Vote LEAVE is naive if it thinks it can black-ball Farage for the entire campaign
BBC News list of events planned so far
And Cameron isn’t going face to face with a fellow Tory
So far we haven’t seen any betting markets linked to the referendum TV debates but that’s likely to happen as this becomes a bigger issue following the Vote Leave reaction to the ITV event planned for June 9th. This is when Farage and Cameron are due to appear in the same programme although they won’t debate directly with each other.
Clearly the broadcasters want Cameron involved somewhere but it’s been made very clear he is not going face to face with a fellow Tory. The referendum is doing enough damage to the party already and a Cameron versus Boris event would make that even worse.
The whole strategy of the designated OUT campaign, Vote LEAVE, has been to isolate Farage because it believes that the UKIP leader would be a negative for them. It’s now being reported that it is planning to go to the courts to block the ITV programme. Maybe they are right but it was always going to be tricky trying to isolate the leader of the party that won the 2014 Euro elections and whose rise in 2012/13 was the reason why Cameron agreed to the referendum in the first place.
Farage, let us remember, is a very good debater. His two face to face TV events with Nick Clegg in 2014 showed just how effective he can be.
Boris Johnson is good making rousing speeches but is weak when he has to face questions and ideas put to the test. Michael Gove can be effective but he is not the ideal front man.