Airstrip One

Geordies fight for us

The relative paucity of analysis on the North East Referendum is a bit of a shock.

Let's go through the facts:

1. It was a constitutional change.
2. Labour and the Lib Dems were on one side - the Tories and UKIP were on another.
3. The No Campaign was both split and (at least in the official camp) shambolic.
4. The BBC were on the Yes side.

Remind you of anything? Furthermore the ground had been chosen carefully - there is a genuine sense of regional identity in the North East, it is very loyal to Labour and Tories are loathed almost as much as in Scotland. Just look at the Hartlepool election for the latter two points.

The margin of the defeat in a carefully chosen referendum is a massive setback for the Yes side on a Euro constitution referendum. How are they going to pull this one back?

Note. Posting has been interrupted on the blog for some time - apologies.