SPIES, LEAKS, ROWS AND LAWYERS' LETTERS

But how many votes?

SIR James Goldsmith breezed into Britain's European debate in September 1995, announcing that he intended to field candidates against any MPs of all parties who did not pledge a referendum on Britain's future relations with Europe. True to the caricature of a very rich man, he knew the price of everything. This was to be the party of spend, spend, spend: 'What- ever it takes,' said Sir James magnanimous- ly, Britain's future was 'too important to budget.' Besides the money, the party had two main advantages. The party produced a surprisingly good first conference in September. It attracted the Gucci-wearing class- es to a grand dinner hosted by Lady Powell, the sociable wife of Lady Thatcher's former private secretary, Sir Charles Powell. More surprising- ly, it also attracted a high number of Marks & Spencer-clad Tory voters who were simply annoyed by the Conservatives' refusal to state its terms over Europe. The speeches ranged from mystical perorations to straightforward cries of resistance to the Maastricht Treaty from tradi- tional Tories.

A spirit of bonhomie reigned between the party officials and the press, with journalists invited to feast and dance free of charge by Lord. McAlpine. Patrick Robertson, the bullish press spokesman, smiled benevolently on awkward questions. Between October and the beginning of this year, however, the mood in the party's Horseferry Road HQ changed for the worse. The London Evening Standard, having writ- ten hostile editorials about the party, received a spate of warning letters from Peter Carter-Ruck, Sir James's lawyer, claiming that the paper was running a cam- paign against the party. The letters claimed that the paper was wilfully repeating inaccu- racies and 'wholly untrue assertions'. None directly threatened legal action, but they included the ominous phrase, 'All of my client's rights are reserved.' On 22 January this year, the Evening Standard printed a story alleging that Sir James had commissioned polls by Mori in 1996 which showed that the party had less than half of 1 per cent support. The paper quoted 'insiders' as saying that party offi- cials were so worried by this result that they tried to persuade Mori to change the poll questions in the hope of receiving more encouraging replies. Mori did not agree to change polling questions. On 1 August, Mori's chairman, Robert Worces- ter, wrote to Mr Robertson ending the agency's work for the party. The letter said, `It appears that our methods of working and desire to add value to the research process are incompatible with what you want from your supplier. It therefore seems sensible that you seek some other agency to carry out your polls for you.'

Asked whether the Referendum Party had tried to persuade Mori to change the questions, Mr Worcester refused to com- ment. But he added, 'Major pollsters are jealous of their reputation and will not allow their clients to mislead.' He explained that Mori always asks about con- crete intentions. 'There are certain ways of phrasing questions which we would not use. Ever since I began doing private polling for Harold Wilson, I have always proceeded from the basis that you must tell the leader of a party the plain unvarnished truth.'

One question of the utmost sensitivity to the Referendum Party is that of the lead- er's image. 'I would compare Sir James to Michael Foot,' said Mr Worcester. 'He enjoys enormous respect and prestige with- in the party. But that is not the case outside it. There is a huge gap between the internal and the external perceptions.'

A senior Referendum Party source, how- ever, told The Spectator that it had already decided to end its dealings with Mori on 11 July. 'The reason we ceased to do business with Mori had nothing to do with disagree- ment over the terms of questions,' the source said.

In his letter to this week's Specta- tor, Mr Robertson refers to 'one "National Quickie Survey" only' which Mori conducted over six months ago. 'It was not just a quick- ie,' retorts Mr Worcester. 'We did three surveys for them. They're bought and paid for and we've got the money in the bank.' Pressed on this, Mr Robertson conceded that three surveys were carried out. He said that one was a national survey, one was a focus group and one was a local poll.

