Britain's European vote approaches - Brexit or Bremain?

Britain's European vote approaches - Brexit or Bremain?

Brexit or Bremain? That is the question British voters may have to answer in just five months time, on June 23, if David Cameron's renegotiation ends with a deal at the regular EU summit in mid-February. The result of that renegotiation is at once essentially irrelevant to the question before British voters and quite crucial to how they will answer it.

It's irrelevant because the strategic arguments of vital national interest for staying in the EU, made already by two former Conservative leaders, John Major and William Hague, remain valid however small the fruits of what is anyway a modest renegotiation. Britain's place in the world for the next 20 years cannot be decided by whether Cameron gets a four-year opt out on paying benefits to Polish workers.

On the other hand, it's crucial because many Brits have not made up their minds. When pollsters confront them with hypothetical outcomes, the undecided give very different answers were Cameron to return from Brussels with what can be presented as a substantial reform package – or with obvious peanuts. If the former, there's a majority for staying; if the latter, for leaving. Since voters who have already made up their minds are split roughly 50-50, this soft middle will determine the outcome.

Whatever happens, the result is likely to be a triumph of fear over fear. The question is: which fear will prevail? The fear of being dragged further into a nascent European superstate, with the attendant loss of sovereignty, democracy, identity and control of national borders? Or that of being left out in the cold, like Norway or Switzerland, with the rules set by an EU in which you have no voice?

I remain of the view that the majority will vote not to take the risk of leaving the EU, rather as a majority of Scots voted in their independence referendum not to take the risk of leaving the UK. As the head prevailed over the heart of Midlothian, so the head will prevail over the heart of Middle England.

But referendums are risky things. Voters often don't answer the question on the paper. Most of British business has so far sat on its hands, although according to a Financial Times survey only 1% of British business leaders are for leaving. Captains of industry say they got a clear message from the government to hold off until after the renegotiation. Yesterday, Cameron effectively reversed this, urging business leaders in Davos: 'if you believe, like I do, that Britain is better off in a reformed European Union, then… help me make that case for Britain to stay'. This despite the fact that we don't know the result of the renegotiation. But some big companies also fear negative reaction from their Eurosceptic customers. If business leaders wait until a last-minute panic, as they did in the Scottish referendum, it may be too late.

The biggest single danger for the Bremain campaign is another refugee crisis sweeping across the continent in the months running up to the referendum, and perhaps – heaven forbid – another terrorist attack like those that shook Paris last year. In a YouGov poll, respondents put ' control of borders and immigration from the EU' (52%) and 'benefits EU migrants are eligible for' (46%) as the two top issues for Cameron' s renegotiation. No others came close. Now there is little logical connection between internal EU migration and refugees from the Middle East, while the link between Middle Eastern refugees and terrorist attacks in western Europe is also tenuous. But if every summer day brings reports of Syrian refugees turning up in Calais there will be a strong temptation to say 'pull up the drawbridge at Dover!'

An in-depth analysis identifies two key groups of swing voters, some 7.5 million labelled 'Hearts vs Heads' and some 9.5 million charmingly called 'Young Apathetic Middle'. 'Hearts vs Heads' will be swayed by rational fear. The balance of the economic argument clearly is for staying. It's not that nice being Norway: as Cameron pithily puts it, you pay but have no say. I spoke to a very senior former trade negotiator who doubts that Britain could even be sure of a good deal for access to the single market. The EU has used its giant market weight to negotiate favourable free-trade deals with some 200 countries. Britain on its own would not secure such favourable terms and there would be years of uncertainty while it was unravelling arrangements accumulated over 40 years.

Foreign business and opinion leaders who want Britain to stay should not indulge in threats or scaremongering; they should just explain calmly how they would act in case of Brexit or Bremain. This is what the French-owned energy company EDF did in a letter to its British staff during the Scottish referendum. Talking to French, German and American sources it emerges that if the Brits vote for Brexit, Germany and France would immediately turn to each other, aiming to build up the Eurozone as a hard-core of the EU, while the United States would pay less attention to Britain and more to Eurozone Europe. If Barack Obama pays a farewell visit to Britain this spring, he should not hesitate to make that plain.

But this cannot be only 'project fear'. Detailed research shows that undecided younger voters also associate positive things with Britain's membership of the EU, including 'prosperity', 'opportunity for the next generation' and a non-specific 'stronger'. The yes campaign must appeal to hope as well as rational fear.

Here, we need to hear from our continental European partners what positive role they see for Britain in Europe. The argument for European union in the 21st-century hinges on Europe's ability to hold its own in a world of giants. That depends on having an effective foreign and security policy. How can you do that without fully engaging one of the two European states that has the experience of being a world power, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and, like France, is still prepared to use hard power?

To succeed in the 21st-century, Europe needs not one but two hard cores: an economic and monetary one, built around Germany and the Eurozone, and a diplomatic and security one, including Britain. If anyone in continental Europe or North America agrees, then now is the time to say so loud and clear.

Timothy Garton Ash is Professor of European Studies at Oxford University, where he currently leads the freespeechdebate.com project, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His new book Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World will be published next spring