Do-over ballot looms as Plan B
A second Brexit referendum was once a pipe dream. No longer
Not long ago, staging a second Brexit referendum was a fringe idea — a pipe dream of a handful of “remoaners” who had voted to remain in the European Union, cheered on by unpopular figures from yesteryear, such as former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
But the once barely imaginable is now becoming remotely possible. The British may be headed towards one of history’s greatest do-overs — another vote to ask do they really, really want to leave the EU, after all they know now about breaking up being hard to do.
Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly ruled out a second referendum, arguing that the people already voted, in June 2016, when Brexit won by 52 per cent to 48 per cent. Now, she says, the job is to deliver on that result. Her Cabinet is also against a second plebiscite, and the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, isn’t a big fan, either.
But after two years of bickering, confusion and uncivil war over what Brexit should look like, and as it has become clear that the version approved by the EU and May’s Cabinet has little chance of passing Parliament, more and more people are wondering whether a second, “people’s vote” might be the only thing to break the impasse.
“I didn’t think it very likely, but now I’m beginning to wonder if it’s the only exit out of a burning building,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London.
A year ago, London bookmaker William Hill was offering 12-1 odds for a second referendum. Today, it’s 1-1.
For a long while after the referendum, public opinion on Brexit didn’t change much. Many people doubled down on whatever position they’d taken. But as the trade-offs of their decision have become more apparent, there’s been a shift. Many polls show that, if the choice today were between leaving or remaining, a small majority of Britons would vote to stay. But those inclinations have not been tested by a hard-fought, second campaign.
Some of May’s allies see a second referendum as a chance to secure a mandate for her deal. Nick Timothy, a former top aide to May, wrote that with her deal “dead as a dodo” in Parliament, the only viable options are a super “soft Brexit,” where Britain pursues a trade deal with the EU like the one Norway has (which isn’t that popular) or a second referendum.
Is May in such a jam that she might go back to the public? She is famously stubborn, but she is also pragmatic and she has tried mightily to stay relevant — and employed. She knows her deal is very unpopular. If it loses in the House of Commons, she just might pivot and support a second people’s vote.
“It would not surprise me at all if the Prime Minister were to say, my deal has been defeated, you know what, I still think it’s the right deal for the country and I’m going to put it to the country in a referendum and then off we go,” Hilary Benn, a Labour MP, remainer and chair of the Brexit select committee, told the BBC.
The organised push for a second referendum has been coming from europhiles in London and the university towns, economists, a couple of peers in the House of Lords, journalists who believe the first vote was rigged, and others who think leaving one of the world’s largest and richest trading blocs is a dumb idea.
Pro-Europeans were thrilled last month when Tory MP and remainer Jo Johnson — brother of Brexiteer Boris Johnson — quit May’s Cabinet and threw his weight behind a people’s vote. “Given that the reality of Brexit has turned out to be so far from what was once promised, the democratic thing to do is to give the public the final say,” Jo Johnson wrote. The movement got a further boost when the European Court of Justice ruled that Britain could unilaterally reverse itself and stay in the EU if it chose to.
But there isn’t a majority in Parliament calling for it. One analysis calculated that only 133 MPs — out of 650 — have publicly backed a second referendum. Campaigners hope the number would go up if May’s deal is voted down in Parliament.
Implementation would take time. The Constitution Unit research group at University College London estimates that it could take about five months. Britain is set to leave the EU in three. So it would need to negotiate an extension of the Brexit deadline.
Would it be a yes or a no? And if so, what would those choices be? May’s deal versus a no-deal Brexit? Or May’s deal versus remain in the EU? Those questions would produce radically different results.
All of this would be highly contentious. Many opponents of a second referendum say it would not only be divisive, but undemocratic — that the establishment can’t hold votes until it gets the answers that it wants. Others say a referendum is inherently democratic.