Brussels briefing: Remain ahead?

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Gold prices down, sterling sharply up, bookies chalking Brexit at the longest odds since the campaign began (around 3/1). Has the Remain side in Britain’s EU referendum campaign made a decisive breakthrough?

Money is certainly moving against Brexit. A mini-trend of moderately better polls for the pro-EU side was buttressed on Wednesday by an ICM phone survey putting Leave 18 points behind. Referendum campaigns can break sharply as the public begin to seriously engage. Remain campaigners will be hoping this is that moment. Indeed after firing-off their big guns – the US president, macabre Treasury reports, Bank of England recession warnings – they may also be thinking: what took so long?

If a lead is sustained, two factors potentially play a role. ICM picked up a swing to Remain among Conservative voters, with around 60 per cent backing David Cameron’s position. They are still open to changing their minds, but for now the increasingly vicious Tory infighting seems to be encouraging a bit more loyalty to their prime minister. The second is that Remain are faring well on the economic argument – and that is where Mr Cameron thinks he will clinch the vote.

Now for the caveats. The Ipsos MORI poll on Wednesday could be an outlier. And even if it isn’t, why believe it? Pollsters called the last UK and Israeli elections dead wrong. Even pollsters are wary of polls these days. A debate over phone (better for Remain) versus online surveys (better for Leave) rages on in Britain. And in any event predicting behaviour in this vote is hard because there is no good quantifiable precedent.

Then there is the small matter of turnout. Brexiteers could be more motivated. A steady Remain lead may even feed complacency. The (possibly boggy) fields of Glastonbury music festival, which runs over the June 23 vote, could be emblematic of how the EU membership battle was lost; older people vote, while more pro-EU young people just say they will.

Voters still see immigration as important; the response to the latest statistics on EU workers (Brits not fair! cries the Sun front page) gives a sense of how that could yet dominate this campaign. And of course a surprise event could turn the referendum on its head. All in all, probably worth hanging on to at least some of that gold.

What we’re reading

Macron or out: Does Emmanuel Macron need to make up his mind? The FT’s Anne-Sylvaine Chassany has a fascinating piece on allies and potential bankrollers of France’s economy minister pressing him to declare his candidacy for the presidency. Doubts are mounting over whether he’ll ultimately move against his patron François Hollande. Le Monde reports on the backroom staff at the Elysée who have decided to move on. Prime minister Manuel Valls, meanwhile, is wrestling with his own Hollande dilemmas and has embarked on his own round of town hall meetings.

Netflix eurovision: Movie streaming services may soon need to stock-up on their French arthouse and Czech melodrama. The FT’s Duncan Robinson has seen a leaked European Commission proposal to impose 20 per cent “European works” quotas on the likes of Netflix and Amazon’s video service, and a requirement to give them top billing too. Netflix argues this kind of interference (which broadcasters in Europe are used to) will distort the market and create perverse incentives – like, say, a rush to buy cheap Luxembourgish soap operas. Who said that wasn’t the Commission plan?

SPD panic: The polls are only getting worse for Germany’s Social Democrats. Its popularity in one poll has sunk below 20 per cent. Sigmar Gabriel, vice chancellor and embattled party leader, is facing questions over whether he is presiding over the destruction of a once mighty political force. Meanwhile Politico has an interesting piece on Austria, where the far right is flourishing as the country’s political duopoly flounders.

Spain and Portugal: Jean-Claude Juncker will be content at the relatively subdued response to the Commission’s decision to spare Portugal and Spain from punishment for missing deficit targets. There is little push-back in the more hawkish German press over the Commission going soft. El Pais and other Spanish outlets report there will be a post-election fine proposed in July. German officials express the same confidence, but some in Brussels think there may be plenty of wriggling still to come over new data and excuses. The FT’s Jim Brunsden, meanwhile, looks at the mystery of how the Commission’s economists came to love the British economy. What is it about mid-campaign referendum Britain that changed their minds?

Queen’s speech: David Cameron’s attempt to lay out his legislative programme was never likely to break free of the shadow of the referendum. But it is worth reading about nonetheless, not least for this opening from Henry Mance: “Only in Britain could someone arrive in a horse-drawn carriage and announce a new era of electric vehicles and space ports.”