The Referendum Party changed its pollster to Harris. In December, , a poll by this organisation gave Sir James's party the questions — and ''''''':111111 the answers — it preferred: 14 per cent of voters said that they would 'defi- nitely consider' voting for the party if there was no commitment to a full referendum from the Conservatives and Labour by the election date, while 19 per cent said that they would 'probably consider' voting for the party. This enabled the party to add the fig- ures together and use them in its pre-elec- tion billboard campaign. The problem is that 33 per cent of people considering voting in your favour is of little value.

In retrospect, the Referendum Party might have done better to stick with Mori. Mr Worcester's agency conducted a pub- lished poll in December — after the suc- cessful conference — which placed the Referendum Party on 2 per cent of the vote. He interprets the party's real standing as significant. 'We know that the Tories and Labour each have a core vote of around 30 per cent. That doesn't change even when tested to destruction. The third party — whatever it is currently calling itself — accounts for 20 per cent of the vote. So the others are competing for the other 20 per cent. If the Referendum Party gets two per cent of that, then it's not doing badly.'

Mr Worcester believes that the real impact is taking place now, by influencing the behaviour of Tory candidates in marginal seats. 'Its influence is not so much about what happens on election day. There are too many other factors there which will determine the outcome. But its presence is rattling Tory MPs who think primarily about their own constituency result rather than the overall one. The presence of this party is forcing them into Eurosceptic posi- tions, which has put pressure on the Gov- ernment to harden its position on a referendum. To that extent, Sir James can already claim to have succeeded.'

Strangely, the mood inside the party's headquarters does not echo such optimism. The new year began badly with the news that John Bostock, the north-west regional campaign manager and a former Tory party agent, was defecting to the UK Inde- pendence Party. He denounced the Refer- endum Party as 'a nothing party . . run by political amateurs with no supporters in some seats' and disputed the party's claims about the number of registered supporters. He promptly received a letter from Peter Carter-Ruck, demanding that he sign an affidavit promising not to repeat adverse comments about his former employer and not to repeat claims that the number of supporters was much smaller than claimed. Mr Bostock has not obliged. A BBC researcher who was allowed free access to the Referendum Party's database of sup- porters found three BBC Westminster reporters — none of them supporters included. The party maintained that this was a small slip which only affected a few names who were journalists receiving party information and whose names had been entered in the wrong database.

Mr Bostock explains his defection to another party thus: 'The main thing that did it for me was how disorganised the party was. I couldn't get the campaigning materials I needed. It was a thankless task. The place is totally disorganised.' Lord McAlpine dismisses this charge. 'I worked at [Conservative] Central Office for 15 years and that sort of thing was always hap- pening,' he says. 'We once had 25,000 copies of one of Mrs Thatcher's best speeches printed before an election and they stayed locked in a cupboard because someone forgot to send them out.'

Others in the Referendum Party do not share this equanimity A second letter has now been sent from the lawyers to Mr Bostock, threatening him with High Court action if he fails to sign the affidavit.

Why is the party so rattled about the kind of knockabout press coverage political parties take for granted? The answer, according to one insider, lay in the 'atmo- sphere of paranoia and strain' mounting in Horseferry Road. 'The realisation took hold,' says one disillusioned party worker, `that we had peaked with the conference and that we were losing it after that.'

Faced with both the Tory and the Labour Party making commitments to a referendum before taking Britain into monetary union, the Referendum Party saw its clear cam- paigning issue being diluted from Right and Left. Having refused initially to specify the question it would put to the electorate, it was bounced into declaring a question which it formulated as: Do you want the United Kingdom to be part of a Federal Europe or do you want the United Kingdom to return to an association of sovereign nations in a common trading market? This is not (as ref- erendums usually entail) a straight yes/no choice. And it doesn't commit the party to a distinct policy on Europe. Some supporters were disappointed that the party did not stand on a platform of opposition to mone- tary union, and for renegotiation of the Maastricht Treaty.

