Has Murdoch made an (E)U-Turn on Brexit?

Opinion by Denis MacShane   

Has Rupert Murdoch performed the biggest media (E)U-turn in decades and abandoned 25 years of venomous hostility to the EU and will he now tell his editors to oppose Brexit?

The Mail on Sunday reported that “media mogul Rupert Murdoch has abandoned his plan to campaign for Britain to withdraw from the EU. He has decided that Britain is better off staying in Europe and that to quit would be a ‘major risk’.”

Murdoch’s spokesperson refused to comment on the report. But if true it is the most extraordinary change of line. Later Murdoch tweeted a non-denial declaring ‘Weird leap by Mail on Sunday alleging a big u-turn by me in supporting Brit staying in EU. Misunderstanding somewhere.’

Murdoch journalists reacted on Twitter furiously to the Mail on Sunday story spluttering with fury that they might have to follow their proprietors’ orders and stop attacking the EU with their usual mixture of contempt and sneers.

Beginning with the legendary Sun front page 'UP YOURS DELORS' attacking the then EU Commission president the Murdoch titles in Britain have never stopped criticizing Europe.

Editors, columnists and journalists, especially on the Sun and the Sun on Sunday have specialized in finding every reason to run-down Europe, often with factual inaccuracies and crude populist propaganda distortions as numerous researchers have exposed. Indeed it was the non-stop campaigning of the Murdoch papers for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty before the 2010 election that pushed David Cameron and his Eurosceptic Tory Party into adopting the idea of a plebiscite on whether the UK should remain in or quit the EU.

Murdoch has not just been hostile to specific EU developments like the creation of the Euro but against the UK being in the EU at all. When giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry into Murdoch’s papers using illegal methods like phone hacking the former prime minister, Sir John Major said that at a private dinner Murdoch told him he wanted Britain to withdraw from the EU.

According to the former prime minister Murdoch ‘made it clear that he disliked my European policies, which he wished me to change’. When Major told Murdoch he would not do so, Murdoch told him ‘his papers could not and would not support the Conservative government’.

In 2013, Murdoch’s hosted UKIP leader Nigel Farage to dinner at his London home and tweeted that Farage’s policies ‘reflected opinion’. Farage of course has campaigned for the In-Out plebiscite and for Brexit. David Cameron has granted the former but now Rupert Murdoch may be getting cold feet on the latter.

Certainly, Wall Street opposes Brexit and a number of global banks and industries have said they would have to re-locate from London if Brexit takes place. Nonetheless Murdoch has recently attacked what he calls a ‘stagnant Europe racked by discontent and resentment of EU’.

So now both pro- and anti-Brexit campaigners wait to see if Murdoch has indeed (E)U-turned. His tweet is not a clear rejection of the Mail on Sunday suggestion he is ready to support Britain staying in the EU.

Murdoch always likes to be on the winning side of any vote. The Sun in England called for a Tory vote in the recent election while The Sun in Scotland called for an anti-Tory SNP vote. In both cases Rupert won.

With the campaign to stay in and to vote out yet to get under way fully it is not clear which way Britain will finally vote.

Murdoch’s Tweet suggests that while he is ready for a (E)U-turn he wants to wait until he knows which side is  likely to win.

Those in favour of staying in however should not assume Murdoch standing on his head is a complete game-changer.

There may be a reaction against such cynicism.The idea that the political-media elite can say one thing on Monday and the opposite on Tuesday and expect to be believed and followed is insulting to the public.

In other countries the press have not decided the outcome of EU referendums. The press in the three major EU referendums so far this century – on Sweden joining the Euro in 2003; on France and the Netherlands supporting the constitution in 2005 and on Ireland saying 'Yes' to the Lisbon Treaty in 2008  were all largely in favour.

But the  voters said 'No'. So just because Rupert may do a volte-face it may not have that big an impact.

David Cameron's problem has never been with Merkel or Hollande or Brussels but with his own party and indeed himself as his post-Thatcher generation has genuinely believed that the EU was bad for Britain - "too bossy and bureaucratic" as Cameron said during and after the election.

Rupert Murdoch has never lost an election and he clearly has decided that he does not want to be on the losing side of the Brexit plebiscite.

But is it too late? Can Cameron convert the Tory Party to the virtues of Europe – in short become more Edward Heath and less the Eurosceptic David Cameron of the past 15 years?

Murdoch’s possible (E)U-turn is big but the Prime Minister has to lead his party away from deeply held beliefs about Europe and he hasn’t much time to do it.

Denis MacShane is former UK Europe minister and the author of Brexit: How Britain Will Leave Europe (IB Tauris).

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