and most frequently employed tropes of Leave campaigners, when challenged with themyriad possible downsides of Brexit, is to deploy the accusation of scaremongering, of engaging in ‘project fear’.The term, which gained currency during the Scottish independence referendum, has a problematic, arguablydangerous role in contemporary British political discourse. It normalises practices of negative campaigning(disguised by populist indignation), contributes to the infantilisation of political discourse and to an anti-meritocratic anti-intellectualism, and fuels anti-political sentiment in the name of pseudo-democracy.First, the project fear accusation frames the opponent as practicing negative campaigning, whichunderstandably has a bad reputation for using devices such as dog whistles or ad hominem attacks. The powerof blanket accusations of scaremongering, though, is that they carefully deploy the playbook of negativecampaigning in accusing the opponent of the very same, painting them in a ghoulish light while positioning theaccuser as the plucky defender of common sense against a predatory elite. They infantilise political discourseprecisely by deliberately blurring the distinction between sober, well-grounded concerns, and lurid speculation.Second, the denigration of ‘experts’ serves to level the playing field, to give the impression that any forecast ofwhat might happen post-Brexit is as good as any other. Of course economists get things wrong sometimes in acomplex, uncertain world. A cornerstone of higher education and research is scepticism. But really, where wouldyou encourage your child to study economics, the LSE or the Nigel Farage University of Life? If the vast majorityof economists might be wrong, does it logically follow that their opponents are definitely right? Er, no. One wayof characterising the Leave campaign is as a group of mostly supremely privileged white men trivialising one ofthe few remaining engines of social mobility: education, and the benefits it affords of thinking about the world in agenuinely critical, independent way.Third, the career politicians running Leave tell us we shouldn’t trust career politicians, and that the political‘establishment’ is rotten to its core. It is thus a tad surprising that they want to repatriate so much allegedly cededpower to them. But perhaps the next part of the plan is a purge of Westminster, making room for more on-message members by getting rid of the kind of people who spent their pre-Westminster careers prosecutingcriminals (Keir Starmer), working to protect women from violence (Jess Phillips), or, presumably, after today’sgutsy defection, treating patients (Sarah Wollaston). The corrosive anti-politics of the Leave campaignrepresents a discursive scorched earth policy that leaves little on which to rebuild in the event of a Brexit.Remain, perhaps unsurprisingly for a campaign that features such an overwhelming majority of credibleindependent (admittedly, the reification on both sides of the idea and relevance of ‘independence’ or ‘neutrality’ isproblematic) voices, piping up in incredulous cacophony at the folly of contemplating Brexit, has of course nothad uniformly excellent messaging either. Nevertheless, there have been a plurality of strong, coherent voicesfrom all sides of the political spectrum. But the Leave campaign has been adept in using tried and testedconspiracy theory techniques (and, seemingly, lessons from the climate change denial lobby, with which itshares senior figures such as Nigel Lawson) and keywords (‘elites’ and an all-encompassing ‘establishment’) toobscure and neutralise the scale of the consensus behind it, however implausible any kind of conspiracy linkingDavid Cameron, Caroline Lucas and the TUC obviously is.It is easy to cast those campaigning for the status quo in an inherently negative light, and to paint a contrastbetween passionate insurgents and unfeeling technocrats. Here, Remain faces a real quandary. For those of us1/2genuinely anxious about the damage Brexit would do to the life chances of our fellow citizens, it is hard, andperhaps disingenuous, to campaign without expressing that worry, which in fact often stems from a passionateand positive attachment to the idea of Britain in Europe.The irony of it all is that Leave, very clearly now in its turn to focus almost exclusively in immigration, isscaremongering in the classic sense, stoking up fears, attempting to make one see one’s neighbour in adifferent, sinister light. Its attempt to nourish fear of the other as its pathway to success is the ultimate in cynicismand in negative campaigning. It is actively trying to make a country in many ways at ease with itself, asdemonstrated for instance by the cheering recent election of Sadiq Kahn in London, feel uneasy, uncomfortable,and fearful.Personally, I rather like the cosmopolitan, diverse Britain we live in. Brexit? It scares me stiff.Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Euro Crisis in the Press blog nor of theLondon School of Economics.Henry Radice is a Research Fellow on the Justice and Security Research Programme at LSE. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Euro Crisis in the Press. His research focuses on international political theory, humanitarianism andcommon humanity. View all posts by Henry or visit his LSE Research and Expertise page.Related articles on LSE Euro Crisis in the Press:Defenestrations: (Un)Framing the EU Referendum Debate, Part IThe Great Pushback: Western Politics and Dynamics of ExclusionOn the Borderlands of Humanity‘Crisis, What Crisis?’ On the Virtues of Muddling Through in European Politics2/2

Will the real project fear please stand up?

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