The substance of the question was known to senior Conservatives before it was publicised. The Referendum Party is said to have been infiltrated by Tory spies. That made for an atmosphere of universal suspicion. Lord McAlpine agrees that the Tories may well have placed their own informers in the Referendum Party. 'I'd be surprised if they didn't,' he chuckles. 'You might even find the odd Labour' informant too.' According to one insider, The prob- lem lies in the transient nature of the party. Soon the Referendum Party will all be over, so everyone is making plans for after the election. They want it to be a success, but not too much of a success because, if they actually did cause a Tory defeat, they would not be welcome back in the Conser- vative Party. Like ET, a lot of them are try- ing get home.'

Another problem is that Sir James has other preoccupations besides the Referen- dum Party. So much of the decision-mak- ing is delegated, causing the senior personnel to vie for his favour. 'It's like a court full of courtiers trying to pre-empt his wishes,' a source says. 'Patrick works slav- ishly for Jimmy. But you can't combine the job of personal PR man with that of party spokesman and spin doctor.'

This observation was borne out by my own dealings with Mr Robertson while working on this article. At first, he was unusually elusive for a small party's press secretary. Finally, he answered his mobile phone and, asked why the party was using lawyers' letters with such frequency, snapped, 'That's wholly untrue. We are using normal methods. What do you expect if you go round spreading a pack of lies? That's all I've got to say. Goodbye.'

Later, he telephoned back in emollient mood and offered a background briefing. He insisted, however, that a lawyer was present. Mr Robertson's unpredictable style is controversial. Ian Beaumont, a for- mer civil servant in No. 10 who had restyled himself as a linkman between par- ties and the visual media, was taken on last summer to make up the party's press team under Mr Robertson. His contract was ter- minated after two months because of dif- ferences in opinion on how to manage the campaign. Relations between Mr Robert- son and Malcolm Glenn, the party's man- aging director and a businessman far senior in years and experience, are also said to have become fraught, with Mr Glenn reportedly telling Mr Robertson during one spat to 'grow up'. The Referendum Party, you can't help feeling, has all the feuding and jumpiness of New Labour without the votes.

Mr Robertson's most pressing task is to make suburban Putney warm to Sir James. He is already planning glad-handing expe- ditions by the candidate to nursery schools and hospitals in the constituency. 'Jimmy's been up and down the High Street a lot,' says an insider. But having set out to split the Conservative vote against David. Mel- lor, Sir James now faces the prospect of his own vote being split. Bill Jamieson, the highly respected economics editor of the Sunday Telegraph, announced last week that he is to stand as a UK Independence candidate, challenging Sir James for the Eurosceptic vote on a free trade platform. Mr Jamieson intended to present the UKIP as the ordinary person's option and the Referendum Party as the home of lounge-lizards and oddballs. 'Save your mil- lions,' he thundered at Sir James in print. `Leave behind your caravan of effete hang- ers-on and your tarnished glitterati of Bel- gravia apologists.' Early hopes that Sir James might deny Mr Mellor the seat have faded. Cynics question whether Sir James can even cross the 5 per cent hurdle needed to save his deposit. Mr Worcester says, 'It depends how close Labour run the Tories. A close election would be bad for the Referen- dum Party in Putney as elsewhere. If voters think the Tories are doomed, they are more likely to experiment.'

On Tuesday, the Referendum Party delighted the Conservatives by pulling Robin Birley out of the race in Kensington and Chelsea, after the selection of Alan Clark to replace Sir Nicholas Scott. Mr Bir- ley told his supporters that Mr Clark was `sound on Europe', even though the prospective Tory candidate has yet to make his views on a referendum known. Mr Bit- ley added that he was going to devote his attentions to helping Sir James defeat 'that revolting little man David Mellor in Put- ney'. Not since 1942, when an independent Tory stood against Sir Hugh Linstead, can one blameless constituency have experi- enced such excitement. Then Churchill intervened, enjoining voters to remain faithful and warning them against 'covering the name of Putney with shame'. Whatever it covers itself with in the 1997 general election, it will not be boredom.