A bleak day for the Leave campaign

Venal, asinine, facile, shallow, ignorant, lazy, superficial and oafish. Those are words I do not hesitate in using to describe Boris Johnson. His speech today was a screed. An amalgam of all the hackneyed memes, fact-free rhetoric, conjecture and error.

The Guardian today has said that "The most widely promoted version of the leave campaign claims that Britain could retain its place in the EU’s free-trade single market while not paying a penny into the EU budget, ending free movement and ignoring EU rules. No other country has such a deal or anything close to it and the French and German governments have been clear that they will not make such an exception for Britain. They do not hesitate to remind us that the single market – involving not just free trade in goods and services but free movement of capital and labour – was a British idea (launched by Margaret Thatcher and implemented by Conservative, Labour and coalition governments)."

In this they are absolutely right. Consequently the Leave campaign needed a comprehensive understanding if the issues and message crafted to allay fears and reassure opinion formers. Boris Johnson has not done this. In a torrent of verbal incontinence, he has driven a horse and cart through any kind of carefully crafted message, laying down every contradiction in the book, all under a Vote Leave banner who have themselves distanced themselves from some of the more egregious claims (when not advocating a suicidal unilateral Brexit).

I cannot imagine a worse set of arguments, a worse delivery or a worse person to head up the campaign. And yet I've had a string of people today telling me how marvellous the man is and that he's exactly what we needed to stop Nigel Farage making a pigs ear of it. Except of course, without the emphasis on immigration, his arguments are exactly the same.

And for those thinking it doesn't matter because Johnson connects with voters, you are sorely mistaken. With there having been serious internet debate for many months now regarding Britain's options, key opinion formers will have been listening for accuracy and consistency and asking in the Leave campaign has serious answers to good questions. They will rightly conclude that he doesn't and consequently that the leave campaing itself does not. And from there we see trickle-down opinion forming as individuals sadly trust the prestige and authority of established publications - The New Statesman, the Guardian and The Times.