14 June 2004

Anti-Constitution Campaign Groups

A new campaign against the Constitution "Vote No" is being constructed and will be launched within days if the PM signs the Constitution at the Brussels Summit this week. Vote No will not be re-creation of the old "no" campaign against the euro. It will be focused on building a coalition of business people, academics, and others, and campaigning to explain what will be an extremely long and complex document to the public with various marketing campaigns. The key person in Vote No will be Alex Hickman. Hickman was the critical person in building the old "no" campaign but never appeared in the media. He will also be the person who builds relations with elements of the Labour Party, trade unions, Greens etc. There will be separate groups campaigning on the Left before the election, and a unified ‘no’ campaign is only likely after the election.

Vote No will not be engaging in the alternatives to the Constitution but in marketing the reasons to reject the Constitution. There is a year before the election which it will be able to use while Blair is focused on other things.

New Frontiers is developing a programme to explore and explain the alternative to the Constitution - what Britain should be doing instead. This is based around "EU transformation" - an agenda for radical change of the EU that could attract majority business and public support, and which could form the basis for a successful referendum held by the Conservative Party. This will require an intellectual and marketing war, and "buy in" from the Conservative Party...