It’s going to be a No

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

It looks almost certain to be a no then. The Yes campaign has looked out on its feet in recent weeks. The anti-politics TV ad was their final salvo, a gambit designed to turn around a flagging campaign. It didn’t have the desired effect. The polls have now decisively turned against them. Yesterday’s ComRes poll was crushing. Polls are never that wrong 48 hours from close of polls – especially when so many of the electorate will have already voted by post. Whilst differential turnout in different parts of the country may save them that looks highly unlikely. While I’ve chided people for making premature predictions in the past, this time such predictions seem warranted.

The argument was made on LabourList eight months ago that the Yes campaign was doomed from the start. Almost every referendum in history has shown that the argument for change must be overwhelmingly popular at the start of the campaign if it is to be successful. The Yes campaign never had that lead. Voters are shifting back towards the status quo, and to what they know. The final verdict of the electorate could be incredibly harsh.

And be in no doubt that any victory for no will have been provided by Labour voters. Tories are almost uniformly against and Lib Dems for. A decisive victory amongst Labour supporters was always a prerequisite, but from an early stage the No campaign had torpedoed Labour Yes. The backing of Labour MPs made the party and supporters unsure if which side to take. The tribal were divided. The No campaign never looked back.

Nick Clegg was made the poster boy of the AV referendum by the No campaign, knowing that he is complete political Kryptonite to Labour voters. Despite the best attempts of Ed Miliband and Labour Yes, Nick Clegg kept on attaching himself to the Yes campaign, reminding voters that the best way to kick Clegg was to vote no.

Successive LabourList surveys bore out the sad truth for the Yes campaign. Labour was split down the middle. That was always good enough for No, who had Tory support to rely on. For Yes, it was a hammer blow. The final survey closes later this morning. Anything but a decisive showing for Yes will confirm that the campaign is over.

It is of course possible (but unlikely) that Yes have won. They chose to fight a ground war, and that may succeed. But the desperation on show over the last week (including handing out polling day leaflets a week early) hardly indicates a campaign awash with the volunteers and resources necessary to run a successful and covert ground campaign.

So David Cameron and George Osborne will be smiling come Friday. How is that possibly a good result for Labour?

That’s a good question, but that’s the topic for a different post, which will come later today…