Why Britain needs a second Brexit vote

In a sane world, Tory Leavers would bank a partial victory but their intransigence makes a second vote necessary.

Let us remind ourselves of what it was supposed to be like. Contemplating freedom after 43 years of European servitude, the Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan dreamt, in his 2016 book What Next, of “a rectangle of light [that] dazzles us and, as our eyes adjust, we see a summer meadow. Swallows swoop against the blue sky. We hear the gurgling of a little brook. Now to stride into the sunlight.”

This is the fantastical, mock-lyrical mood that opened the most depressing saga of modern British politics and which, with the death of Theresa May’s deal in the House of Commons and the start of a move against her, has descended into black comedy.

Now that the real-world, 585-page compromise withdrawal agreement has been delivered for public inspection, the Brexit secretary and the work and pensions secretary have discovered they are against it, despite forgetting to tell us what they are for. Not one prominent advocate of Brexit has been able to articulate a plan that has the remotest hope of passing through parliament.

Serious politics is not simply a parade of your principles. Please, Mr Raab and Ms McVey, spare us the pious claptrap about the national interest. Government is about blending your principles with those who disagree. It is about negotiation and deals in which not all good things can be had at once. If you can devise a plan that can work, we await it without much interest.

I had always assumed that the Conservative Party would eventually return to planet Earth, even if only briefly. Once the swallows had stopped swooping and it was clear the brook would not gurgle, I assumed that pragmatism would prevail. To accept the third-best option over the false promises of ideological certainty is close to a definition of conservatism.

Surely, when there is clearly no path for anything, when every course of action leads to chaos, paralysis or the loss of the prize of Brexit, surely then the Mogg-Johnsons would bank the partial victory? But no, they have principles and they are going to act “in the national interest”, the deluded, philosophically illiterate, in-the-wrong-job fools. Well, the rest of us will now have to stop them.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May gives a press conference inside 10 Downing Street in central London.

At some level perhaps the Brexit gang want the issue more than they want the victory. Maybe the prospect of having nothing to moan about is too psychologically disorientating. Maybe they fear the responsibility that comes with victory. Throughout the whole process it has always, always been somebody else’s fault. Until June 23, 2016, their political lives had been merely rhetorical. Faced with turning their witless cliche about independence into an actual treaty they have flinched. Deep down, I think they are cowards and I think they are scared.

They are right to be. I’m scared too now. In what may have been her final statement outside the black door of Downing Street, Mrs May said on Wednesday night that there were now only three options. Her deal, no deal at all and not leaving the EU.

It was the first time she had suggested in public that the hysterical Brexit crew were risking the loss of their prize. After a brutal reception for the prime minister’s statement in the House of Commons and a rolling series of resignations, one of the three options has died. The dreamers are still dazed by the rectangles of light and they have gone too far to turn back now.

Every way forward on Brexit is a cul-de-sac except one. Vote for the deal, imperfect as it is, and exit is achieved. The referendum would be implemented and the Brexit would be, in the now forgotten currency, soft. If I were an MP I would vote for the deal. At least, that would have been my position in the long-ago era of Wednesday night. It was predicated on the risk calculus set out then by Mrs May. Of the three options, the one that scared me was no deal. I would not have risked that outcome for a gamble on staying in. Mrs May’s deal is, of course, worse than staying in the EU. It was bound to be. It is, however, better than no deal at all, very considerably better.

Thanks to the intransigent stupidity of the Tory ideologues there are now only two options left. Britain either leaves without a deal or Britain breaks out of the impasse by returning the question to the people. I have been, until now, opposed to a second referendum. The impact of leaving was, and still is, vastly exaggerated by the Remain side. Leaving would be detrimental but the sky won’t cave in. I feared taking the verdict of the people in vain and I am wary of the cynicism that will accompany a repeat of the vote. It is also probable that a second vote will then prompt a Tory manifesto demand for a third. Unless, of course, Leave wins again and dumps us back into the impasse, which is entirely possible.

The case against a second referendum is still good and I have none of the intensity of people I otherwise regard as brothers-in-arms. Yet foolish people who regard Mrs May’s deal as insufficiently pure have closed off all the other paths through the thicket. As a risk-averse voter, I cast my ballot for Remain, not out of love for the unlovable EU but because the status quo is better than change, as we now know to be true. I would still support Mrs May’s deal because I do not wish to risk the prospect of no deal for the sake of a shot at thwarting the process. Yet if the only two options left are a second referendum and no deal then the sensible conclusion is obvious. I have tried to be reasonable but I am dealing with people who are not prepared to listen to reason. Unreason rules and facts have changed because they changed them.

British politics is now trapped in a cycle in which the ardent pose the only choices. The passionate intensity of one side against the same on the other. If all three options were put to parliament for a straight vote, Mrs May’s deal would command more votes than either no deal or a second referendum. It is the most popular option in town but unfortunately it is nowhere near popular enough.

The irreconcilables are running — and ruining — the country. They have no credible answer to the question of what should come next. Incapable of compromise, drunk on self-righteousness and vanity, these saboteurs are killing their own project. They leave the rest of us with no option. There may be only two terrible ideas left but by far the most terrible is to leave the EU without a deal. If the foolish cannot be guided towards safety, they do at some point have to be stopped.

THE TIMES