No guarantee UK will be let back into the EU if it has a change of heart
UK prime minister Theresa May wrote in a newspaper column on Sunday that to have a second referendum in the UK on Brexit would be “a gross betrayal of democracy”.
Wrong. In fact, democracy is all about creating mechanisms whereby voters can change their minds. Democracy is flexible, durable, and strong, precisely because it has inbuilt mechanisms for changing its mind. Dictatorial regimes do not have such a mechanism for changing their minds and are brittle.
The difficulty with the idea of a second referendum in the UK on Brexit is not that it would be undemocratic, but that we are running out of time, and there is no consensus on what question to put in such a referendum.
This reveals the underlying weaknesses of the UK political system. Its “winner takes all” electoral system, and its internal party dynamics have led to polarisation and paralysis.
In theory, the UK parliament is sovereign and all-powerful, but when it came to Brexit, it could not make up its mind. It did not feel it had the legitimacy to decide on the Brexit question on its own, so it decided to force the people make the hard decision instead.
Parliament held a referendum in June 2016, in the full knowledge it was asking voters to decide on Brexit, without knowing what Brexit would mean in practice.
This was because, as all MPs knew, the terms of Brexit could not be dictated by the UK, but had to be negotiated with the European Union. Doing this was a dereliction of duty.
How did the UK get into a position that its parliament was so paralysed that it called a referendum without being able to tell voters what Brexit meant?
The polarisation, caused by the “first past the post” electoral system, is aggravated by the way the two big parties now choose their leaders and the concentration of power in the hands of these leaders.
Instead of the choice of leader being made by MPs, who have to take account of middle-ground opinion, it is now made in the two big parties by anonymous and self-selected party members, voting as individuals, and accountable to nobody.
In the case of both parties, these party members tend to have far more radical opinions than the mass of voters.
So, in pursuit of a dream of party democracy, parliamentary democracy in the UK has paralysed itself.
While Theresa May is wrong to say that holding a second referendum on Brexit would be a betrayal of democracy, there are big difficulties with holding a second referendum on Brexit, at this late stage.
For a start, what alternative to Brexit would be offered to voters? Would it be continuing membership on existing terms, or would it be crashing out of the EU on March 31 when the Article 50 deadline expires? The answer to that question hinges on Articles 50 (3) and 50 (5) of the EU Treaties.
Unless the UK negotiates a time extension under Article 50 (3), unanimously agreed with all the other 27 EU states, the UK will be automatically out of the EU on March 31, 2019, deal or no deal.
To rejoin the EU, it would then have to apply as a new member.
To have a referendum that might offer a choice between the agreed Brexit terms and staying on in the EU as things are now, the UK would, before March 31, have to complete the negotiation of the Withdrawal Treaty, and framework for future relations, without ratifying them, and then hold a referendum to choose between these agreements, and staying in the EU under existing rules.
This might be the right thing for Britain, but I do not see the present UK government doing it, and there is little prospect of a different government in London before the March 31 deadline.
Such a choice might be offered to the UK voters if the three main party leaders agreed, but they do not seem to have the authority, or the mutual understanding, to do anything of the kind.
THIS sort of all-party approach helped the UK deal with the crises of the Depression and World War II, but times are different now.
If this does not happen, those of us who would like to see the UK in the EU are forced to hope that, having left, the UK might decide to rejoin.
If Brexit is along the lines of the Chequers white paper or EEA membership, the UK will have to apply EU rules on which it has had no say.
That could lead to voters gradually coming to the view that it was better to be inside with a say in those rules, than outside with none.
If there is a hard Brexit, with customs controls on all EU traffic, the shock will be immediate and minds in the UK could change quite quickly.
But getting back into the EU, after March 31, will not be easy. The UK would have to reapply under Article 49 of the EU Treaty. It would lose the exemptions it has on the euro and financial contributions, and could get back in only with the unanimous consent of all existing members. This is a big ask.
If there is a hard Brexit, the shock will be immediate and minds in the UK could change quite quickly