That question was some time in the gestation, and I had moved on from what I described as the “arguable” case of the vow. The vow was not a single appearance on “The Andrew Marr Show”, and I used the quote from that show just to demonstrate to the House that the vow was presented as a new initiative, something different, a last-minute offer. The argument about whether the vow breached purdah has been made well by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and the analogy in a European referendum would be a
re-presentation. Presumably, the idea in the European referendum is meant to be that the Prime Minister renegotiates this country’s relationships with the EU and then presents that to the people for consideration of whether they want to be in or out on that basis. The equivalent idea here, therefore, would be that he finishes that renegotiation but things are going badly in the campaign and so there is a further renegotiation and re-presentation. I certainly do not believe that is within the spirit of a purdah regulation, although people might argue that it meets the letter of it.
I accept that that point is debatable—I am pretty clear which side I am on—but there is no debate whatsoever about the behaviour of officials in Her Majesty’s Treasury in the referendum unit who were actively briefing and intervening during the campaign. The reason that was allowed to happen is that, as the Chair of the Select Committee said, the civil service code does not specify referendums in the way that it does elections and there was no statutory basis for the enforcement of purdah in the UK Government as there was for the Scottish Government.