Rudderless Britain needs a second Brexit referendum

From Bloomberg View:

Almost two years after the U.K. voted to quit the European Union, and barely more than a year before the actual exit is scheduled to happen, an all but leaderless Britain is fumbling its way to disaster. The country needs to find a way to change course. There should be a second referendum as soon as possible.

If Britain leaves the EU in March 2019 without even any transitional arrangements, its trade in goods and services — not just with the EU but with much of the rest of the world — will collapse into chaos. Disentangling the U.K. from its partnership with Europe is proving to be vastly more complex and difficult than Brexit supporters believed. And as the enormous short-term costs of an abrupt divorce come more clearly into view, the long-term goals that were supposed to justify them are ever more obscure.

Can it be taken for granted that a second referendum would in fact reverse the country’s choice? Of course not. Opinion is wobbling but hasn’t shifted decisively: The country remains split down the middle.

The European Union should now join the debate in a more positive way, calling on Britain to change its mind. It should say, among other things, that if Britain acts promptly, the EU would make reversing the Brexit decision as straightforward as possible.

Extracting Britain from this mess of its own making won’t be easy. A second referendum would certainly arouse furious protests, and quite possibly a political crisis, new elections, and all the dangers and uncertainties that go with that. Yet the alternative — the chaotic Brexit toward which a rudderless Britain is now heading — would be worse.