Say It Every Time: EU 'Leave' Campaigners Are the True Scaremongers

This week Tory MP after Tory MP on the 'leave' side of the EU referendum campaign, has come out with a clearly premeditated and orchestrated use of the words 'Project Fear,' to attack those of us on the 'Remain' side of the argument. Anyone versed in successful campaigns knows that you have to rebut dishonest attacks quickly. Now is the time for rebuttal.

This week Tory MP after Tory MP on the 'leave' side of the EU referendum campaign, has come out with a clearly premeditated and orchestrated use of the words 'Project Fear,' to attack those of us on the 'Remain' side of the argument.

Anyone versed in successful campaigns knows that you have to rebut dishonest attacks quickly.

Now is the time for rebuttal.

When I was growing up, already old 'Hammer Horror' films were shown in black-and-white on late night television. The films themselves were certainly loved, but provoked as much mirth as fright, amongst my school friends and myself.

Of course the EU 'leave' campaign precisely wants to take us back to that world of the 1950s. But their attempts to use 'horror' for their own electoral purposes are as outdated and comical as those films look, in today's digital era.

Consider just some of the 'leave' campaigners' own more fanciful claims, if Britain votes to remain in the European Union.

The UKIP leader said we should be ready to deploy out armed forces in France to stop refugees coming to Britain from Calais.

Iain Duncan Smith said Britain would be more likely to see a Paris-style terrorist attack.

Boris Johnson says the European Union is 'colonising' Britain in a bid to end our democracy.

The Daily Telegraph says the continuation of the European Union will actually see the continent break up in to conflict, with popular revolutions akin to the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa or the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe.

Now that's what I call scaremongering.

Let me be honest, I do fear the consequences of Britain leaving the European Union.

But one thing that makes me more fearful than the prospect of a 'leave' vote in the referendum, is the extreme and truly horrific politics being plied by 'leave' campaigners themselves.

It is leaving the EU which would see our border agreement with France to manage refugees torn up; would end cooperation in Europol and use of the EU arrest warrant to combat terrorism; would break-up a grouping of countries who will always be sovereign and only encourage extremists who are the real threat to democracy; and which would threaten the stability in Western Europe which has been maintained since the Second World War and which is the true bulwark against a return to conflict.

'Leave' campaigners know these truths about the European Union, but they don't want the British public to know about them - at least in advance of the referendum.

David Cameron has said respond to 'Project Fear' by 'Project Fact.'

Yes, but not enough.

I say we should go on to the attack, and call the leave campaign the "true scaremongers".

In every interview, letter and speech, say it.

On social media, challenge their deliberate myths and lies, and every time use the hashtag: #truescaremongers.

'Remain' campaigners DO understand that ours must be a message of hope in the EU referendum campaign.

Hope for a good job, strong rights at work, more security at home, more influence abroad.

It is 'leave' campaigners who want to turn the EU referendum campaign in to a horror film, and the 'remain' camp who must insist it is a family film...with a happy ending!

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